Activist gadfly in BJP ointment

Whatever Arvind Kejriwal’s intentions and future prospects are, he has triggered a storm which is taking in its sweep the son-in-law of the first family, Robert Vadra, law minister Salman Khurshid and Nitin Gadkari, the BJP president.

While the Congress Party reacted with all guns blazing in the first instance only to realise its folly, Mr Khurshid lost his cool and Mr Gadkari’s reaction has been to lie low while his partymen batted for him.
Of all the revelations made, Mr Gadkari’s might prove to be the most damaging because it makes nonsense of the party’s onslaught on the Congress on the corruption plank and poses elemental issues for the BJP vis-a-vis the leadership line-up for the 2014 general election. Above all, the nature of the charges against the BJP party president being what they are, it has upset the timetable of the party’s mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in unveiling the anointing of the candidate for the Prime Minister’s Office.
Until the Gadkari episode burst on the scene, the RSS seemed to have decided on Narendra Modi as the candidate for the prime ministerial stakes, despite its many reservations. But realising that he was by no means a favourite of many of the party’s leaders, the RSS wanted to be careful in announcing its choice. Mr Gadkari’s inevitable resignation from the party presidency, whenever it is announced, means that the RSS will have to reveal its hand early. The RSS’ one option is to nominate a leader of the ilk of Murli Manohar Joshi for the BJP presidency. Otherwise, the shadow of L.K. Advani on the two main contenders, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, will remain to muddy the waters.
Mr Modi has already paid his obligatory visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur and has expectedly maintained a discreet silence on the issue while basking in the unexpected gift from the British government of resuming relations with him and the state of Gujarat after the 2002 riots and the state’s perceived role in it in the form of the UK high commissioner calling on him. Coming as the visit did before the state Assembly elections in which Mr Modi is expected to perform well, it was an ideal background for the Chota Sardar, as his acolytes like to call him, the Sardar of course being the iconic Vallabhbhai Patel of the Independence generation.
Mr Modi’s ability to sway voters in Gujarat is not the issue; rather it is his national acceptability, in view of his record in the 2002 riots which have, after a decade, yielded the first substantive convictions, including that of a minister in his Cabinet and the high profile head of the Bajrang Dal, very much a part of the Sangh Parivar. Supporters of the BJP contend that the party will not get Muslim votes anyway, but there are also other minorities, particularly Christians, who are put out by the activities of the Parivar. The latter are particularly upset over the depredation by the Parivar in Orissa and will affect the pattern of the voting in the Northeast.
Mr Modi is of course very much an RSS man as is Mr Gadkari, and after the era of Atal Behari Vajpayee and the relegation of Mr Advani, the RSS is the driver of BJP politics. For a time, for opportunistic reasons, the RSS had emphasised its apolitical nature and its basis as a social organisation, but that pretence, always treated with scepticism, has given way to the organisation taking muscular control of the BJP, instead of relying upon its members acting on its behalf in key party positions.
Traditional BJP leaders, chafing as they are at the new assertiveness of the RSS in its affairs, have no option but to grin and bear it. Logistically, the RSS has always provided the BJP with the army of volunteers and organisers in contesting elections, and it is on record that when the organisation has been miffed by the choices made by the BJP, it signalled its displeasure by withdrawing the bulk of its cadres from poll duty. There is an edge to the desperation of the two Leaders of the Opposition in the two Houses of Parliament because it is perhaps their last chance to throw their hats in the leadership ring. Some punters might be betting on Mr Modi’s vulnerabilities and the contest between the other two main aspirants cancelling themselves out to yield place the old warhorse. Mr Advani, as a compromise.
Whatever the twists and turns of the leadership stakes in the BJP, Mr Kejriwal has been instrumental in creating a major problem for the party. For one thing, it will reinforce the public perception that it is not only the ruling Congress that is corrupt but the main Opposition party as well. In the public mind, the whole of the political class stands condemned and people are not inclined to distinguish one party or politician from the other.
In retrospect, the movement launched by Anna Hazare a year ago, which yielded limited results because of the unrealistic sweep of his revolutionary ambit in the shape of an all-powerful Lokpal trumping the very system of parliamentary democracy, has spawned a useful by-product. Mr Hazare has disassociated himself from Mr Kejriwal going political, but the latter’s tactic of naming and shaming politicians for alleged misdemeanours has yielded results. What is less clear is where Mr Kejriwal goes from here in fulfilling his political ambitions? It is one thing to be a gadfly but quite another to build a new political party, given the scale of the organisation and finances required. For all his other qualities, Mr Kejriwal does not have his mentor’s charisma, part of which flows from his lack of political ambition. Perhaps Mr Hazare was in two minds about the future of his movement. For a time, he flirted with Opposition parties whose leaders shared the stage with him. But in the end he realised that playing politics was another ball game.