The BJP says that it has been able to formulate a plan for the road ahead
at its three-day Chintan Shivir in Shimla, but it is not clear if it would put the party on the path of resurgence. The brain-storming session was held away from the gaze of the public and the media and the end of the conclave news conference by party president Rajnath Singh has not made us much wiser about what transpired at the meeting. Though he mentioned some five or six aspects of the road map, its concrete shape was not clear. He said that the plan would be placed before the party national executive meeting to be held in September or October for approval. The points he mentioned as the salient features of the road ahead were total commitment to party ideology with integrated humanism and cultural nationalism as its essential ingredients, no compromise on indiscipline, maintaining highest ethical standards in public and private life, strengthening the NDA and expansion of the party base in states where it is traditionally weak. He also spoke of a plan to bring about greater participation of the weaker sections, youth and women in the party structure and programmes.
What Rajnath Singh mentioned as part of the road ahead is mostly what the party claims to have been doing in the past. He did not spell out how the new road map will help the party get over the debacle in this year's Lok Sabha elections. Nor did he refer to the advice or suggestion made by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on the eve of the chintan shivir for a generational change in the BJP.
On the other hand, Rajnath Singh as well as other party functionaries such as Sushma Swaraj announced emphatically that senior leader Lal Krishan Advani will continue as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha for full five years. Advani, who is 81, would be completing 86 years when the next Lok Sabha elections take place in the normal course in 2014. His continuance as leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party is a direct snub to the RSS which wanted senior leaders of the BJP to make way for the younger generation.
The RSS, on its part, has been taking the line that it is not interfering in the affairs of the BJP. For example, the outfit said that it had nothing to do with the expulsion of Jaswant Singh from the BJP which came on the first day of the chintan shivir. He was expelled for his book on Mohd. Ali Jinnah and the Partition and the point made in the book that Jinnah was not primarily to blame for the Partition but Congress leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel were perhaps equally to blame.
With Advani and his camp followers not respecting the views expressed by the RSS, the BJP task in fighting elections may become tougher. It has been seen that wherever the local functionaries of the BJP and the RSS are not on the same wavelength, the party's performance in the elections suffers. RSS functionaries have a say not only in the working of the BJP, but also in a number of other organizations belonging to the Sangh Parivar such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
If the logic of the BJP leaders flouting the wishes of the RSS is carried to its extreme, the umbilical chord between the two may be in real danger of being snapped. This would be a disaster for the BJP, unless it prepares to stand on its own feet and not depend upon RSS workers to run its campaign machinery at election time.
Whatever has come up from the chintan shivir does not indicate that the BJP has found some way of getting out of the morass in which it is stuck. Advani's personal ambitions are perhaps coming in the way. The
RSS is right in its view that a generational shift is needed if the BJP is to be in a position to move forward. In the absence of young blood coming to the fore, the road ahead may lead nowhere.
