The Hindu : The new-look BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 15, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

The new-look BJP

AFTER THE BJP came to power at the Centre, there was very little significance attached to the party organisation as such. In a party in which the post of president was considered most important (until February 1998), the transition to an arrangement where the party organisation was rendered subservient to those holding ministerial positions was almost complete and visible in the last couple of years. The manner in which Jana Krishnamurthy was appointed in place of Bangaru Laxman (after the Tehelka tapes showed the BJP president receiving currency wads) did establish the extent of control that Atal Behari Vajpayee had over the party. Mr. Vajpayee asserted his authority as Prime Minister, in a style similar to previous Governments run by the Congress or the Janata Dal. The trend was of the party organisation made increasingly subservient to the Government.

The anointing of Venkaiah Naidu, however, does show signs of a break with this trend. Taking place, as it did, in the aftermath of a series of reverses suffered by the BJP in the elections to various State Assemblies, the move is a fallout of a realisation within that the slogan of "give-us-a-chance"' (that helped the BJP come to power in 1998 and in 1999) might not help hereafter. The measure of success that the BJP could achieve in presenting itself as an alternative to the Congress (by way of promising "better governance") has obviously taken a beating. The track record of the BJP-led NDA at the Centre (as well as in such States as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra where the party was in power) has been one of failures particularly when it comes to the indices of governance. All these had left the party organisation in total disarray. Mr. Naidu's appointment as party president (not letting Mr. Krishnamurthy complete his term and without even waiting for a National Council of the party to find a new president) and the consequent changes in the party organisation are clearly the fallout of a whip issued by the BJP's political masters (the RSS top brass) that the party shape up without any delay. The gravity of the problem, after all, could not have been glossed over by the BJP's political leadership given the series of Assembly elections in the coming months.

There are however signals from these developments that must raise concern. The change of guard in the party, for instance, was effected along with the appointment of L.K. Advani as Deputy Prime Minister. By this, the BJP had only formally conveyed to the hardliners within (who were getting restless over the attempts, time and again, to persist with the "moderate" image of Mr. Vajpayee) that the National Agenda for Governance is not going to be binding upon the party in the coming days. Mr. Advani's ascent, the despatch of Vinay Katiyar to Lucknow as president of the Uttar Pradesh unit (the reported moves to send Uma Bharti as chief of the Madhya Pradesh unit) and the undue deference accorded by the BJP's top brass to Narendra Modi are all clear signals that the party is no longer going to cling on to the rhetoric of "governance". The message is now loud and clear. That the BJP is preparing to launch itself, once again, as a platform of aggressive Hindutva. In other words, a return to the strategy it adopted between 1991 and 1998. The consequence of this (when the BJP had overtly associated itself with the other Sangh Parivar outfits such as the VHP and the Bajrang Dal) was a sharp increase in incidents of communal violence that left several hundred men and women belonging to the minority community dead and many more homeless. The same story was repeated in Gujarat too recently. This is where the organisational revamp carried out by the BJP in the past couple of weeks raises concern. It is time now for the BJP's allies in the NDA to see the writing on the wall — that the National Agenda for Governance does not serve the political interests of the BJP any longer — before it is too late.

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