BJP leader, who?

The silence in BJP quarters that immediately greeted L.K. Advani8217;s near-declaration of prime ministerial ambitions on prime time TV was telling. This refusal to be drawn has become typical of the party after Advani8217;s airing of his Jinnah thesis in Pakistan led to the baring of the RSS-BJP faultline back home. There is nothing strategic nor tactical about it. It speaks, instead, of a party in the grip of a deep ambiguity. It is not just that the BJP does not wholesomely throw its weight behind the candidature of its former president and the current Leader of Opposition. It is also that it proposes no alternatives either.

Lok Sabha polls are still two and a half years away, party leaders will contend. But the BJP8217;s incoherence will not melt away with time. It will require a concerted effort for it to regain ideological clarity and political focus. It will require, first, acknowledgement of the problem. Who writes the BJP agenda 8212; the party itself or the RSS? What are the terms of intimacy between the two going to be? For long, this question was not put into words and this fuzziness may have had its uses in the past 8212; it gave both entities crucial room for manoeuvre. But Advani was the leader to recognise that the inarticulateness had diminishing utility in the face of a more demanding politics of a new century. The moment had come for both the political party and the non-political organisation to define their respective roles, delineate their boundaries.

By refusing Advani8217;s implicit invitation for a debate, the BJP continues to let down not only its veteran but also itself. By not spelling out a clear line of leadership, it fails the test of being the main Opposition party in a democracy like India. The BJP must know there are no interim solutions 8212; Rajnath Singh8217;s installation as president for a full term brings no closure to the party8217;s search for an agenda and a leader.