The Trouble Within…

HOURS before the rally in Satna that marked the launch of the BJP campaign in the state last week, functionaries of the local unit were gath...

HOURS before the rally in Satna that marked the launch of the BJP campaign in the state last week, functionaries of the local unit were gathered outside the venue of the closed-door meeting to discuss the party’s strategy in the run-up to the election, furious at being kept out. Cursing the state leadership, they waited for Uma Bharti to arrive. Despite repeated requests by State BJP chief Kailash Joshi and leader of Opposition Babulal Gaur, they were pacified only when Uma addressed them.

This may have been a sign of the faith that party workers have now reposed in her. But it did nothing to help her cause with the already embittered state leadership. Designated the chief election campaigner of the party, Uma’s ambiguous status in the BJP’s state unit means that the way she handles herself within the organisation may be almost as important for the party as her campaign.

In no other state is the BJP so divided. So, if her public speech laid out the themes of the aggressive campaign the BJP plans in the state, what she said in the closed-door meeting indicated the caution, something that doesn’t come easily to Uma, with which she will need to tread within the party.

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She began by invoking the relationship between A.B. Vajpayee and L.K Advani, comparing it to the association between Ram and Bharat in the Ramayana. The hope she expressed was that perhaps a similar equation could be worked out in the state. She sought to emphasise, even if there are few takers for such a claim, that she was not a candidate for the post of CM. She ended her speech by calling upon party functionaries to rally together behind Joshi for the polls, scheduled to be held in the second half of this year.

…And Outside

ALREADY the MP election threatens to reduce itself to a direct clash between Digvijay and Uma. Just after the Lok Sabha elections, Uma was asked whether she knew Digvijay personally. ‘‘I know him very well. He treats me like a daughter, like a sister. Personally, we are very affectionate and respectful, but politically we are arch rivals,’’ she was reported to have said.
Asked how she dealt with this situation, she said: ‘‘I don’t know. Ask him. It’s very difficult. He tries to cut my throat and I don’t spare anything to attack him.’’
Two years later, when Digvijay called for a ban on the Bajrang Dal, at a public rally in Delhi Uma said she had joined the organisation and dared the Chief Minister to arrest her. ‘‘Digvijay is a spineless Thakur from Madhya Pradesh who picks up the sandals of a lady (Sonia Gandhi) who is a foreigner,’’ she said.

It was a gesture that has assuaged initial doubts, but in a state where Sangh Parivar veterans command enough clout to even override men like Advani, what happens within the party will be as crucial as any other political development.

‘‘Forget the past, let us start with a clean slate,’’ she said. But the past may not be so easy to forget. It has a lot to do with Uma’s own history of rather unpredictable behaviour. In 1999 when she shifted her Lok Sabha constituency from Khajuraho to Bhopal, the man undone by the move was state party president Joshi, later accommodated in the Rajya Sabha.

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Thus it was no surprise when at a party meeting in July this year, Advani had to back down after telling senior state party leaders that the party was considering Uma’s appointment as state party chief. However, Joshi, an old-style politician with a clean image, lacks the charisma to enthuse party workers. But the leadership does command a considerable following in the higher echelons of the party’s state unit among leaders united in their dislike for Uma.

Even at Satna, while Joshi and Gaur addressed the press, Uma chose to drive down to Mahair to obtain the blessings of the Devi. There was, however, just a hint to the party leadership that they need her to win this election and it was again couched in her terms. Aadam Shakti, she said, could not be defeated by Aadam Shakti. To achieve this Devi Shakti was required. And there is no doubt as to who she, and most of the BJP, think has the requisite Devi Shakti.

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