Beaten and bruised

The Bharatiya Janata Party is in a bad shape as its political plans to corner the Congress-led government in Parliament's Budget session misfire and controversies of the past return to haunt it.

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN in New Delhi

"THIS could not have been better timed," said one of the 100-odd regional and State-level spokespersons of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who gathered at the party's national headquarters on May 14 for a special workshop on political communication. The comment evoked sardonic guffaws from a group of listeners including party activists and journalists. The remark, as well as the reaction to it, reflected the state of affairs in the country's principal Opposition party, both in terms of its efforts to propagate and advance its political causes and in terms of the "new conditions" prevailing within its organisational structure.

There was little doubt as to what the spokespersons were referring to when they talked about "the timing" of the communication workshop. The exercise was being undertaken barely 24 hours after the conclusion of the Budget session of Parliament, where the best-laid political plans of the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by it had come a cropper. In the run-up to the session, as well as during several stages in its course, the BJP and the NDA had fancied chances to corner the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and derive political mileage. But each time the efforts failed to achieve their goals, and in many cases they even backfired. Obviously, the BJP and its leadership were badly in need of a crash course on effective political communication.

But the significance of the comment is not confined to the message it contained. The manner in which a couple of regional spokespersons of the party made bold to express it, within the very precincts of the BJP headquarters, and the way in which listeners, including committed party activists, responded to it - with brazen mockery - pointed to the "new looseness" that has permeated the party that once prided itself as being the "party with a difference". As a middle-level Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) activist told Frontline, the spokespersons and the party activists who partook in the sarcastic interaction were only following senior leaders such as Pramod Mahajan and Sunder Singh Bhandari, who had chosen the duration of the Budget session of Parliament to come up with pronouncements that spread confusion among the rank and file and caused setbacks to the contemporary political agenda of the BJP and the NDA.

According to the RSS activist, the Budget session presented a classic example of a political organisation's failure to make capital out of objectively favourable circumstances. "The party and the NDA had several issues that could be called winners, but the deficiencies in formulating strategy and implementing it with precision converted every one of these issues into a fiasco," he said. Sections of the party and the Sangh Parivar, he said, were of the view that major deficiencies in strategy formulation were manifested in two forms. First, as an excessive preoccupation with protecting the image and interests of former Defence Minister and Janata Dal (U) leader George Fernandes, even at the cost of vital social and economic issues facing the people. Second, as the entirely unwarranted decision to boycott Parliament, which eventually led to fissures in the Opposition when the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) broke ranks with the NDA and decided to attend Parliament.

The stringent reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on a variety of actions of the NDA government, ranging from the Centaur hotels deal to the "India Shining" campaign, added to the reverses caused by the deficiencies in strategy, these sections of the Parivar think. "At the end of it all," the RSS activist added, "the BJP and the NDA have been left with a dismal score."

Clearly, this was not the mood within the BJP, the Sangh Parivar in general and the NDA as they braced themselves up for the Budget session in February. The NDA had made unexpected gains in the Assembly elections that preceded the session by returning to power in Jharkhand and improving its tally Bihar. Reports had appeared in the media about the Justice S.N. Phukan Commission on Defence deals during the NDA regime, and these reports had suggested that the commission gave a clean chit to Fernandes. The political strength derived out of the Assembly elections as well as the contents of the Justice Phukan Commission report, the NDA calculated, would help it to score major gains.

Then, as the Budget session progressed, the NDA got two unexpected issues relating to Railway Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, in the form of an accident involving the Sabarmati Express in Gujarat and the filing of a fresh charge-sheet against him in the Bihar fodder scam case. The second of these was seen as reason enough to launch the "second offensive" against the UPA on the issue of "tainted Ministers", with Lalu Prasad as the central focus. The boycott of Parliament was evolved around this perception. But when the Parliament session concluded on May 13, the BJP and the NDA had not been able to carry their campaigns on any of these issues to a significant political victory.

Throughout the session the NDA had made constant demands to table the Justice Phukan report, and on May 13, the UPA government did indeed table the 47-page report. But at the same time, the government firmly rejected it, saying the report was ``incomplete'' and its conclusions were ``bereft of reasoning''. Justice Phukan was criticised for not dealing with a serious issue ``in a satisfactory manner". The UPA government then entrusted the inquiry into all 15 transactions probed by Justice Phukan to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Justice Phukan Commission had found procedural lapses in 13 of the 15 deals it had probed but failed to establish a nexus with persons in public office, individuals or any other organisation. Justice Phukan made it a point to mention against each separate deal that Fernandes had nothing to do with the procurement or the deal in any way. Fernandes was either unaware or the file was not brought to his notice, the commission concluded.

The transactions were: the purchase of image intensifier tubes, Carl Gustav rocket launcher Mk IIIs, simulators, light-weight binoculars, hand-held thermal imagers, Krasnopol ammunition, advanced jet trainers, armoured recovery vehicles, Barak anti-missile systems, T-90 tanks, tank navigation systems, Sukhoi-30MkIs, the upgunning of 130 mm guns to 155 mm, Kornet E and the Kandla-Bhatinda pipeline. All that the commission recommended at the end of its probe was a departmental inquiry into most of the deals to fix responsibility on the officials concerned, either in the Ministry of Defence or in one of the three Service headquarters. Even in the procedural lapses, the commission pointed to the absence of post-contract review in most deals. According to Justice Phukan, all the deals were carried out in the national interest.

Commenting on this, Defence Minister Pranab Kumar Mukherjee pointed out that ``any finding on other issues without investigation into the main charge [of corruption] will necessarily be an incomplete one and cannot be treated as a final conclusion of the commission even on such issues". The revelation that Fernandes as Defence Minister had allowed Justice Phukan to use Indian Air Force aircraft to visit holiday and pilgrimage destinations further strengthened the government's position, again while the Budget session was under way.

The failure of the NDA in its second offensive against Lalu Prasad was not as devastating as the crumbling of its case on the Justice Phukan report. All the same, there is a general agreement, even within the NDA and the Sangh Parivar, that no real political advantage emerged out of this initiative either. This underperformance happened on account of two factors. The first was the collapse of the Parliament boycott strategy with the TDP going back to Parliament. The boycott strategy had evoked widespread condemnation even from veteran parliamentarians such as Bhairon Singh Shekhwat, Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, who asked BJP members why they got themselves elected if they did not want to attend Parliament.

The second factor that limited the NDA's success in its second offensive was the sudden eruption of the controversy over the Chapra repoll raised by Lalu Prasad himself on the basis of a letter written by M.V. Saptarishi, Special Observer of the Election Commission at the time of elections, to the Union Law Minister. The officer had alleged in the letter that the Election Commission had succumbed to pressures from BJP bigwigs in ordering the repoll in Chapra (see separate story on page 31). Notwithstanding the merits and demerits of the allegation and notwithstanding the fact that Lalu Prasad was isolated even in the UPA on this issue, there was little doubt that the controversy had diverted media and public attention from the corruption charges against him.

As the two main pillars of the NDA action plan caved in, the CAG reports on the various commissions and omissions during the NDA regime virtually came as the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back. The CAG reports, which were also tabled in Parliament, pulled up the NDA government on three issues: the much-hyped India Shining campaign, privatisation of two Centaur hotels in Mumbai (see separate story on page 28) and the creation of the post of Ambassador-at-large in New York.

The CAG report said the NDA government had diverted funds and incurred unauthorised expenditures to the tune of Rs. 63.23 crores on the India Shining campaign. It also pointed out that the "Ministry of Finance did not obtain approval of the Parliament before incurring an expenditure" and that the "activity was not contemplated in the annual Budget". The Finance Ministry, in September 2002, had mooted a proposal for launching a media campaign highlighting the benefits of economic reforms. The expenditure was sanctioned by diverting Rs.68 crores from the sub-head `Cooperation with other countries' to a category marked `Other expenditure'.

The creation of the post of Ambassador-at-large in New York and the opening of an office there during the NDA regime were also severely castigated by the CAG in another report. This report said the post was created and the office opened without assigning any mandate. It had resulted in an "avoidable" expenditure of Rs.15.95 crores. The office of Bhishma K. Agnihotri, the Ambassador-at-large, functioned from different premises in New York and the expenditure incurred just for hiring office accommodation was $105,550, equivalent to Rs.51.38 lakhs. Agnihotri was asked to close down his office and come back to India immediately after the UPA government took office in 2004.

The CAG pointed out that the special post and office caused an "overlap of functions" with those of the Mission in Washington. The Ambassador-at-large was not accredited as a foreign diplomat by the United States government, which did not recognise his rank or post. Moreover, the American government could not approve a green card holder as an Indian diplomat.

The UPA government has ordered an inquiry into the sale of the Centaur hotels in Mumbai referred to by the CAG. The BJP leadership, including Yashwant Sinha who was Finance Minister when the hotels were sold, found the UPA's decision "shocking" and "nothing short of witch-hunting". "We are disgusted with the attitude of the government which is behaving in an obnoxious manner. Its vindictiveness has been amply proved,'' Sinha told the media.

According to some RSS and BJP activists, all these challenges could have been faced better by the party had the leaders shown a sense of unity and commitment to contemporary political tasks and agendas. What they obviously had in mind were the comments against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi from different quarters while the Budget session was on. BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan fired the first salvo by writing an article in the party organ BJP Today, describing the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat as the BJP's ``second regret'' after Ayodhya and a ``black spot for any civilised society". The rest of the BJP leadership tried to brush aside Mahajan's comments as "democratic expression of individual opinion", showing the "culture of debate" in the party. But when former Gujarat Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari followed it up with further criticism of Modi and even calls for an inquiry into the Chief Minister's actions, it was clear that there was more to it than just an expression of the "culture of debate".

Bhandari blamed Modi as well as the party's central leadership for their ``failure'' to respond quickly and firmly to the riots and even suggested that Modi's removal could have been one of the ways to control the damage. According to the former Governor, people would remember Godhra in the same way that they recall the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi but the party leadership took it lightly. Bhandari went into specifics when he said that the four-to-six-hour delay in action was a major factor and this had brought a "blot" on the organisation.

Bhandari did not stop with Modi but took on party president L.K. Advani saying that if the Sangh Parivar had wanted to bring about a change in the organisation new faces should have been given a chance. "This only shows our stock [of leadership] is over," he said. Bhandari also said that "people with the image of yes men" have come to dominate party affairs and that the party's executive committee with its 100-odd members assembles only for them to "yawn, sleep, eat and go away".

Naturally, large sections of the Sangh Parivar rank and file are upset over these "loose" remarks. They have no doubt that all this will harm the party's short-, medium- and long-term interests. No wonder that a party spokesperson found the workshop on political communication timely.

But will exercises of this kind help the BJP to get over this disturbed and unproductive phase? If the reactions from senior leaders to the changes in various State units are anything to go by, the party has indeed a long way to go. The changes in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh have raised the hackles of former Chief Ministers such as Babulal Marandi and Uma Bharati. Marandi has even said that he will disassociate himself from the BJP if the new State unit president, Yadunath Pandey, is not removed immediately. Apparently, there is a greater need for political classes on discipline, too, in the BJP if it is to carry out effectively its role as an Opposition party.