The return of the firebrand Uma Bharti, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, to the BJP on Tuesday after an interval of over five years is likely to give the beleaguered saffron party a shot in the arm. Since she was obliged to leave the party in 2005 after questioning L.K. Advani’s endorsement of Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a “secular” politician, the saffron-robed Ms Bharti made several unsuccessful attempts
to return to the fold, but her efforts were thwarted by senior BJP leaders of her generation who were both envious of her popularity with the rank and file and afraid of her potential to be in the forefront of the leadership once the Vajpayee-Advani era had ended. That she has now been invited back to the party by its current chief — a culturally non-metropolitan, regional leader trusted by the RSS but no favourite of the party’s other power-brokers — when the BJP is going through one of its worst crises in decades, speaks for itself. The key task before the BJP is to make a mark in next year’s Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
The party organisation in the state is faction-ridden, its core support has dissipated, and the party is bereft of a leader with charisma or Hindutva-inspired appeal or credibility. On all these counts, Ms Bharti fits the bill perfectly. If the caste cauldron is to be taken into account, the “sadhvi” is from the influential backward caste of Lodhs which had given the state a BJP chief minister in Kalyan Singh earlier. With Mr Singh ousted from the party some years ago, there was no backward caste leader worth the name left in the BJP leadership structure in UP. Although Ms Bharti is from the Khajuraho region of Madhya Pradesh, this belt abuts UP and Ms Bharti is well known as a political personality of the Lodh caste in UP as well. In charisma terms, the sadhvi from Khajuraho can be said to be the equal of any other political leader of the state, including chief minister Mayawati. If the so-called “secular” vote splits three ways among the BSP, SP and the Congress, and the BJP is able to retrieve some of its backward class and brahmin votes, much of the credit would likely be due to Ms Bharti.
However, like some other charismatic figures, the former MP chief minister is also widely seen as a temperamental figure who has the potential to be a divisive influence at the leadership level. Many believe, for instance, that Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP’s current CM in Madhya Pradesh, cannot breathe easy if Ms Bharti is able to recover her lost space in the party leadership structure. Nevertheless, the party president has reposed confidence in her. For now that is what counts. At the level of symbolism in the times of Baba Ramdev, Ms Bharti’s return could not have come at a more opportune time for the BJP. Even as the party’s top leadership backed the yoga teacher’s recent protest and decided to go in for a token fast in his support, Ms Bharti went straight to the heart of the matter. She arrived at the yoga guru’s ashram in Hardwar to offer him felicitations and moral support. From the point of view of the sympathisers of the Baba, who in significant numbers are thought to be drawn from the ranks of the Hindu right, a stronger hand could not have been played to back their guide. This has every chance of being counted as an electoral plus when the time comes. On her part, Ms Bharti might serve her own and her party’s cause best if she consciously avoids ruffling feathers even as the party quietly celebrates the return of the prodigal daughter.