Jan 18, 1999

The Bangalore National Executive meeting marked the subordination of the party to the Government. Despite RSS misgivings, Vajpayee has been given a free hand.

By Stephen David and Harinder Baweja

"The Government will not run the party.
It's the party which will run the Government."
-- A B Vajpayee, at the BJP National Executive in Gandhinagar, May 3, 1998

"While widest consultations are both desirable and necessary,
decisions of the Government are final."
-- A B Vajpayee, at the BJP National Executive in Bangalore, January 3, 1999

There are times it pays to be consistent. There are other times when the past becomes a drag. For Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the New Year was the time to sing a different tune. Having belatedly concluded that there are no prizes for goodness, he chose the BJP National Executive meeting in Bangalore to drive home a simple but powerful message: that the Government, not the party, should be seen to be in command. If the 1995 Mumbai mahasammelan marked Vajpayee's anointment as first among equals, the Bangalore meeting marked his formal, if grudging, coronation by the party. In private and in public, the signal was clear: there is one leader and one power centre. There would be no more "back-seat driving", not from the party and not from the RSS.

Since the proof of the pudding lay in the resolutions, these were suitably modified to project a party and government working in tandem, a far cry from party President Kushabhau Thakre's insistence in Jaipur last August that "the party cannot become, or even be seen to have become, a part of the establishment". Rajya Sabha member K.R. Malkani's swadeshi-tinted draft economic resolution was junked and replaced with one prepared by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. One sentence said it all: "The Government is the best judge of the country's economic situation and is best placed to take appropriate steps ..." It meant a green signal to the contentious Patents and Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) bills and a red card to swadeshi.

Likewise, after National Executive member Arun Jaitley spoke out harshly against the prevailing "opposition mindset of a ruling party", Home Minister L.K. Advani called for the draft political resolution to be changed. Glossing over the November 29 Parliamentary Board statement that blamed the defeat in the three assembly elections on "anti-incumbency" and "price rise", the amended resolution blandly stated, "The outcome of the elections is not a reflection on the performance of the BJP-led Government." The final resolution also deleted a pointed reference to "aggressive proselytisation by some sections of the church" and was categorical in condemning the destruction of churches in Gujarat.

Implicit in the condemnation was the conscious decision to begin disentangling the BJP from the RSS. If former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Sunder Lal Patwa attacked the cussedness of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madan Lal Khurana created a sensation by accusing the RSS leadership of conspiring to topple Vajpayee. Khurana was sharply brought to order by Thakre but his bluntness served a purpose. The BJP came away from Bangalore aware that it would ultimately be judged by its effectiveness in government and not by the extent to which it was true to its original manifesto.

Yet, the shift to realpolitik is not going to be easy. There is the obvious danger of the party abandoning all initiative and leaving everything to the Government. Advani has floated the idea of a Kamaraj plan to ensure that party work gets due importance, but the scheme could end up as an instrument to drop inconvenient ministers. Vajpayee's own impatience with organisational nitty-gritty is well known.

There is also the possibility of a sullen RSS withdrawing all cooperation. At its Patna convention, the RSS-linked Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) decided to intensify its opposition to the Patents and IRA bills. SJM founder Dattopant Thengadi even accused Vajpayee of becoming "a captive of a coterie which doesn't allow him to think rationally". Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Organising Secretary Harendra Kumar compared Vajpayee to Bhisma Pitamah who had joined the Kauravas and, therefore, had to be fought to uphold good.

For a party that has endured on the strength of its distinctiveness, ideology will always be a big draw. For the moment, the purists have grudgingly retreated and given Vajpayee a blank cheque. If he performs, the BJP-RSS relationship will end up being redefined. If, however, the Government falters, the RSS will not wait for the Congress to light the funeral pyre.

-- with Sanjay Kumar Jha

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