March 1, 1999

Just as it made peace with demanding allies there is fresh trouble for the Vajpayee Government as Chautala walks out and a feud erupts in the parivar over Bhandari.

By Ashok K Damodaran

It doesn't need an expert to tell that the political blood groups of Laloo Prasad Yadav and Lal Krishna Advani don't match. One is a rustic who has managed to convert his garrulity into something of a virtue; the other, an austere man with a reputation for primness. Yet, last week, the twain did meet.

When Sunder Singh Bhandari, a long time RSS pracharak with little administrative experience, was appointed Bihar governor last April by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government, Laloo was quick to question the Centre's motive in sending "an RSS stooge" to the Patna Raj Bhavan. Last Tuesday, Advani's seemingly off-the-cuff observation about "giving Bihar an apolitical and non-partisan administration" not only embarrassed the Government, of which he is the home minister, but also provided fresh ammunition to Laloo in his battle against the Centre. "We have been saying this from the beginning. I am grateful to Advani for supporting my stand," said Laloo.

For Prime Minister Vajpayee, the week was supposed to end in a bang of achievement with the bus ride across the Wagah border into Pakistan. Instead, two days before he was to embark on the historic trip, there were red faces all around. Humiliated and enraged by Advani's remarks, Bhandari packed his bags and caught the first train to Delhi. Once in the Capital, he spurned gubernatorial perks to drive in a private car to spend the day at the south Delhi residence of his confidante Poornima Sethi, the former Delhi minister.

Ironically, when the Centre sacked the Rabri Devi government on February 12, "lack of governance" was among the reasons cited. With the governor sulking in Delhi and the Centre yet to appoint advisers to the Raj Bhavan even a week after the state came under President's rule, the pretense of administration that the former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) government provided was conspicuous by its absence.

It was the kind of foul-up the BJP could have done without on the eve of the budget session of Parliament. Though the issue was later sorted out and Bhandari agreed to continue after two meetings with Vajpayee and another with Advani, it will be a tough task for the party to deflect opposition attacks. When the crisis first broke, senior leaders were at a loss to explain the latest embarrassment coming just a day after Om Prakash Chautala announced that his four-member Indian National Lok Dal in Parliament was pulling out of the coalition. Officially, BJP spokesman M. Venkaiah Naidu took the safe route, saying the governor's replacement was an "administrative matter that concerned the Government and not the party". But it was clear that both the Government and the party were writhing in self-inflicted pain.

Even the most ardent admirers of Bhandari are not likely to credit him with any degree of administrative acumen. Bhandari's numerous statements in the past 11 months may have made him look suspiciously like a Central agent whose agenda was to destabilise the Rabri government but even BJP leaders concede that he was hardly the best bet to make the state conducive for their party in a future election. A loner at the best of times, Bhandari's equations with both Vajpayee and Advani have been less than cordial.

But one he quit in a huff, support was overflowing for Bhandari. Pressure started to build on the Government to retain him in Patna. Six BJP MPs sent in their "resignations" to Vajpayee in protest and a dozen party MLAs in Bihar also echoed such sentiments, saying Bhandari was a victim of the "machinations" of a group of people around the home minister.

As the crisis began to build up, the BJP factional politics came to the fore. There were even concerted attempts to target Advani, with his critics digging deep into newspaper files to do an audit of the various utterances of Advani that have embarrassed the Government. Sources in the party point out that in the recent past Advani's statements have left Vajpayee and his other colleagues squirming. There is some truth in it. Only a day before he provoked Bhandari, Advani had, while addressing a BJP women's wing meeting in Jhinjhouli, Haryana, taunted "three-and four-MP parties for bullying the Government by issuing periodic threats of withdrawal of support". The next day Chautala announced the withdrawal of his party's support, though late last week Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who took on the mediator's role, appeared confident of wooing the Haryana leader back into the fold.

But Advani baiters recall various other statements aimed at showing up the home minister in less than flattering light. His defence of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal -- "I know them, there are no criminal elements" -- following the attacks on Christians in Orissa and Gujarat and his announcement detailing receipts of foreign funds by Christian missionaries are all being thrown back at Advani to paint him as someone who just wants to upstage everyone else on the next day's front pages.

Even the furore over Bhandari could have been avoided if Advani had not chosen to speak out of turn. The decision to appoint a new governor was taken at a cabinet meeting held at the behest of Union ministers George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar of the Samata Party, who wanted a greater say in the administration of the state. The two ministers were particularly upset after Bhandari recently ordered an administrative shake-up to, as he said, "balance the lopsided representations that existed in favour of backward castes", a move that would have rattled their own vote banks.

Advani's mistake perhaps lay in the fact that instead of taking the cabinet proposals to Rashtrapati Bhavan, he chose to speak to the media. Worse, it was the choice of his words -- "apolitical, non-partisan" -- that compounded the matter. Party leaders, of course, were at pains to point out that Advani had been misquoted in the media. "Laloo and his partymen were very harsh on Bhandari, even using intemperate language while talking about him," said a senior BJP leader, referring to an RJD leader's recent outburst about Bhandari's physical handicap. Others pointed to a bureaucratic conspiracy. "The Home Ministry is the only department where the officers are a leftover from the previous regime. It is a conspiracy hatched by the bureaucracy to tarnish the BJP," said another leader. But such fig leafs could not cover up the red faces in the party and in the Government. "It is an embarrassment that could have been avoided," said Naidu.

Late last week, party leaders were hopeful that the crisis would blow over. Bhandari appeared determined to quit and not accept an alternative assignment, but pressure was being mounted on the Government to retain him. After a meeting at the BJP's Ashoka Road headquarters, party chief Kushabhau Thakre conveyed to Vajpayee that Bhandari had to be persuaded to stay at any cost.

It's a prospect that, among others, Laloo may not relish. The Bhandari episode, which brought the infighting within the BJP to the fore, gladdened Laloo's heart. But he will clearly have to wait and see if his constituency will firm up in the months ahead or become increasingly indifferent to him, as is being widely predicted. The Congress, which at the moment is on a sticky wicket in Bihar, could well be tempted to bail out Laloo. But then, the RJD also remains the Congress' most formidable adversary in Bihar and, in the long run, it may not be in the party's interest to strengthen Laloo.

For Vajpayee, every solution seems to herald the arrival of a new problem. Only a fortnight ago, he was sitting pretty, having made peace with two formidable women in the alliance -- the AIADMK's J. Jayalalitha and the Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee. In fact, the day a petulant Bhandari sulked, Mamata, for the first time in 11 months, "predicted" that the Vajpayee Government would complete its full term. Vajpayee's worst fears centre on the fact that few of Mamata's earlier predictions have come true.

--with Sanjay Kumar Jha

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