Bhandari refused to fall in line

NEW DELHI, Feb 18: The Advani-Bhandari clash rocking the Vajpayee Government was inevitable once Bihar came under President's rule. Bhand...

NEW DELHI, Feb 18: The Advani-Bhandari clash rocking the Vajpayee Government was inevitable once Bihar came under President8217;s rule. Bhandari8217;s determination to run the State administration his own way brought him into direct confrontation with the BJP-Samata gameplan for Bihar.

According to BJP circles, the immediate provocation for the confrontation between the two senior leaders seems to have been Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha8217;s unsuccessful mission to Patna the day after President K R Narayanan approved the imposition of Article 356 in the state. Sinha apparently was despatched as Advani8217;s emissary to sound out Bhandari on the choice of advisors and other administrative changes.

The Governor is believed to have vetoed most of the suggestions on Sinha8217;s list on the grounds that the changes being mooted were at the Samata Party8217;s behest. This only reaffirmed fears here that Delhi8217;s writ would not run in Bihar as long as Bhandari headed the state.

The hazards of dealing with him were underlined thenext day when Railway Minister and Chief Minister-aspirant Nitish Kumar8217;s meeting with the Governor also ended in a fiasco. Bhandari is believed to have made it clear that he would function as a Governor should, not as an instrument of the Samata Party.

Nitish expressed his anger later by lashing out at the appointment of 8220;upper caste officers8221; in the massacre-hit district of Jehanabad. It was clearly a veiled attack on Bhandari and the idea of easing him out of Bihar took shape.

But shifting the veteran RSS pracharak was not going to be easy. The respect he enjoys in the Sangh Parivar and the lobby he had created for himself in the Bihar unit of the BJP were Bhandari8217;s trump cards against manoeuvres by the Centre to replace him. Advani seems to have decided to serve everyone with a fait accompli by announcing on television that the Bihar Governor would be replaced with an apolitical administrator. It left Bhandari with no option but to pack his bags and leave 8212; as Advani and Samataleaders had calculated.

The announcement, however, did not have the formal backing of the Government. The crucial late evening meeting, where the decision to remove Bhandari is said to have been taken, only discussed the proposal but did not actually clear it. The current crisis was just waiting to happen.

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BJP insiders feel that the Home Minister did not anticipate the reaction his move would trigger off in the party, and more importantly in the RSS. In fact, this is probably the first time in his carefully-planned political career that Advani has landed himself in direct confrontation with the Sangh bosses and the anti-Advani lobby is doing its best to stoke the anger in the RSS against what is being perceived as an underhand blow to the parivar by one of its own and most trusted men.

After finally succeeding in dismissing the Rabri Devi Government against all odds, the BJP-Samata had ambitious plans of purging the State administration of Laloo8217;s loyalists. The strategy was to pave the way for anelection later this year which would see Nitish Kumar in as Chief Minister.

As a fall back, in case the Centre failed to get parliamentary approval for the imposition of President8217;s rule, the BJP-Samata had plans of splitting the Rashtriya Janata Dal and forming an interim government headed by Nitish till the administrative 8220;clean-up8221; was completed.

The strategy chalked out by Advani, George Fernandes and Nitish gave the Samata Party a clear upper hand in Bihar which a BJP old hand like Bhandari could not stomach. His refusal to play along put a spoke in these plans from the very first day and thereby sealed his fate.