In a remarkably short time the shifting sands of Indian politics have brought about a change of fortunes between the country’s two mainstream parties, the Congress and the BJP. Until only the other day the principal Opposition party — though virtually leaderless and a parody of the “party with a difference” it once claimed to be — was on the offensive against the “scam-smothered” and “paralysed” Congress, the core of the ruling United Progressive Alliance. The latter was on the back foot.
Regardless of what its leaders, including chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and ministers such as Bellary Reddy, had been doing in Bengaluru, the BJP disrupted the entire Monsoon Session of Parliament over the issue of corruption. Its undeclared but obvious hope was that the revelation of a scandal a day would give it ample ammunition to keep the graft issue alive right up to the 2014 general election.
For a while it seemed as if luck was smiling on the BJP strategists who look upon themselves as mini Machiavellis. For, even though the Anna movement that had aroused the middle class against ubiquitous corruption had slackened, a breakaway faction of it, led by Arvind Kejriwal, soon appeared on the scene.
Since Mr Kejriwal’s first target was Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and the next Salman Khurshid, the jubilant BJP was quick to jump on his bandwagon and demand an inquiry into Mr Vadra’s enormously lucrative real estate deals with the DLF and the Congress government of Haryana. Promptly, the Congress denounced Mr Kejriwal as a BJP “agent”. Almost immediately thereafter, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy’s charge against Mrs Gandhi and her son Rahul of loaning `90 crore of the AICC funds to Associate Journals Ltd. exhilarated the BJP. But then the lightning struck, with Mr Kejriwal taking the lid off the alleged wrongdoings of the BJP president, Nitin Gadkari, through his companies, many of them dubious or even of doubtful existence. A Mumbai slum was the given address of six firms that had invested in Mr Gadkari’s principal company, Purti. None of them could be traced anywhere. After stoutly denying all the charges against him, Mr Gadkari sought a toehold on the moral high ground by offering to face an inquiry. His cohorts chanted that Mr Vadra would not dare make the same offer. But this did not help because, in popular perception, the boot was now on the other leg. The focus had by then shifted from the Congress bigwigs to the BJP chief, already assured of a second term even at the cost of amending the party constitution.
At this juncture, a bigger misfortune befell the over-confident Mr Gadkari. While the Congress was totally united in rejecting every charge against its leaders, especially members of the Gandhi family, daring the accusers to “prove” their allegations and thus going on the offensive as the best form of defence, the once highly disciplined BJP suddenly split wide over Mr Gadkari’s future. There is no point going over the well-known sequence of events since the Jethmalani duo of father and son first demanded that the party president must resign at once. Suffice it to say that even though the Nagpur-based Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — which is to the saffron party what 10 Janpath is to the Congress — browbeat the BJP’s core committee to reaffirm “full faith” in Mr Gadkari the demand for his ouster within the party has been growing. A comment by M.G. Vaidya, variously described as an RSS ideologue and a distinguished journalist, has put the cat among the pigeons. Indeed, fellow columnist Virendra Kapoor, whose worst enemies won’t accuse him of anti-BJP bias, has written that the party is “ trying to commit hara-kiri”.
By contrast, the Congress and the government led by it that seemed dysfunctional until the last week of October, despite the announcement of “big bang” reforms, has shown signs of coming back to life. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “new-look” ministerial team is certainly an improvement over the previous one. But he should not remain oblivious of the fact that at least one newly inducted Cabinet minister is under the scanner for alleged misuse of wakf funds and a new minister of state has been facing heinous charges since the 1980s. And surely the Prime Minister’s Office needs a minister of state better aware of his/her responsibilities than the current incumbent, V. Narayanasamy.
Vastly more important and far-reaching is the support that Mrs Gandhi and her son have at last lent to the government’s reforms, some of which would certainly add to the already heavy burdens on the aam aadmi by whom the Congress swears. On this vital question the party and the government were on the same page first at the rally on Delhi’s Ramlila Ground that, too, was the first of its kind and needs to be repeated all over the country, not just in the national capital, if the difficult message is to be communicated to the people.
The party-government joint commitment to reforms, notwithstanding the unpopularity of some of them, became more explicit at the Samvad Baithak of 35 Congress ministers and an equal number of party leaders at Surajkund on the outskirts of New Delhi. To be sure, some of the participants voiced the worry of the Congress ranks about the increase in diesel prices and reduction in the number of subsidised cylinders of cooking gas. But everybody fell in line when the Congress president told the gathering that there were “compulsions” for doing what is proposed. Even defence minister A.K. Antony toned down his earlier reservations and stated that he was “not against reforms” but wanted them to be “introduced with a human face”.
At both Ramlila Ground and the Surajkund conclave a clear attempt was made to project Rahul Gandhi as part of the leadership trinity, together with his mother and the Prime Minister. Yet, his precise role remains ambiguous.