The LK Advani Saga

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It was almost a fortnight ago that a very senior political commentator met LK Advani and compared him to Pandit Nehru in class and stature.

The gentleman also made sure that he told Mr Advani that “Pandit Nehru was not only the tallest leader in the Congress party but also its worst critic when it came to dealing with vexed issues and minced no words in speaking his mind”.

In the same way, Mr Advani had also become the tallest leader of the BJP by now and he should follow the same path as it would rise his stature higher and above board. He should clearly voice his concerns as the patriarch of BJP and enhance his stature and acceptance across the rank and file of the BJP.

Mr Adavni appears to have taken the political commentator’s advice a bit too seriously and has already started practicing that. His latest plain speak is the praise of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chavan over Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and his model of “inclusive Development”.

Right from BJP President to all and sundry BJP leaders have been at pains to clarify how “media misunderstood the real intent of Advaniji’s statement”. But the damage appears to have already been done and knives are out in the open at various levels within the saffron brigade. !!

What Mr Advani perhaps forgot to understand that Pandit Nehru was a Titan, the unquestionable leader in the Congress party and the Prime Minister apart from being a world figure who’s Statesmanship, erudition and personality had few parallels in the contemporary world stage? Mr Advani’s political life and the journey, on the other hand, has been rather chequered and passed through many tunnels and tubes of political brinkmanship.

Secondly, Pandit Nehru never hankered for the top post as it came naturally to him as the leader of Indian freedom struggle and by virtue of being India’s First Prime Minister and he continued to remain on that post till his death. For Mr Adavni, that dream has still remained a pipe dream for so long and perhaps would continue to remain in the near future too.

The fact is that every politician in India nurtures the ambition of becoming Prime Minister some day and there is nothing wrong in aspiring for that. The problem starts when a leader puts his personal stakes ahead of the overall interest of the party and in the process, realises that there is nothing worse than ambition thwarted and then he starts playing all kinds of games- fair or foul to realize that dream.

Be that 1998 or 1999, Mr Adavni always remained No2 before the charismatic AB Vajpayee. In 2009 Lok Sabha polls again, he put everything at stake but the BJP was comprehensively thrashed and along with that Advani’s personal dream dashed to the ground. He would be turning 86 this November and yet he continues to chase the chimera over the leadership issue when he should be playing elder statesman.

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On the face of it, Advani did not say anything terribly wrong on Shivraj Chauhan issue because it is true that the Gujaratis have been a more progressive and aggressive business community much before Modi came on the political scene. Gujarat is also naturally in an advantageous position because of its Ports and other business establishments than Madhya Pradesh which is a landlocked state.

What made the situation clumsier was the timing of his statement as the whole BJP clan appears to have been hooked and booked by the Modi mania and the praise of Shivraj Singh Chauhan in front of Modi was like a blasphemy. This invited quick barbs from a few quarters and the detractors went to the extent of saying that Advani still nursed his Prime ministerial ambition and was willing to damage the same party he built in the 1980s and 1990s if his own ambitions are to be given the go-by.

His recent overtures to Nitin Gadkari – the same man in whose ouster from the BJP President ship Advani played a lead role was also seen with a magnifying glass and his rivals within the party went to the extent of saying that he was back to the game of “shadow boxing” despite the fact that the BJP rank and file was rooting for Modi for the 2014 LS polls as the party’s Prime Minister. Yet Mr Adavni was allowing his personal predilections to come in the way of rejuvenating the party and playing the spoil sport.

A few BJP leaders also started saying that the real Adavni’s face was emerging as the contender for the top post and this incident was not a freak one perhaps he still feels that  he can be lucky for the third time and he is not going to  allow Modi to have it easy till the last moment.

A closure look Mr Advani’s words and actions during the last few months could clearly reveal that his game of brinkmanship may perhaps take him closer to his biggest goal, thanks to the UPA II government’s blunders and blemishes which have made a common man sick and tired. At the same time, there is also a danger that it could damage the BJP from within at various levels and in different ways.

Yet he would try to force the BJP to do his bidding and fall in line because he still fancies several advantages for himself as compared to Narendra Modi for the top post. He also knows that this would be his last chance and he is faced with just two choices :- wither  play spoilsport and lead his party to another defeat and a round of internal blood-letting, or play the elder statesman and ensure a smooth transition. But his personal ambition is still so intense that he does not want to go down without a fight even at this age.

That is why he seems to be taking and cool and calculated risk to keep himself afloat as the best bet for BJP’s PM candidate. In this context, his biggest advantage or trump card is Bihar chief Minister Nitish kumar who enjoys excellent rapport with Adavni and had flagged off his anti-corruption yatra from Bihar itself.

Nitish Kumar has made no bones about his dislike for Narendra Modi and went to the extent of threatening to walk out of the NDA coalition if Modi was projected as the Prime Minister candidate in 2014.

Adavni also reckons that the majority of  BJP cadre may scoff at him right now as “Tharki Buddha” but it would have no option but to accept him when it came to the question of keeping NDA allies intact as he had a far wider acceptability than modi.

The second reason is the RSS uncertainty over the level and degree of support to Modi as compared to Advani. Advani must also be counting on some degree of backing from the RSS in countering Modi’s sway in the BJP.

In the past, the RSS, at one stage, wanted Advani himself out of the PM race.  But now, it has started reconciling to the fact that Advani could till be more amenable to its view  as compared to Modi who has a knack for dictating his own agenda and who could  even take the Sangh head on if push came to shove.

In addition, Advani sees some glimmer of hope for himself in case of a nearly fractured mandate to NDA in 2014, thanks to division of votes in Uttar pradesh where Modi’s confidant Amit Shah has been made the in charge. That is why he reminds everyone of how Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh has been talking positively about Advani.

But Mulayam’s actual game is to get more upper caste votes in Uttar Pradesh. Advani, on the other hand, knows that Rajnath Singh- Modi combination could spell doom for him in UP.  The BJP also cannot afford to loose too many seats in Bihar. Hence, Adavni’s idea is to probably intend to deny the BJP exactly this advantage because of this confusion and his relevance and importance would remain intact only when the BJP wins less than expected seats in both Bihar and UP and it is when that he could approach Samajwadi Party  to be a partner in the broader coalition which would not be possible with Modi at the helm..

Yet another side of Advani singing  ode to MP Chief Minister could he his fear that he could not perhaps count upon his Gandhinagar seat any more largely because of Modi’s goodwill.  Hence, he may be scouting for a safe seat in Madhya Pradesh somewhere as Gujarat seems less  attractive now and all the more so when he would  project himself against Modi as the  BJP Candidate..

Further , Advani’s final reason for injecting himself into the BJP leadership issue stems from his realization that a section of the central leaders—most without an electoral base—senses a loss of power if Modi enters the picture.

While Arun Jaitley is seen as aligned to Modi and President Rajnath Singh has found his new love in him, others are still warry of him and they have kept their cadres close to their chest. Apart from Sushma Swaraj and Anant Kumar who is known as Advani protégé, Chief Ministers of BJP ruled States would by and large bet for Advani than Modi. Even blow hot and blow cold leaders within BJP like   Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh could finally come around in his support.

Above all, Advani was a key voice behind the ouster of BS Yeddyurappa in Karnataka who enjoyed very equations with Modi. Gadkari mishandled the Karnataka crisis and ended up sending BSY out of the party when all the party needed was to give him a position of power within the party but without the chief minister ship.  At the end, the BJP lost miserably and the BJP leadership in the state is at its lowest ebb.

The BJP’s  National executive, which meets in Goa over the coming weekend, will thus see a lot of shadow-boxing, if not a pitched verbal battle between pro-Modi and anti-Modi groups. It is clear that Advani and Modi will be on opposite sides when it comes to evolving a strategy to reviving the BJP in Karnataka. Moreover, the party would be divided into two or more camps on many issues at a time when it can least afford it.

There is no doubt that the overall mood in the BJP is that it has little option but to opt for Modi. As columnist Swapan Dasgupta wrote in a leading national daily “In reality, the BJP has no real choice but to bite the Modi bullet. Anecdotal evidence—which counts for a great deal in India’s political decision-making—has quite clearly indicated that the BJP’s natural supporters are enthused by Modi in the same way as they were by the Ayodhya issue in 1991 and by Atal Behari Vajpayee’s leadership in 1998 and 1999. More to the point—and this is privately conceded by the leaders of non-NDA parties—the Modi buzz has infected sections that, in the normal course, are not partial to the BJP.”

However, politicos is the game of  brinkmanship, machinations and manifestations and it is that creation of perception which makes the final difference between victory and loss. Advani may have become an Octogenarian by now but his capacity and capability to inflict a huge collateral damage to the BJP can still not be underestimated.

(Posted on June 3, 2013 @ 10.40pm)

(Ajay Jha is a Commentator and Independent Writer and Analyst on Politics, security and Economy of South And West Asia. His email id is: Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com>)

 

1 COMMENT

  1. mr jha although i havent read your entire vierbiage but when you call nehru, who was the biggest womanize and a self-serving politician of free India, as a TITAN, a STATESMAN and go on to say that ‘never hankered for the top post ‘ and ‘it came naturally to him’ I cant help but assume that this is another example of paid media articles and youre a sold out journalist. mr jha if nehru the perv didnt have political ambitions of the maniacal kind there would be no pakistan today!
    get your history right dude!

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