The Congress party’s struggles for cohesion and the leadership question played out last week in a very public manner with two main takeaways – one, the point made by young leader Rajeev Satav that the party was reaping the bitter winds generated by the conduct of the past UPA-II government , and ministers in the former government like Manish Tewari defending the good done by it, while pointing out that no one in the BJP had ever, after the defeat of the party in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, blamed former prime minister Vajpayee.
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As fights go, it revealed less than it should have, namely that there is a massive leadership tussle going on between two major factions in the Congress, those who enjoy the support of senior leader Rahul Gandhi and those who do not, with Mr Gandhi clearly ready to blame the sins of past leaders but not his own as the leader under whom the Congress went into polls in 2019, one Lok Sabha poll away from the demise of UPA II. Riveting though implosions in institutions appear in their grotesque splendour, that is not the most interesting thing that happened.
Election winning juggernaut
The defence of UPA II, in the name of former prime minister Vajpayee and the deference accorded to him by the BJP in its own wilderness years between 2004-14, also rings hollow. Having started covering the BJP just as it lost power in 2004, this correspondent has had an unobstructed view of the unmaking of the old BJP, to the election winning juggernaut it is today.
While Mr Vajpayee’s name was always taken with deep respect the working style of his government and the conduct of his ministers came under heavy attack by the party and its cadre as soon as the polls were over in 2004. The RSS, the ideological mothership of the BJP felt hard done by as many of its core ideological issues, they felt, had not been addressed by a government they helped get into power.
An over all distrust of the Delhi based leadership of the party (termed the D- four of Delhi Four), symbolised by former deputy prime minister L K Advani’s “Jinnah is secular” statement on his trip to Pakistan in 2005, was solidified in that period. First defence minister Rajnath Singh and later Nagpur’s premier choice Nitin Gadkari were made BJP national president to counter act the metropolitan leadership of the party. Party leaders meanwhile took potshots at each other and things were chaotic for a long time, as the requirement for a “big tent” of mass support versus pleasing the ideologically inclined cadre created pulls and pressures.
Modi never forgot the debates
The question of leadership was eventually settled in favour of Prime Minister Modi, who never forgot the debates generated through the decade. One of the main complaints that BJP cadre and RSS office bearers had was the feeling that while the NDA government under Mr Vajpayee was led by BJP, the gatekeepers to ministers continued to be those who had served previous political masters.
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“When we used to go to ministries for some work, we waited hours while people who were friendly with the staff through the previous minister’s tenure would be ushered in,” one disgruntled BJP karyakarta had told me in 2014. “Sarkar toh hamari thi, par kaam abhi bhi Congress ka chal raha thaa (the government was ours but the work done was of the Congress),” he added.
The first thing the Modi government did was to rotate personal staff of ministers, bringing in a different set of not just bureaucrats but also private secretarial staff. Secretarial schools like the Surya institute (having affiliations to the RSS) and bright young things from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) the student wing of the RSS were seconded to various ministers and ran their day to day offices. “These boys knew the people in our system, from karyakartas to middle level office bearers of the RSS. Doors were opened,” said another low level BJP functionary.
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At the top levels too, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat kept direct communication channels on. When the co-ordinating link between the BJP and the RSS was to be changed from Suresh Soni to Krishna Gopal, Prime Minister Modi was told not just a month in advance, but also in person by senior RSS office bearers. A departure from the contentious relationship between Mr Vajpayee’s government and then RSS chief K S Sudarshan.
Arrogant behaviour of senior leaders
In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, at least 20 ministers of the Vajpayee Cabinet lost polls, the cadre was said to be upset with the arrogant behaviour of senior leaders and lulled by the promise of Mr Vajpayee’s popularity felt that while he would anyway be forming the government, the individual candidate could be punished. That backfired and the BJP lost power.
In 2014, Prime Minister Modi asked his council of ministers to volunteer themselves for a rota system of a programme called Sahyog. Where ministers would give an afternoon of their time every 10 or so days and solve issues pertaining to their ministries brought to them by karyakartas. Meticulous records are kept and the programme is going strong in its sixth year. It is meant, more than a problem solver, as a listening post to what the base of the party thinks.
While the BJP sorted out a lot of its ideological and political issues and rode to power in the backdrop of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, it was its organisational settling of accounts that gave its a cohesive heft.
Organisational clarity
The Congress’ fight within is therefore less about the performance or legacy of UPA II, and more about organisational clarity. In conflicts such as these scapegoats are sought and the choice for that devolves upon those who led the outfit in the past. This is inevitable when no firm way forward can be seen, the BJP’s example is not so much about avoiding piling blame on late Mr Vajpayee but about taking the right lessons.
