Taking on Teflon Vajpayee

This is unusual for another reason. India today is a young country with 54 per cent of its population under the age of 25. And here is a PM who is into his 80th year, who has had two knee surgeries and finds it difficult to walk, who tends to forget the names of his ministers. He is not even like Rajiv Gandhi, good looking, debonaire, speaking English with the right accent. While Vajpayee is an orator of exceptional skills, he is out of sync with television because of his slow style of delivery.

So what explains his teflon image? Vajpayee has come to be the icon of the Indian middle class for a different reason. Corporate India, business India, elite India, all feel comfortable with him. Besides, the middle class cannot be dismissed as inconsequential today. The aspirational revolution fuelled by globalisation and cable TV has not only bridged the distance between metro India and the smaller cities, it has not left the kasbah towns untouched. Even Mayawati and Laloo Prasad Yadav cannot be contemptuous of the middle class the way they once were. The middle class may not decisively determine the outcome of elections, but they influence public opinion disproportionate to their numbers. And elections are increasingly becoming TV driven.

Another obvious explanation is that Vajpayee dwarfs the opposition today. Though Sonia Gandhi has moved with despatch on stitching up alliances and hitting UP with her roadshow, the demoralisation in the Congress after the recent defeats is simply unbelievable. It is as if the party is willing the BJP to return, whether the people want it or not. The party is not even able to counter the BJP8217;s catchlines. Who is feeling good today? Not the 40 million registered in unemployment exchanges and their number has been on the rise, for all the promises made by Vajpayee to create one crore jobs. Not the families of farmers who committed suicides en masse. The BJP may be projecting a 8220;Shining8221; India. But it concerns the top 3 per cent of the population who wish to send their children abroad and plan to holiday in Paris. What about the concerns of Bharat, on which the BJP has given up? The Congress has not even managed to lampoon the fact that the BJP held its national executive in a five star hotel, which is symbolic of its concerns! The Congress is still regarded by sections as a 8220;garibon ki party8221; but it has not been able to translate this image into votes.

It is not what Vajpayee does or does not do that has led to his acceptability. It is what he has come to represent. Even Pakistan sees him as the visionary who can deliver. Like L.K. Advani he, too, has come through the RSS ranks but he is perceived as a moderate while Advani continues to be perceived as a hawk. But he has also taken care not to rock the boat. That is why Goa followed Gujarat, when he did a flip-flop on Narendra Modi8217;s resignation. Vajpayee8217;s turn of phrase, his ability to say often contradictory things simultaneously, his lack of angularity, his non-confrontationist approach has only added to his image. It is this that makes him the centrepiece of an alliance like the NDA 8212; even when the PMK walked out of the NDA recently, it had words of praise for Vajpayee! The fact that he has managed to run the first non-Congress government for more than five years at the head of 24 parties adds to his achievements. But really his acceptability stems from the fact that he has come to occupy the centrist space and symbolise the pluralistic approach even while being in the BJP.

Of course, Vajpayee8217;s strengths today can also come to be viewed as his weakness. It is often not clear what Vajpayee stands for. Whether he will come back for a third term will depend on the extent to which the Congress can undermine the teflon image he has come to acquire.