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Journalism of Courage
8216;8216;ATALJI is the undisputed leader of the government and the BJP.8217;8217; We8217;ve heard that line repeated so often over the past two weeks it is coming out of our collective two billion ears. And that line is followed by another, 8216;8216;Advaniji remains his loyal deputy.8217;8217;
At the BJP8217;s chintan baithak in Mumbai this past week, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee soothed feathers he had ruffled so roughly with his June 4 announcement about Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani leading the party in the next poll. Satisfied he had wiped out any potential challenge, Vajpayee turned mellow and magnanimous. He showered praise on Advani 8216;8216;A source of strength for me in Government8217;8217; and M Venkaiah Naidu 8216;8216;I am astonished at his energy levels8217;8217;.
So now that Atalji and Advaniji and Naiduji have formed a mutual admiration society, is the BJP one happy family again? Well, hardly. The top leaders may have patched up, but fissures down the line continue to exist. The whole Vikas Purush-Lauh Purush controversy has thrown up new players and power equations.
The most important fallout is that Vajpayee has acquired, whether he wants it or not, a camp of his own in the party. Vajpayee, everyone generally concedes, has never been a factional leader. He has always had the image of a 8216;8216;loner8217;8217;, above and beyond the jostling that takes place in any organisation.
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This has had much to do with the trajectory he has followed from his initiation into politics. Unlike Advani, Vajpayee was never an organisation man but devoted himself to the parliamentary forum, as leader of the Jana Sangh since 1957. He is adept at dealing with political adversaries, which is what parliamentary politics is all about. That makes him so useful in the coalition era.
But men who come up through the organisation have a different set of skills8212;interacting with local leaders, spotting talent, grooming it. This process has enabled Advani to acquire a loyal set, men like Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar.
Those who were never part of this group or have exited the so-called Advani camp have used the Vikas-Lauh faultline to their advantage. They have portrayed themselves as Vajpayee8217;s cheerleaders. The foremost among them is, of course, Murli Manohar Joshi. The HRD minister used the moment to hit out at Naidu, and indirectly at Advani, and is trying to resume his old profile as de facto Number 3.
Pramod Mahajan was Advani8217;s key lieutenant during the 1990 rath yatra but changed sides long ago. In January 2003, he was abandoned by both leaders, dropped from the cabinet and appointed party general secretary. He is now trying to get back into prime ministerial favour, making it loud and clear that, to him, there is simply no comparison between Vajpayee and Advani.
Senior ministers like Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie have good ties with both the top men. But given their non-RSS background and preference for government rather than party work, they are natural members of the emerging Vajpayee camp. The same goes for Vasundhara Raje and Sushma Swaraj, while Uma Bharati is more inclined towards Advani.
But to see factionalism in the BJP in terms of the Vajpayee-Advani divide is facile. In the long run, the battle will feature the party8217;s Generation Next 8212; Mahajan, Jaitley, Naidu, Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Uma Bharati, Sushma Swaraj.
The results of the assembly elections in November could make or break careers. If the BJP does well overall Naidu and Mahajan, as the party8217;s key office-bearers, stand to gain. Mahajan is in charge of the Rajasthan campaign and Jaitley of Rajasthan. A loss here and a win there will have an obvious impact.
The real battle, then, lies well into the future. Vajpayee and Advani share a five-decade rapport that can tide over genuine differences. Their partnership was built when the party was in the wilderness.
The younger leaders, on the other hand, have had it easy. They do not share the bond that a life of political struggle engenders. When the power struggle within Generation Next unfolds, the Vajpayee versus Advani battle will seem like a teddy bear8217;s skirmish.
