Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: December 31, 2002
The euphoria sweeping the Bharatiya
Janata Party in the wake of its spectacular success in Gujarat is understandable
and justified. A party that looked forward to the forthcoming polls in
several States with trepidation suddenly feels vindicated and vitalised.
But there is no straight road from Gandhinagar to other State capitals
and, if the BJP hopes to give a credible fight in any of these elections,
its leadership will have to stop day-dreaming and get down to brass tacks.
Senior Congress leaders have already
started introspecting about their unexpectedly poor performance in Gujarat.
To their credit, they have grasped the principal reasons for the debacle
and have understood that it will not be easy to either stick to or modify
ideological positions adopted during the Gujarat campaign. The political
crystallisation of the Hindu community is now a factor each party will
have to face in future elections. The Congress's problem is that, while
it has inwardly recognised the new reality, its President is uncomfortable
about it and will probably continue to err on the side of minorityism and
caste arithmetic.
This does not automatically translate
into advantage BJP, because the party has not reflected upon the true causes
of its victory. There has been foolish talk about repeating Gujarat, leading
to Opposition charges about communalising the atmosphere. The lively Ms
Uma Bharati has been quick to dismiss charges of replicating Gujarat by
counter-questioning if there are plans to duplicate Godhra; hopefully this
should end such sterile debate.
Anyway, both friend and foe credit
Mr Narendra Modi for the triumphal return to Gandhinagar. Yet, if there
is one root cause for the Gujarat success, it is the Goa 'coup' whereby
determined young leaders prevented the aged and jittery party bosses from
deposing Mr Modi to placate national and international opinion. Obviously,
if there were no Narendra Modi at the helm, there would be no BJP Government
today. An equally germane point is that Mr Modi was made Chief Minister
merely to deflect public anger against the inept Mr Keshubhai Patel in
the wake of the botched earthquake relief operations, and not because he
was considered as a good potential leader in his own right!
The sad truth is that the BJP does
not nurture or encourage young talent. In State after State, one finds
that a new generation has not been allowed to grow, especially States where
older leaders have failed. Take, for instance, Jammu & Kashmir. Is
the BJP happy with uninspiring leaders like Mr Chaman Lal Gupta who cannot
secure two votes even after terrorist attacks on the Raghunath temple,
or does it realise that a youngster who can match the panache of Ms Mehbooba
Sayeed is needed to revive the State unit? Why did no leader of stature
visit the Valley when the party had fielded as many as 21 Muslim candidates
there? Compare this with the number of tickets the Congress gave Muslims
in Gujarat, and you will see what I mean. If the BJP had won a single seat
in the Valley, the Indian continental template would have recorded a major
shift.
In the past, public anger has ousted
the Congress in some northern States. But this did not mean that the BJP's
old war horses were responsible for the party's victory. In fact, they
frittered away the mandate so quickly and scuttled every rising leader,
so that future elections became a virtual obstacle race for the party.
It is well-known that Uttar Pradesh was lost because of the failure to
remove Mr Kalyan Singh in time, coupled with the shameful decision to impose
Mr Ram (who?) Gupta on the hapless State. The party lost a fighting chance
in Karnataka because of the suicidal pact with Mr JH Patel not long ago.
It is imperative that the rising
generation of BJP leaders ensure that those who took such faulty decisions
do not enjoy overweening power in future.
In Madhya Pradesh, when the party
was riding high on the 'Ram wave' and anti-incumbency factor of the early
Nineties, a BJP State supremo unduly created a scandal over an alleged
personal relationship of Ms Uma Bharati with a view to damaging her career.
The gentleman went on to become the party's national President; mercifully
his lack-lustre tenure proved short-lived and ended unsung.
It is to Ms Bharati's credit that
she has survived and put a decade-long controversy firmly behind her, and
in the wake of Gujarat feels emboldened enough to suo moto assume control
of the party campaign in Madhya Pradesh. It may be recalled that she had
not long ago refused an invitation to head the State unit, perhaps because
she was unsure how she would be treated there if she left the Union Cabinet.
At the same time, if one of the
ills facing the BJP is the excessive concern of its geriatric leadership
with its own position, an equally serious problem is that this sickness
can also be detected in a younger generation of leaders in some States
where the party is in opposition. Having got control of the State party
apparatus as a result of patronage from central leaders, these men are
reluctant to build the party at grassroots level by taking up issues of
popular concern.
To cite but one instance, Patna
has for the past one month been rocked by the scandal of the daylight abduction
of a beautiful married woman by a notorious gangster, Sultan Mia. The news
magazine which broke the story stated that she had been forcefully married
in a mosque in the Mainpura locality (subsequently denied by the Imam of
the said mosque in a deposition before the National Commission for Women).
The catch is that the lady, Ms Kanchan Misra, is legally married to another
man, whom she has not divorced. Her mother and brother have deposed before
the NCW that, in the weeks before the abduction, she feared for her life
and that of her family.
One of the scandalous aspects of
this sordid story was that the supposed 'nikah' was blessed by RJD Minister
Ejazul Haq, who hosted a reception party that was attended by the officer-in-charge
of the local police station, among others. A senior police official confirmed
to the NCW that a party had been held after the wedding. What emerged from
the Commission's investigations is that police and Administration alike
are unwilling to get involved in the case, as Sultan Mia is a protégé
of the infamous RJD MP from Siwan, Mohammed Shahabuddin.
Despite a strong NCW directive to
arrest and prosecute Sultan Mia and produce Ms Kanchan Misra before the
Commission within a fortnight, the lady remained in illegal custody at
the time of writing this piece.
Most national dailies have steered
clear of the controversy out of sensitivity for the feelings of Chief Minister
Rabri Devi and RJD supremo Laloo Yadav, MP, who was never once questioned
by the media about restoring the woman to her lawful family throughout
the recent winter session of Parliament!
But what takes the cake is the behaviour
of the State BJP leadership, which acts as if issues of abduction, rape,
and law and order, are routine hazards of life, against which they cannot
be expected to stir themselves! With leaders like this, neither Ram nor
Modi can save the party.
