Going round in circles

BJP leaders Rajnath Singh and L.K. Advani at a party rally in New Delhi. - S. SUBRAMANIUM

The BJP's efforts to ride out of political ignominy and organisational lethargy expose its inability to generate fresh ideas.

THE sense of deja vu was striking. The top leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) met in New Delhi in the third week of June for political stocktaking and charting a course of action. Almost everything related to the meeting - the issues discussed, the manner in which the deliberations progressed, the positions taken by participants and the final message - looked like a "replay". The main theme was: the "inability of the BJP leadership to arrest its political-ideological-organisational drift" and the "the need to correct this". At the end of it all, the conclave came up with some organisational programmes but, evidently, these did not give any dramatic boost to the confidence of the party's leadership or its rank and file.

Sarkaryavaha (general secretary) Mohan Madhukarrao Bhagwat who led the team of RSS leaders, including Madandas Devi and Suresh Soni, at the deliberations, advised the BJP to adopt a collective style of functioning and abjure individualistic or faction-oriented decision-making. He said that all crucial decisions should be taken keeping in view the party's "distinct ideology" and "aspirations of the Sangh Parivar cadre". It was asserted that only this would enable the BJP to play the role of an effective Opposition to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and help to enhance its political and organisational base. Bhagwat stressed the need for the BJP leadership to maintain probity in public life and project a clean image.

Bhagwat's words were, in essence, a repeat of what he said eight months ago at the RSS' Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (national executive) held at Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh, though his emphasis on maintaining probity in public life and projecting a clean image had an added value in the context of the many sordid happenings in the family of the late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan. Briefing mediapersons on October 23, after the Chitrakoot meet, Bhagwat said that the RSS believed that the state of affairs in the BJP was "asthir" (unsettled) and the party's "gati" (pace) in carrying out ideological and organisational reforms was "slow". He said that the RSS was "waiting and watching" whether the BJP would adopt the five principles dictated by the RSS and make a course correction. The five principles were: upholding the primacy of Hindutva as the ideological foundation of the BJP, enforcing ethical conduct and evolving consultative mechanisms in the party, training cadres to strengthen the organisation and evolving collective leadership by abjuring personality cults.

The responses of BJP leaders such as former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley and RSS pointsman Sanjay Joshi were also reminiscent of what they had said in the past. Venkaiah Naidu, considered close to Advani, talked about "excessive RSS interference in BJP affairs even at the level of State and district committees" that obstructs independent political-organisational initiatives by the BJP, which would ultimately help the Hindutva cause. He was only repeating what Advani said at the September 2005 national executive meeting in Chennai.

Some participants at the New Delhi meet told Frontline that the meeting failed to provide a concrete way out of the mess the party finds itself in. "The absence of a logical conclusion or even a compromise," said a BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh, "has left many of us in doubt whether repetition of such exercises would lead to any concrete and positive political-organisational initiatives." According to this leader and several others in the Sangh Parivar, the party's drift since its shock defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections had increased in the past six months.

The Uttar Pradesh leader pointed out that though the attention of the media had been focussed mainly on the incidents in the Mahajan family, the organisation had more serious concerns such as the virtual collapse of the party machinery in a crucial State like Jharkhand. With the exit of former Chief Minister and senior leader Babulal Marandi from the BJP, as many as 10 out of the 12 district committees in the State have disassociated themselves from the party. The leader added that in the arguments and counter-arguments put forth by the RSS and the Advani camp such vital concerns were overlooked. He said: "In a nutshell, a large number of party functionaries, including many senior leaders, can see this only as a power struggle, bereft of real ideological, political or organisational perspectives, between RSS and Advani camps."

As for the RSS, its basic contention with the BJP is that the corrective measures initiated have not reached their logical conclusion. According to an RSS functionary, it highlighted the BJP's deficiencies at Chitrakoot and suggested changes. Some of these changes were implemented, including the stepping down of Advani as party president in December 2005. The RSS expected that the BJP would chart a new path under the leadership of Rajnath Singh. In its perception, the new path should have broken the personality cult that was being built around Advani and the ideological compromises he had made. But Advani not only refused to accept his sidelining but virtually sidelined Rajnath Singh himself through organisational manoeuvres such as the unilateral announcement of the Bharat Suraksha Yatras.

Even as Rajnath Singh was struggling to consolidate his position in the midst of these, multiple tragedies struck the BJP in the form of the killing of Pramod Mahajan and the arrest of his son Rahul for possessing drugs.

Politically, the BJP could have exploited issues such as the hike in the prices of petroleum products and the general rise in prices of essential commodities. However, given its current state, the party was not able to do so. The general perception within the Sangh Parivar was that the Left parties led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had channelled public opinion more forcefully against the government and made political capital. The fact that the UPA was only pursuing many of the neoliberal policies advanced during the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime between 1999 and 2004 had also weakened the BJP's campaign on economic issues.

"The RSS view on this situation," said a BJP leader, "is that all these political deficiencies need to be addressed comprehensively, but the primary task in that direction is to help Rajnath Singh consolidate as party president." Pramod Mahajan was to have played a major role in this process. Now the responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of Sanjay Joshi, who has been deputed by the RSS. But, the important question is how this role would evolve and how it would reflect in the day-to-day affairs of the party. "Joshi taking over Mahajan's role may look all right on paper, but such organisational steps will yield results only with clear medium-long term planning and implementation of such plans," the functionary pointed out.

Large sections of Sangh Parivar supporters had watched the New Delhi meet closely to see whether such plans and ideas to implement them would emerge. What happened instead was the announcement of a meeting of central office-bearers on July 12 and a three-day camp of Members of Parliament in Bhopal from July 14 to 16. Meanwhile, the RSS hierarchy has indicated that it is bracing for a long and patient battle to correct the BJP's course and make it fighting fit to face the next round of Assembly elections in 2007 in the politically crucial States of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttaranchal.