Coercive diplomacy II

The Cabinet reshuffle has little to do with the functioning of the Cabinet. Or Ministers8217; performance and accountability. Otherwise why...

The Cabinet reshuffle has little to do with the functioning of the Cabinet. Or Ministers8217; performance and accountability. Otherwise why should Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha get External Affairs after an investigation by this newspaper showed that the scam-tainted Flex Industries was very much his internal affair?

Why should Arun Jaitley, who piloted key legislation to fast-track the legal system, now do the rounds of TV studios? Or for that matter, what has Shatrughan Sinha done to get Health other than making a virtue of whining? What is Sahib Singh Verma, not exactly our best Chief Minister, doing in Labour where reforms are needed as of yesterday? You can take the Cabinet list and ask similar questions of virtually all the new faces. But then this reshuffle has little to do with governance, it8217;s about politics. And about the BJP8217;s daring attempt to assert itself.

The rout in the recent Assembly elections, the shameful blot of Gujarat, the divisiveness on display at Goa, the VHP constantly breathing down its weighed-down-by Ayodhya neck8212;never before has the BJP needed a steroidal dose. Whether the revamp is what the doctor ordered for the party isn8217;t clear.

What8217;s clear is that the BJP has established its supremacy in the coalition, rubbed it in hard and only Mamata Banerjee8217;s sulking. It has even added new members. In Uttar Pradesh, an injured party swallowed all insult to sew up an alliance with Mayawati. And then just as she made the first noises, it pulled Vinay Katiyar out of its Hindutva-OBC hat.

The appointment of L K Advani as Deputy Prime Minister has sent a clear signal, at least for now, that the Opposition cannot bank on the 8216;8216;secular allies8217;8217; breaking away should Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee be under pressure. In fact, the question as to who will succeed Vajpayee is answered once and for all. Going further, the installation of Venkaiah Naidu as new BJP president picks up a leitmotif from Goa, where the young Turks close to Advani played a pivotal role in getting the party to adopt a more hardline agenda, including defending the indefensible Narendra Modi.

It is significant that one of the first statements Venkaiah made concerned the institutionalising of a regular interaction between top party functionaries and the deputy PM.
There is no getting away from the fact that the allies have been presented with a like-it-or-lump-it proposition. The question is: in the long term, will they lump it or not? That depends on how the new BJP managers deal with their partners in government and with the Praveen Togadias in their parivar.

Whatever the outcome, for the Opposition which was taking the BJP8217;s downward drift for granted, things just got a bit tougher.