Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa may have been ?advised? to quit by the BJP?s parliamentary board, but the manner of his exit has hardly covered the main opposition party with any glory. What it has done, however, is expose the stranglehold of tough regional leaders in the party, which has lost its centre in the post Atal-Advani era.
The party knew for long that in its campaign against the central government on the issue of corruption, Yeddyurappa would prove to be a chink in its armour. Two previous attempts to remove him came a cropper, with the strongman from the south managing to hold on to power with a mixture of gumption and sheer bargaining.
The party, last morning, put its collective foot down, but until late in the evening, Yeddyurappa was still bargaining for a post-chief ministership position and putting his own man in the driver?s seat.
What is astonishing is not that Yeddyurappa continued to defy the high command, but that in the last couple of years, the definition of a ?party high command? in the BJP has become hazy and blurry.
The BJP keeps saying that such situations reflect the fact that there is a healthy, inner party democracy in the party. That is just making a virtue out of necessity. For the last few years, strong chief ministers from the party, Yeddyurappa, Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh have been running their states like fiefdoms. In the past, Uma Bharti ran havoc with the party, when she was the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.
This is not a reflection of inner party democracy, but an absence of a morally tenable leadership at the top. The BJP insists this is still a desirable situation as compared to that of the Congress where the top job is reserved for a single family. ?Jab tak khandaan chalega, tab tak party chalegi (Until the family lasts, the party will),? BJP leaders say with ill disguised contempt.
With due respect, if the Congress has the Nehru-Gandhi khandaan, the BJP has its own mothership, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It has been the RSS that had the final say in everything, from leadership to even portfolio distribution in the NDA government.
In a way, the confusion in the BJP also reflects a weakened RSS, which has seen declining membership after the zeal of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement fizzled out, and the latest trauma of the Hindu terror tag has made the organisation more inward-looking and a little less concerned with what?s happening in the BJP.
The last time the RSS intervened in a big way was when it made Nitin Gadkari the party president, keeping the now infamous Delhi Four (or D4) leaders at bay. Gadkari, a regional leader from Maharashtra, took nearly two years to get Uma Bharti to join the party, after repeated attempts to wear down Shivraj Singh Chouhan?s reservations. His inability to deal strongly with leaders who he had looked up to with awe in the past just proves that leadership is attained, not granted.
So, what is the way forward now? Believe it or not, the BJP is on a cusp of a great opportunity to do something that hasn?t been done in Indian politics?except for a very brief time in the Congress?which is to elect a leader from amongst themselves in a true demonstration of inner party democracy.
Naysayers look at Indian political parties as opposed to inner party democracy. The Congress has dynasty, the socialists have also veered that way, the Left has opaque grooming programmes, which are a little better than dynasty, but only just.
In the past, Vajpayee was a natural born leader who was groomed by seniors, and deferred to by cohorts and the younger lot. The next generation needs to do just that. They have to choose the first among equals. It doesn?t matter that almost all the top leaders in the party today belong to the same cohort and began life in politics together. Someone has to break away from the herd, the sooner the better.
nistula.hebbar@expressindia.com