Hijacking the Congress agenda - The Indian Express

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Express correspondents across the country look at the impact of Bharatiya
Janata Party president Lal Krishna Advani's Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra.

After two months on the road, L.K. Advani is back in the Capital. In a
journey that covered almost the entire country and the heat and dust of
summer, the BJP chief tried to drive home two points. One, in order to
come to power in Delhi, his party was trying for a change of image. Two,
departing from the pan-Indian rhetoric, the party was willing to play the
regional card wherever it suited it.

Advani's attempt at cutting into the Congress agenda, votes and legacy was
evident throughout the two-month yatra. Nowhere was it more striking than
in Maharashtra, where, though the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is in power, the
Congress is still a force to reckon with. In the Congress-dominated sugar
heartland of south Maharashtra, Advani tried to identify his party with the
freedom movement and play the stability cars hitherto a monopoly of the
Congress. He would unmistakably strike a chord with the crowd with his
rhetoric on the "painful political isolation" of two sons of the
soil-former Deputy Prime Minister Yashwantrao Chavan and former Rajasthan
governor Vasantdada Patil-within the Congress.

Orissa was another State where the BJP chief tried to cut into the
Congress-and the Janata Dal-vote banks. Here also the crowd was
considerable, but the enthusiasm which was seen at his earlier Rain Rath
Yatra was missing. "Desired results could not be achieved by the yatra as
leaders having mass base were not invited to accompany it," complained
Bishwa Bhusan Harichandan, an Orissa BJP MLA.

Although Advani has indicated that his party can afford to come to power in
Delhi without the support of the Muslims and the South, the yatra was an
attempt to make inroads into the southern States. Andhra Pradesh was one
State where people thronged to see the yatra despite a ban imposed by the
Peoples War Group (PWG). Hundreds came to see Advani in Telengana, once a
Communist bastion. "The yatra has given a big boost to the morale of the
party cadres especially in the Telengana where the PWG writ seems to run.
It also has definitely improved the hold of the party in other areas of the
State," said the State BJP President, V Rama Rao.

In another Left stronghold, Kerala, the BJP leader drew impressive crowds.
Advani targeted the CPI(M) and no one else. However, his speeches did
misfire in the northern parts of the State where he accused the CPI(M) of
putting together the United Front to keep the BJP away from power. It
served as a backhanded complement for the CPI(M) in a State which has a
sizeable population of minority communities including the Muslims. But the
organisational capability of the BJP was evident as Advani's meetings
across the state were well attended. By going soft on the Congress, the
BJP leader gave enough signals that the party hasn't forgotten the past
when it used to have under-cover alliances with the Congress and even the
Muslim League against the CPI(M).

Yet, throughout the yatra, the chance in Advani's rhetoric was clear. He
shuttled between patriotic spiel and regional issues, sprinkling a bit of
government bashing in between. "Hitherto we were banking on emotional
issues. Now people's problems and aspirations are the issues. As Advani d
patriotism is still an issue," said Karnataka BJP leader B.S. Yedityrappa.

While the BJP leader's caravan was passing through a Karnataka village, a
farmer raised his hands and said namaste to Advani. "It is these gestures
which matter. That farmer does not know who I am and why I am moving
around his fields at an odd hour. But he win remember the rath, the BJP
flag," said Advani.

But in the neighbouring Nadu, there were not many such gestures as the
yatra entered the State at the worst time possible. The southern parts of
the State were tom apart by Thevar-Dalit clashes when Advani entered. And
the villagers did not have much more than curiosity to spare for the
traveller. "We were curious to see who had come to our place," said a tea
stall owner in Gummidipoondi in Chengalpattu district.

In the southern districts, Advani did not touch the clash conflicts. He
just mentioned: "Sons of Bharatmata should not fight among themselves." And
the places with a history of communal clashes (Hindu-Muslim,
Hindu-Christian), the response to the yatra was, predictably, good. "There
is a marked rise in membership in the areas Advaniji toured," says BJP
general secretary L Ganesan.

While the Tamil Nadu BJP leaders claim that the yatra was a huge success in
the State, others refuse to buy it. "In a State where the religious
passions are pushed to the back seat by the caste systems in the Hindu
religion, the BJP cannot make any inroads," said AM. Gopu, a CPI National
Council member.

In fact, what Advani did was to try and address the local issues winch the
party had earlier put on the backburner. This, if anything, was evident in
his journey through Punjab where the party plays second fiddle to the Akali
Dal. In Punjab, where Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal accompanied him on
the first day, he recalled how the people of the State, belonging to all
communities, had fought the British. He also emphasised on the need for
cementing the Hindu-Sikh unity, which has already been strengthened by the
BJP-Akali alliance.

In Himachal Pradesh, he spoke on the cash found "under the pillow of Sukh
Ram" and the corruption and in Haryana, on the unresponsive administration
under the previous Congress regime. In Jammu, he cautioned the Centre
against any attempt to restore the pre-1953 status of Jammu and Kashmir.
He also spoke about the "proxy war" launched by Pakistan to divide the
people and weaken the country and demanded steps to counter it. "The
Gujral doctrine is a doctrine of surrender," he said.

At the end of a long journey, Advani, for whom the yatra was a
rehabilitation exercise after being discharged in the Hawala case, has
enough to cheer about. The yatra was a vital step in hijacking the
Congress legacy of freedom. "This was not in my mind when I set out on the
yatra. But we have appropriated the legacy of the Congress, they have
abandoned it," he said.

(Srikant Viital in Hyderabad, Radha Venkatesan in Chennai, N.P. Chekkutty
in Kozhikode, M.N. Chakravarthy in Bangalore, Anosh Malekar in Pune, Srimoy
Kar in Bhubaneswar and Virender Kumar in Ludhiana contributed to this report.)

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