Of all the stories that dominate the silly season, the pseudo-controversy over the BJP leadership has to be the silliest. The silly season descends on media generally during the height of summer when everyone who can goes off on holiday and there is no news. You have to, consequently, make up some.
Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani are not at war with each other. They know and understand each other better than anyone else understands them. They have been colleagues for longer than an ordinary lifetime, and have an honest measure of each other’s place in the BJP and in the country’s public life. Advani knows that Vajpayee can run the country better than him, and Vajpayee knows that Advani can run the BJP better than him. That is it. Period. Both wish each other a very long life; both realize that neither is young and mortality is not in human hands. To work together you do not necessarily have to have the same view on every subject; politics is not a profession for robots. They do have some differences on serious and complex issues, but they do not have any differences on their objective, which is to make sure that the BJP remains in power, and in the process does some good for the country. They are sensible enough to discuss their differences if there are any, and accommodate the other when necessary. There is also no question as to who is the leader of the party. That responsibility is Vajpayee’s and will remain so until either he, or God, decides otherwise. Take it as definite that he is not going to retire, irrespective of what an interviewer may suggest Vajpayee has suggested. To retire you have to tire first. Judging by the bounce in the prime minister’s step during his foreign tour, he is totally refreshed. End of story.
Frankly, there would have been more of a story if media had discussed what happens to mosquitoes in a heat wave. It is a question to which I really need an answer. I know they disappear, but do they die? Or is there some mosquito haven where they push off to hibernate when the temperature goes up to 48 degrees? If they die, then why do all of them not perish, something I would heartily endorse.
However, I do resent the implication that this non-story was totally cooked up by media. It was not. It was lying calmly in a cold and unseen frying pan when BJP President Venkaiah Naidu picked it up and threw it into the fire. He has ended up with burnt fingers but what else did he expect? A thank-you note? The prime minister does not suffer from any lack of self-esteem, or any excess of ambition. He also knows that nothing increases the prestige of a politician in India more than the occasional suggestion of retirement, particularly when he knows that he is indispensable. But only a very dispensable politician claims indispensability. A good one is never frightened of walking away because he knows that colleagues will block the path. Jawaharlal Nehru was a master of the art, and Vajpayee is a good disciple.
Naidu’s problem is familiar. He cannot see things very clearly at the moment because his eyes are hazy from the tears of laughter.
Why has he started laughing? Because he believes that he can laugh all the way to the vote banks of the next general elections. Such laughter is not without its hazards. The bank may remain where it is, but you can always lose your way if you can’t see through those tears of laughter. You also have to know how to cash the check. There are politicians who have misplaced a winning lottery ticket because they were either too careless (Charan Singh) or too careful (P.V. Narasimha Rao)
Naidu may be justified in his assessment. The first calculation of a political party searching for re-election is whether it can retain all or most of the seats it has. The BJP‚’ Lok Sabha strength comes from Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. It picked up seats in Uttar Pradesh as well, but did not do as well as it expected. At the moment, the BJP is extremely well-placed to repeat its performance in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh (now two states) and Rajasthan because of the anti-incumbency factor. The BJP was, in a way, fortunate enough to lose the assembly elections in these three states, and the Congress will pay a price for being in power. In the case of Madhya Pradesh, that becomes a curious kind of pun because Digvijay Singh is going to be punished for being in power without providing electricity to the people. Put it another way: out of power means being out of power. There is a wave in Madhya Pradesh against non-governance. Ashok Gehlot also faces defeat, albeit by smaller margins. There is a strong anti-incumbency current in Maharashtra as well, so the BJP can be confident of retaining its Parliament seats in these states. Thanks to its alliance in Uttar Pradesh, it will also retain its strength in Uttar Pradesh, if not increase it. It could go down in Bihar, but will compensate in Punjab and the northeast. If the party can keep its numbers in the Lok Sabha it can legitimately claim a splendid victory and comfortably head another coalition for the next five years.
There is a caveat though. You have to know when to cash the check on the vote bank. If the BJP waits till October 2004 to go to the polls, the calculations could be completely different. Uma Bharti will win in Madhya Pradesh because of Digvijay Singh. But let Uma Bharti be chief minister for a year and Digvijay Singh will look like a hero to the voter. Uma Bharti could easily hand back the Parliament seats to Congress. The anti-incumbency factor will begin to work against the BJP by the end of 2004 in the states. The alliance with Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh will also be vulnerable by then to her unique capacity for dividing her supporters and uniting the opposition. Vengeance comes naturally to her, and it corrodes on all sides. An alliance between political leaders is useful, but it acquires depth only when the political parties fight a common battle on the streets. Mayawati could unite the Samajwadi Party and Congress in a way Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sonia Gandhi cannot.
The ruling party’s calculations must perforce include an objective assessment of the main opposition party’s strengths and weaknesses. Congress is at a pretty low ebb at this moment. The only states where it will improve its Lok Sabha strength are Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. At best it can retain what it has in Kerala and Maharashtra. In Karnataka it will lose perhaps up to half the seats it has. Congress still does not exist in Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which together provide more than 200 MPs to the Lok Sabha. It should pick up something in Jharkhand and Uttaranchal, but the shifts will be minor. It will lose badly in the northeast, where it recorded huge gains the last time.
The prime minister has induced a feel-good factor with his return to the peace option with Pakistan (it still remains an option rather than peace), whose value should never be underestimated in any election calculus. The acrid stench of the post-Godhra environment has gradually given way to a more harmonious mood; subtly, but effectively, the prime minister has changed the national discourse to coexistence. He does nothing without a purpose. And since no one knows the perils of mountain-climbing in the company of Pakistan better than him, he has shifted the perspective as well. He is not talking of summits; he is only discussing forward movement, which is much more do-able, and less prone to fatal accidents. He has changed the line of perception. The interesting thing is that as a defining issue, it cannot become subject to partisan challenge. This is where the prime minister has positioned himself, neatly.
It is doubly curious that his credibility should be partitioned from within the BJP when it is not being questioned from outside the BJP. But that is one of the subsidiary laws of politics: there is never a safe moment.
A word in passing to Venkaiah Naidu: The next time you want to take on the Prime Minister, please do so when he is in India. It is bad form and worse judgment to tug at his dhoti when he is seated next to President George W. Bush at President Putin’s high table.
Arab News Opinion 8 June 2003
