RSS tells BJP what146;s wrong with its decision-making

8220;Form a group of leaders, which would take all crucial decisions keeping in view the 8216;8216;distinct8217;8217; party ideology, aspirations of cadres and feedback from the grassroots level8221;

With its leadership-change plan implemented, the RSS asked the BJP here today to draw a fresh decision-making mechanism to make it responsive to the 8216;8216;aspirations8217;8217; of the cadres.

This advice from RSS general secretary Mohanrao Bhagwat came when the Sangh and the BJP top brass sat face-to-face to take stock of the party affairs at the residence of Atal Behari Vajpayee. The deliberations would continue tomorrow. Vajpayee, according to sources, only heard others without saying anything.

The RSS side included joint general secretaries Madandas Devi, Suresh Soni and Suresh Bhayyaji Joshi. The BJP team included Advani, party president Rajnath Singh, Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Sanjay Joshi.

The sources said Bhagwat advised the BJP to form a group of leaders, which would take all crucial decisions keeping in view the 8216;8216;distinct8217;8217; party ideology, aspirations of cadres and feedback from the grassroots level. This would, according to him, enable the BJP to gain more credibility, increase its reach and cash in on the failures of the UPA.

Bhagwat8217;s view implies a total disapproval of the manner in which the party has been taking its decisions on important matters. Whether it is an informal gathering of some senior leaders or a formal meeting of the all-powerful Central Parliamentary Board CPB, it is Advani who has mostly had his way. The CPB is dominated by Advani loyalists.

The announcement of the twin 8216;8216;rath yatras8217;8217; plan is a classic example of the way the institutional arrangement has been give a go-by. Advani made the hurried announcement after seeking the concurrence of Rajnath Singh on telephone.

Unlike Vajpayee, Advani did speak at the meeting. The sources said he attributed the BJP failure to push up its graph to an atmosphere of mistrust, which prevailed at the top. Senior leaders, in his view, suffered from a lack of faith in one another. This prompted Joshi, his long-time critic, to say that it was so because most decisions were taken by a handful of people. There was no attempt to take everyone along, he said. Joshi, a former party chief, is mostly kept out of the loop whenever a decision is taken at an informal meeting of senior leaders.

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But, the RSS leaders did not have a free run either. Advani8217;s close lieutenant Venkaiah Naidu, according to sources, complained of excessive RSS interference in the states and districts during the free-wheeling discussion. At this stage, Soni intervened to seek specific instances. 8216;8216;We would look into them,8217;8217; he told Naidu. The former BJP chief mentioned one or two cases. The issue raised by Naidu is seen in the context of the point made by Advani at the party national executive meeting at Chennai last September in which he voiced his concern over an impression gaining ground that the BJP cannot take any decision without an endorsement of the RSS. He wanted this impression removed.

The RSS side, the sources disclosed, raised the issue of probity in public life and asked the BJP to project a clean image. This point can be obviously traced to a string of developments 8212; from the Bangaru Laxman case to the cash-for-query scam involving MPs. To this Rajnath Singh responded by saying that the party was doing as much as possible to stay clean, but politics, being what it was, was there. Bhagwat8217;s stand was that the BJP had to be better than others.

The sources said the Parivar would take up some other important issues tomorrow. They include measures to drum up BJP prospects in poll-bound states 8212; UP, Uttaranchal and Punjab.