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Defeat in Maharashtra : BJP goes back to the RSS

	October 25, 2004

Faced with failure to overturn the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party apple cart in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party appears all set to go back to the RSS agenda and all that goes with it. After finding a scapegoat for the defeat in party president Venkaiah Naidu and Maharashtra leader Pramod Mahajan, the party lost no time in installing former Deputy Prime Minister and once spearhead of the Ayodhya movement, L.K. Advani, as the new party president.

Significantly, one of the first steps taken by Advani as party president was to attend the annual Vijaydashmi Meeting of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur. The contours of the new policies of the BJP and the RSS became clear when RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan, launched a frontal attack on the Left parties for supporting the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre.



Left accused of backseat driving

Sudarshan in his address at the RSS meeting, where L.K. Advani was present, accused the Left parties of conspiring to harm Hindu forces and indulging in backseat driving in the present Central Government. He said : “the Children of Marx”, as he labelled the Leftists, have been carrying out a systematic campaign against Hindu organisations and leaders like the RSS and Vir Savarkar. He said the Left-backed Government owed an explanation to the people as to why the Savarkar plaque in the Andamans had been removed and whether it would be replaced. He asserted that Savarkar had never apologised to the British, but had been released by a Government that could not handle the pressure of a mounting public movement for his release.

The RSS chief said the attempt to malign Savarkar was just the latest in a series of exercises by the Marxputras who had earlier spoken ill of Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Sudarshan also criticised the uninterrupted rule of the Left in West Bengal and said that West Bengal had lost out on economic infrastructure, per capita income and social development.



Left response

The Left responded to the RSS attack by dismissing it as “nothing new.” CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said ever since the RSS was founded, its leaders have been targeting the Communists. They have openly identified three targets - Muslims, Christians and Communists, he said. CPI Secretary D Raja said that Left is not doing any backseat driving as implied by Sudarshan, but is only supporting a coalition government at the Centre.



NDA Government also taken to task

The RSS chief did not spare the BJP-led NDA Government under former Prime Minister Vajpayee. He singled out for criticism the BJP’s Lok Sabha election-eve promise of recruiting two lakh Urdu teachers and charged the party with embarking on a minority appeasement route charted by the “secular parties” earlier. Significantly, though the reference to the Urdu teachers was there in the written speech distributed to the media, Sudarshan omitted the paragarh while reading out his speech. Observers wonder whether it was just a slip or a deliberate omission to prevent embarrassment to L.K. Advani, who was present.

Apart from BJP president Advani, another significant presence at the RSS meeting was of the party’s youth leader, Varun Gandhi, son of Menaka Gandhi and grand son of Indira Gandhi. Though Varun Gandhi did not salute the Bhagva Dhwaj (saffron flag of BJP/RSS), he listened with rapt attention as RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan called the Communists Marxputras and Macaulayputras and cautioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to not allow a foreign-born citizen (Sonia Gandhi) to intervene in policy matters.



Advani is the right choice : RSS

There are signals that the RSS wanted a change in the leadership of the BJP even before the Maharashtra Assembly elections. The move to replace Venkaiah Naidu with L.K. Advani had the blessings of the top brass of the Sangh Parivar (RSS family). According to reports, the move was first contemplated by Sangh strategists in Nagpur and Delhi after the BJP’s Lok Sabha poll debacle four months ago. According to RSS officials, there was a general consensus in the Sangh Parivar that should be at the helm of affairs to stem the rot in the party. The RSS top brass were looking for the right opportunity which came with the defeat of the party in Maharashtra. Significantly, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, another sister organisation of the RSS, had also been demanding a change of guard in the BJP. The hardline offshoot of the safforn parivar blamed the Maharashtra Assembly defeat on what it called “ideologoical infidelity” and said the party was run by a coterie surrounding Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.

VHP working president Ashok Singhal said he did not understand why the BJP leaderhip decided to move away from the Hindutva agenda which had helped them to come to power five years ago. The VHP leader said the BJP should have come to the Sangh Parivar for wider consultations immediately after its debacle in the Lok Sabha polls, but they did not do that. As a result the party had to face a drubbing again in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.



Rekindling of the Ramjanambhoomi movement

Opinion within the BJP and its ideological affiliates is divided on whether the party should revive the Ramjanambhoomi movement again. Hardliners like those in the VHP would like the movement to be rekindled, but even they are not very hopeful of the party being able to do so. There is also doubt about the political mileage which the party may get from such a move. A striking feature of the political scenario as it prevails now is the ability of different groups to come together to protect their interests. The Congress-NCP Government in Maharashtra was not known for its performance in fields which matter to the common man. Yet it was able to scamper back to victory because the Muslims and the Dalits thought that their interests would be served best by such a combination of forces. The BJP has to come to terms with this reality.

Another stark reality is that there is very little and practically no chance of the BJP coming to power at the Centre on its own. It has to depend on the support of other parties which do not see eye to eye with it on the Hindutva or Nationalism issue. If the BJP adopts an extreme line on the Hindutva issue, it is likely to lose most, if not all, its partners in the National Democratic Alliance, which is going to make the task of regaining power at the Centre even more difficult. The BJP has to overcome this dilemma sooner than later.



Immediate tasks before Advani

The BJP once claimed to be a “party with a difference.” But five years of its rule at the Centre have left it with a damaging image of the `B’ team of the Congress. The party now faces electoral and political challenges which are quite formidable. This is an era of coalitions and alliances. The immediate electoral challenge is to arrest the downward slide of the party by improving its position in the coming Assembly elections in Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand. Going by the present trends, this is not going to be easy. In Bihar, the RJD alliance with the Congress and the Left parties is going to be a formidable force despite the decision of Rambilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party to go it alone. In Jharkhand, the BJP faces an anti-incumbency factor, which was apparent in this year’s Lok Sabha elections also. So far as Haryana is concerned, the Congress has already improved its position by getting Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party to merge with it. Later next year, there would be Assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala where the fight is mainly between the Left parties and the Congress-led alliances.

The BJP also has to prepare for a generational change which will come about by the time of the next Lok Sabha elections, if they are held in 2009. Both Vajpayee and Advani cannot hope to lead or give guidance to the party for all times to come. Uttar Pradesh continues to be a source of worry to the BJP as it has not been able to recover the lost ground. On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party continue their upward movement. The BJP has to do something to get back its upper caste votes in the state to remain relevant.

It is clear now that whatever fleeting charm Hindutva had at one time, is gone. The voters have learnt to recognise their real priorities and judge what the BJP can and cannot deliver. Everybody wants prosperity, education, health care and a safe place to live. Above all, nobody wants trouble among castes, religions and communities to come knocking at their doors. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar will have to do something significant to dispel the impression that they thrive on discord and tension. The party will have to think of a new political agenda to overcome the problems it is facing now.