At the Bharatiya Janata Party's National Council meet at Indore, the new man in, Nitin Gadkari, scored high on style quotient. Summing up the mood were the lyrics from an old Bollywood song to which he swayed: life is a puzzle; it makes you cry and it makes you laugh. With two defeats in succession, the BJP has lately had more occasions to cry than laugh, and it was clear to those who watched the proceedings that Mr. Gadkari — his easy, genteel manner notwithstanding — was not about to let the drift continue. In his addresses, the BJP chief touched upon a multiplicity of issues: indiscipline in party ranks; the trend in the upper echelons towards ostentation and personal ambition; the need to widen the party's catchment area by roping in the poor, especially Dalits; and of course, the mandatory doffing of the hat to Ayodhya and the Ram Mandir. Mr. Gadkari set himself apart in other ways too, plainly telling partypersons not to touch his feet or flatter him in the hope of easy rewards.
For the BJP, Mr. Gadkari is its first bit of good news in a long time. Whatever the impact of his plain speaking on the party's squabbling second-rung leadership, it is a fair bet that the rank and file will welcome the shift towards commitment and hard work. Yet his objectives are easier outlined than achieved. Personal ambition and factionalism have taken deep root in a party once known for its difference but now self-avowedly revelling in “seven-star” culture. Nor can an innately exclusivist party suddenly train itself to embrace a broad-based, inclusive agenda. Mr. Gadkari's own words illustrate the inherent difficulty of achieving this transition. The BJP chief pleaded with the Muslim community to voluntarily hand over the Ram Mandir site to Hindus and, in the same breath, decried the “appeasement” of Muslims. A spokesperson's clarification that the reference was to the Congress general secretary, Digvijay Singh visiting alleged terrorists in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh made the meaning worse. It implied that visiting alleged terrorists amounted to appeasing Muslims. In setting a broader agenda for the BJP, Mr. Gadkari is simply trying to make a virtue of necessity. In truth, the BJP is in dire straits. Its May 2009 general election performance was its worst in two decades. The party's allies have deserted it and its equations with those that remain, including the trusted Shiv Sena, are shaky. And while Mr. Gadkari may have taken potshots at the Gandhi dynasty, he ought to know that that function is fulfilled in the BJP by its mentor in Jhandewalan.
