Non-Congress majors squirming after debacle

By O J George

Kottayam: Non-Congress majors are squirming as various leaders are in rebellion calling for changes in the organisational hierarchy.

There is demand for a Kamaraj Plan in the BJP, meaning those who led the party during the Lok Sabha elections should own up responsibility for the party’s miserable performance and demit office.

The first salvo was fired by Jaswant Singh, the subsequent shot was from Yashwant Sinha. They were credited with running the country’s external affairs and finance ministries in the A B Vajpayee government from time to time.

Yashwant Sinha, vice-president of the BJP, left all his official positions. He wants all other office-bearers to call it a day.

Political rumour-mongers anticipate exit of more people from positions in the BJP. The protest actions are active at a time when BJP president Rajnath Singh has banned all public outbursts against the party.

Yashwant Sinha apparently feels that people close to Rajya Sabha leader Arun Jaitley and Lok Sabha leader L K Advani, who were responsible for drawing up and implementing strategies for the Lok Sabha elections, have gone scot-free.

The present scenario is that leaders like Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha cannot speak out owing to the diktat of Rajnath Singh, but the script-writers of defeat in the Lok Sabha can have their way.

It seems active politicians in the BJP are not happy with the strategies being dished out by intellectuals like Sudheendra Kulkarni. They would have stomached the ideas provided these were effective.

We have seen that behind-the-scene intellectual splurges did not snatch out a victory for the BJP. It was the India Shining slogan experiment that had met with negativity earlier. The campaign had failed to re-seat Vajpayee as the Prime Minister.

This time L K Advani was made to go in for a blitzkrieg against Manmohan Singh, calling him a weak Prime Minister playing second fiddle to Sonia Gandhi. Manmohan was challenged for a television debate, assuming that Advani was standing taller than the Prime Minister.

Now Brajesh Mishra, National Security Adviser in the Vajpayee dispensation, has called for a reassessment of the stance of the BJP as well as the RSS which should go in for a more inclusive agenda.

Which means construction of the Ram temple, scrapping Article conferring special status on Jammu and Kashmir, and insistence on uniform civil code should be kept aside if the BJP has to come back to power.

The NDA partners had extracted this condition before Vajpayee had become Prime Minister.

The advisers have apportioned the blame on various BJP leaders for the debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, but the intellectuals are going happy-go-lucky dishing out ideas for improvement without their sharing responsibility, according to senior leaders like Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha.

Media watchers remember it was Sudheendra Kulkarni who put the Jinnah-secular idea in the mouth of Advani when he visited Pakistan during the Vajpayee regime. Advani had to face the wrath of the RSS for this outburst.

True, active politicians have their own wisdom which is drawn from grassroots level interactions. Advisers, confined to ivory towers, play on assumptions and direct the leaders, who often go awry.

It is not the BJP alone which erred in reading the pulse of the people. The left dispensation, particularly the CPM, was wholly unrealistic in their perceptions of people’s receptivity.

The CPM was behaving as though it was running an election campaign as a single party, particularly in Kerala. The LDF partners were taken for granted. The CPI and the Janata Dal (S) were ill-treated.

The result was to be expected, but various leaders were simply short-sighted to perceive reality.

Lalu Prasad Yadav of RJD, Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samajwadi Party, Ramvilas Paswan of Lok Janshakti had all gone wrong in their assessment of the political situation.

Since these are single-leader entities, their heads will not roll. The CPM is also a peculiar party with regard to leadership. It may speak about corrective measures, but these would be superficial.

The BJP has not taken serious note of the rebellion. Rajnath Singh is non-committal. Arun Jaitley has gone on family holiday. Advani is reportedly game for relinquishing Lok Sabha party leadership to deputy Sushma Swaraj after some time.

Other than these, it would be politics-as-usual for all the main entities. Meanwhile, Congress seems to be consolidating its position, because there is good rapport between Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.