Can L.K. Advani do a V.P. Singh?

The trouble is that Advani and the Sangh leadership have arrived at a breaking-point. The Sangh can be expected to do everything possible to prevent Advani from heading a BJP-led formation. And Advani is not growing any younger.

The second option would be for Advani to give up the post of LOP and retain party presidentship. This idea was mooted by Venkaiah Naidu last week at one of the meetings. But let us be honest, the one-man-one-post is only a facade. The Sangh wants to ensure that he does not control the party in any way. It will make the going really rough for him, determined as it is to put the party on the back-to-basics track.

Can Advani take the V.P. Singh route? VP took on Rajiv Gandhi on Bofors and the party finally expelled him. In this instance, Advani has taken on the Sangh and though it has not managed to get him removed as party chief yet, it is only a matter of time. Sangh leaders are saying quite openly that as far as they are concerned, he is “finished”.

Can Advani hit the road with what he believes is right for the party and the country? If it clicks, it could be the catalyst of a new alliance of regional parties which could emerge as the third pole of the polity and an alternative to the Congress. But then, there are many differences between 1987 and now. First, there was a strong undercurrent against the Congress in 1987, from Right to Left, and VP was the beneficiary. There was also an anti-Congress unity of political forces. That is not the case today. VP’s credentials on fighting corruption were established before he was expelled from the Congress; he had replaced Rajiv as Mr Clean during his tenure as finance minister. It will take Advani time to establish his secular credentials given the baggage of the past. His flip flops — the latest being “Jai Shri Ram, mandir wahin banega” a day after the Ayodhya attacks — have done his image no good.

Of course, Advani may have the NDA on his side. VP’s initial meetings in Bihar were arranged by non-entity MLAs but thousands flocked to them. It was the mass upsurge VP created which made the then opposition parties gravitate to him. The Muslims began to look at VP only the day the ‘‘shilanayas’’ took place at the end of 1989. They will not trust Advani easily.

There would be no hope of such a plan clicking unless Vajpayee and others stand with Advani. There was a time in 1987 when Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh were not averse to the idea of forming a new party. Vajpayee is believed to have toyed with the idea of breaking with a Sangh-controlled BJP, but shied away from exercising the option.

The Gen Next in the BJP has swung behind Advani today, which has given him a reprieve. But they are doing it for their own reasons. They do not want each other in the top post; each wants more time to get his or her act together. They would like an “honourable” exit for Advani. But let us not forget that he is isolated on the Jinnah issue,

Advani has bitten off more than he can chew — unless he can turn adversity into an opportunity. He wanted to give a new identity to the BJP and ensure that the party functions autonomous of the RSS. Many in the party today would sympathise with those goals. But he chose the wrong issue in the wrong place and miscalculated by taking his party for granted. To try and undo the legacy of half a century with one statement, that too on Jinnah, was too much for the party to swallow.

Now he is faced with the option of continuing as he is, facing humiliation from the Sangh, even though so far the attack has come from has-beens in the party. His presidency will get progressively devalued even though he is making it clear to the Sangh that they cannot remote control the party. Trying to create a new politics will not be easy. He will be operating in a polity polarised along caste lines. He could become another Balraj Madhok.

Everything depends on what Advani feels and how strongly he believes in it. For, the charisma of a true leader is the by-product of the courage of conviction, not mere political calculation.