Arjun’s arrow

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s dramatic announcement in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that he would no longer contest elections is disappointing. Not that the next elections are necessarily near or that, at 72, it is too early for him to contemplate retirement from politics. If he had spelt out the reasons for his decision it would have been easier for the nation to reconcile itself to the jolt he gave it. Even so it is not difficult to trace the decision to his present defeatist mentality. How else should one see his comparison of himself to Arjun, who couldn’t express his helplessness at Kurukshetra and leave the chariot? But once he took his bow and arrows, nothing dissuaded Arjun from doing his duty in the fulfilment of which he had to slay many of his own dear ones. In the present instance, Vajpayee’s statement will be seen as a letdown by the masses who got him into the coveted post. Possibly, the poet in him got the better of the politician in Vajpayee. In any case, this is no way for Vajpayee tobegin his career as Prime Minister. After all, the nation expects its leader to look forward positively and not think of renunciation. It is true that Vajpayee has been under tremendous pressure from both within his own party and from his allies as could be discerned during the formation of the ministry. It is doubtful whether he could use his discretion in the selection of his ministerial colleagues or in the distribution of portfolios. But then he could not have expected much leeway when the BJP does not on its own command majority support in the House.

But all this does not mean that Vajpayee is all that helpless. Perhaps, in his humility, the Prime Minister does not realise that in the last elections the trump card the BJP and its allies had was Vajpayee’s leadership. In constituency after constituency, spread all over the country, what tilted the balance in favour of the BJP and its partners was the voter’s inclination to give Vajpayee a chance. Thus the victory was as much Vajpayee’s as it was theBJP’s. This alone should have given him the necessary stature to assert himself, not to speak of his blemishless record in public life spanning half a century.

Even now it is the inability to project an alternative leader that prevents the Congress and its allies from making an earnest bid to topple the BJP ministry and not the lack of potential turncoats in the House. This being the case, Vajpayee is indispensable for the BJP and its allies. Unlike a Manohar Joshi, he is not under any compulsion to recognise, let alone act in accordance with, the signals emanating from any remote control. He is the first real non-Congress Prime Minister and the nation expects a lot from him. The task of honouring the commitments made by the ruling coalition in its National Agenda for Governance can be accomplished only by a leader of the stature of Vajpayee. It is for these very reasons that even those who believe that politicians too should recognise the concept of retirement are disappointed by Vajpayee’s outburst. Itwill only strengthen the hands of his detractors who are fond of calling him a mask and other names. Let Vajpayee remember, a good man is a useless man unless he is able to assert his goodness.