Team Advani

L.K. Advani’s revamp of BJP office-bearers seems to be premised on a simple strategy: perform a holding operation. Ideologically, this reconstitution sends out no clear message, because most of the new and continuing office-bearers are capable of oscillating between the hard line and soft line as the occasion demands. This revamp may be more significant from an organisational point of view. For one thing, the choice of office-bearers seems to suggest that the RSS has relatively little say in this reorganisation. The overlap of RSS and BJP hierarchies that has gained momentum during the last few years seems to have somewhat abated. But one ought not to read too much into this: the RSS simply has not thrown up an organisational leader of national stature during the last five years or so. With Venkaiah Naidu out of the running, finding a vice-president who would be acceptable to sections of the party was not going to be easy.

The choice of Yashwant Sinha for this post seems the safe default option. It may have the added benefit of giving the party some momentum in a state where it needs it most: Bihar. But while Sinha is a play-it-safe option, his appointment suggests that this revamp does not indicate that the BJP has solved its succession dilemmas. Sinha does not carry much independent political weight within the BJP and is unlikely to carry enough credibility to be seen as Advani’s successor. Nor should there be any surprise that Pramod Mahajan has been retained. Advani has been in politics long enough to realise that electoral results cannot be blamed on organisational factors alone. The party will need Mahajan’s organisational acumen. And in any case the revamp suggests that Advani has decided not to take hard decisions that alienate any significant member of the current leadership. Uma Bharati’s inclusion was important given the fact that the BJP has valiantly tried to expand its social base and she is the only significant grassroots OBC leader in the party. Unfortunately, she has not obliged her leader.

The revamp suggests that Advani had limited options before him. While the party has a host of eligible leaders at the Centre, it has limited options when it comes to key states like UP and Bihar. The results of the last election in UP effectively delegitimised the likes of Murli Manohar Joshi, Vinay Katiyar and their followers. What Advani seems to have done is simply constituted a team from whatever remains of the leadership. This reorganisation is a temporary halt to the BJP’s infighting, not a solution to its long-term leadership, ideological and organisational dilemmas.