Adviser raj

The BJP government will never suffer for want of advisers. In fact, its main problem is a surfeit of advisers. Lok Shakti leader and Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde is the latest to put on the garb of an adviser. The mild rebuke the minister received when he gratuitously advised the BJP government to go back to the people rather than succumb to the pressure tactics of some of its allies has certainly not dissuaded him. This time he has given a certificate that the BJP government has not been working. It is laced with advice: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee should assert himself while dealing with his quarrelsome allies. In the guise of proffering sane advice, Hegde has come down heavily on leaders like Jayalalitha, Thambidurai and George Fernandes, besides the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal. What is astonishing is that Hegde has gone to town with his indictment of the government just a day after the coordination committee of the BJP and its allies met. One of the purposes of the committee was toprovide the BJP and its allies a forum to express their perceptions about the functioning of the government so that they would not need to express them in public. Unfortunately for the government, the committee has failed in this task.

What Hegde and his ilk do not realise is the negative impact their public statements will have on the government. After all, the possibility of every one of the leaders Hegde upbraided paying him back in his own coin cannot be ruled out. In fact, it was the Karnataka leader8217;s conduct at the first post-election meeting of the BJP and its allies that provoked AIADMK chief Jayalalitha to serve a warning to the BJP, which eventually snowballed into the shut-up-or-get-out order. On his part, Fernandes would have done better if he had confined himself to defence, rather than waxing eloquent on Sino-Indian relations and the kind of talks the Centre should have with the insurgent groups in the Northeast. The damage the government suffers from the advice the lady from Chennai proffersalmost every day on subjects as varied as the transfer of income tax officials, the appointment of central government pleaders and the ordinance on power is too well-known to merit recapitulation.

Seen against this backdrop the United Front, which was described as a babel of voices, appears in retrospect to be a far more homogeneous group. Their differences were more political than personal, unlike the present combine which looks like an assortment of cantankerous leaders. Surely this situation would not have arisen if the Prime Minister had dinned it into his partners that nothing was greater than the image of the government and that he would not allow any compromise on it. The forthright manner in which he asked Buta Singh and Sukh Ram to quit their respective ministerial positions when they were chargesheeted by the court was exemplary. Some of the allies seem to believe that the BJP cannot do without their support. Given the state of the principal opposition party, not to speak of the United Front, thisis a myth. It is they who cannot do without the BJP. Once this message is brought home to the allies, half the problems of the Prime Minister will be over. He will then be able to do without the advisers, both full-time and part-time.