House warming

The Fourteenth Lok Sabha abounds in curiosities. The United Progressive Alliance is, after all, the first Congress-led coalition government, and there are many who would be interested in discovering how this intriguing hybrid — supported from the outside by the Left — will walk and talk in the central hall of democracy. The Treasury Benches will be graced not just by a leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party in Pranab Mukherjee but a chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the person of Sonia Gandhi. As if in calibrated battle formation, the Opposition Benches will also have two leaders: A chairman of the BJP Parliamentary Party in Atal Bihari Vajpayee and a leader of the Opposition in L.K. Advani.

Of all these famous personalities it will, arguably, be Advani who will be watched with the greatest interest. This is not only because of the signal role that the Opposition traditionally plays in Indian democracy but because his policy positions will shape the BJP’s future image — and its very future. After a defeat that begs the use of the word “historic”, the main opposition party finds itself at the crossroads once again. Will it choose to ride the rath of radical Hindutva politics with the Loh Purush as chief charioteer, or will it tread the path of moderation that the Vikas Purush had tried to plot with considerable political and electoral success. Advani, with his well-established reputation of being the hawk in the party, has shown an inclination to moderate his earlier stances while in government and in election campaigning. Will this shift in strategy and perception be held hostage to the demands of oppositional politics and the pressures brought on the party by the rabid elements within the Sangh parivar? Much depends on how Advani himself perceives the situation. He has one advantage that Vajpayee did not have. While Vajpayee had to depend on his personal appeal to silence his detractors, Advani can better negotiate with the hardliners given the fact that he has, politically, been more in sync with them.

Advani’s accession — while completely expected — also underlines a conspicuous weakness in the BJP: The lack of second generation of credible leaders within the Lok Sabha. Those among the younger lot who could have done their bit to keep the party flag flying in the Lower House find themselves confined to the Upper House by a quirk of circumstances and possibly bad planning. This only makes the burden that now rests on the shoulders of a man who was the leader of the Opposition 13 years ago that much heavier.