By Swapan Dasgupta
If the results of the Gujarat Assembly elections
come up to expectations, the Bharatiya Janata Party will have good reasons to
celebrate. First, it will be the BJP’s fifth consecutive victory—two under
Keshubhai Patel and three under Narendra Modi—in Gujarat. Secondly, if the
margin of victory remains as impressive as 2002 and 2007, it is more than
likely that Modi will become the first among equals in the BJP. A combination
of popular acclaim and the absence of any worthwhile challenger may even propel
him to become the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the next general
election.
For India’s principal opposition, next week’s
developments could mark a new beginning. After a prolonged period of
uncertainty and confusion that dates back to the unexpected defeat it suffered
in the general election of 2004, the party may have reason to believe that it
has embarked on the road to recovery. At the same time, party loyalists will
rue the fact that the Gujarat election and the anointment of Modi didn’t happen
a few months earlier. Had that been the case, it is entirely possible that
former Chief Minister of Karnataka B.S. Yeddyurappa would not have left the BJP
and formed the Karnataka Janata Paksh—an event that has more or less guaranteed
the eclipse of the BJP from its southern bastion for the foreseeable future.
Actually, Yeddyurappa did not leave the BJP in an
act of betrayal: he was more or less forced. For more than two months prior to
his formal departure, the former Chief Minister had dithered over taking this
extreme step, hoping desperately for some indications from the party leadership
in Delhi that they were willing to acknowledge his formal leadership of the
state BJP. Unfortunately for him, the signals were too confusing and less than
equivocal.
For a start, the BJP national leadership had become
virtually dysfunctional since the day allegations of unethical business
practices were levelled against its national president Nitin Gadkari. Unwilling
to accept the veracity of the charges but lacking the credibility to ward them
off effectively, Gadkari became a man under siege. Preoccupied with only one
issue—himself and his own future—he lacked the mental conditioning to deal with
the grave problems in Karnataka. His attitude to the Karnataka crisis,
particularly the issues raised by Yeddyurappa, became linked to the question of
who was taking which position vis-à-vis the charges against him. It so happened
that among those who rushed to his defence on the Purti issue were those who
were most inimical to Yeddyurappa and, in fact, had precipitated the crisis in
the first place. This meant that instead of functioning as a national president
who is above sectional pressures, Gadkari became the nominal leader of a
faction. And that faction had deemed that Yeddyurappa was dispensable, not
least because he had also taken a public stand against Gadkari continuing in
his post.
To many in the ‘parivar’, it was necessary to defy
the media clamour against Gadkari and keep him as party president till
late-December or even later. The principal reason for this persistence was to
show that those who had thrust the local leader from Nagpur to a position of
national eminence were not guilty of misjudgement. This astonishing show of
vanity was also linked to the wider fear of losing their decisive influence
over the BJP. Consequently, it was felt that there had to be an interregnum
between Gadkari being acknowledged as damaged goods and his replacement being
identified. Unfortunately, this decision was never properly communicated—a
lapse that allowed Gadkari to persist with his contrived business-as-usual
posturing. In such a murky atmosphere, the Karnataka crisis was allowed to
drift till finally Yeddyurappa was left with no other alternative but to jump
ship.
The damage that Yeddyurappa’s exit will inflict on
the BJP in Karnataka is incalculable. The party’s meteoric rise in the southern
state owed to three factors. First, Karnataka was one of the few states outside
northern and western India where the Ayodhya movement created ripples and
allowed a hitherto unknown BJP to win four Lok Sabha seats in 1991. Secondly,
it was Yeddyurappa’s sustained articulation of farmers’ interests that added a
new dimension to the BJP. Finally, it was the emergence of Yeddyurappa as the
BJP’s tallest leader that brought the Lingayat community to the party. With one
of the two dominant communities of the state under its belt, it became possible
for the BJP to look electable and this in turn brought other smaller
communities and the middle classes to its side. The extra momentum the BJP
acquired to move from third position to winning power on its own in 2008 owed
almost exclusively to Yeddyurappa. His exit has the possibility of reverting
the BJP to third position, behind Congress and H.D. Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal
(Secular).
Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, December 14, 2012
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