In Maharashtra he was ‘PM’

Though he was the BJP’s New Delhi-based general secretary, Maharashtra was always close to his heart. It was by the virtue of his efforts at arriving at a tie-up with the Shiv Sena way back in 1985 that allowed the BJP to grow in the villages of the state.

Mahajan made good use of his close ties with Thackeray Senior. Whenever the Sena Tiger roared, Mahajan would step in between him and Vajpayee and ease tensions before it got out of hand. In fact, throughout his political career, he managed to play an excellent mediatory role — be it between the BJP and the RSS; between Vajpayee and LK Advani; or between the BJP and the Shiv Sena.

Despite being groomed in the RSS, he led a lavish lifestyle which went against the Sangh philosophy. He liked to flaunt whatever he had. Remember his mobilephone in 1993 or his knowledge of political rivals during poll speeches. At times, he was too blunt, which prompted his rivals to dub him as arrogant.

But Mahajan emerged as the most charismatic leader among the BJP’s younger lot. His importance to the party was aptly acknowledged by Vajpayee when he said that Advani and Mahajan were the Ram and Lakshman of the BJP. Mahajan was obviously heading for the top slot.

Without Mahajan, BJP will feel the strongest ripples in Maharashtra. For here, there’s no other BJP leader of his stature to fill the void. And on a personal note, his brother-in-law Gopinath Munde’s political future too would be adversely hit.

The reasons for that aren’t difficult to spot. In the Opposition, the Sena-BJP alliance is plagued with troubles from within. If Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray’s revolts have split the Sena rank and file, the BJP too is not without its own share of problems. Vertically split between two groups, state party chief Nitin Gadkari has been forced on the backfoot.

After the debacle in the parliamentary elections — the much publicised failure of the India Shining campaign was largely attributed to him — Mahajan went through a bad patch. In the state, his camp, led by Munde along with former minister Eknath Khadase, Mahadevrao Shivankar and Prakash Jawdekar became isolated. And Gadkari, the blue-eyed boy of the RSS, replaced Munde and became chief of the state BJP unit.

Thus emboldened, Gadkari and his camp of MLAs were projecting Gujarat CM Narendra Modi as the national face of the BJP. Mahajan realised this, but kept quiet. Even during LK Advani’s recent rath yatra, he found himself less involved — in better times, he would have checked out the rath and the yatra.