BJP Vs BJP

A state of affairs exemplified by the plight of bjp general secretary K.N. Govindacharya, in-charge of the state for the elections. For example, he is currently engaged in frantically revising Kalyan Singh’s campaign itinerary to suit all factions. That’s because the chief minister is refusing to put in an appearance in the Etah-Mainpuri-Farrukhabad belt where his strongest supporter and sitting MP from Farrukhabad, Swami Sachidanand Sakshi, has upped and left the bjp and is carrying on a virulent anti-Vajpayee campaign (see interview). In the name of Kalyan Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav, the "true saviours of the backwards", no less! Yet the bjp brass knows that Kalyan is crucial if it wants to keep the Lodh and obc vote in its kitty, and he is being deployed in other areas of the "obc belt" like Mathura, Agra and Mirzapur. Such is the infighting in the state bjp that Kalyan is refusing to campaign in Aligarh, his home district, because a detractor has been renominated. While the strong anti-incumbency ire of the voters of Kanpur and the hills of Uttarakhand has ensured that the bjp brass is finding ways of keeping Kalyan away from these areas for the duration of the campaign. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The official version, in Govindacharya’s words, is that there’s a "feel-good factor in the air (thanks to Vajpayee’s performance as PM)". At about the same time, a prominent dissident was telling correspondents in Lucknow that "we will have to pay for Kalyan’s high-handedness." While the bjp brass was claiming at least partial success in quelling the infighting, the lid was well and truly blown the day the bjp’s list of candidates was announced. Of the 57 winners in the ’98 polls, five sitting MPs (mostly Kalyan loyalists, including Sakshi) were dumped. The CM struck back by managing to effect a shift in constituency for some followers, but his detractors ensured that his son Rajvir Singh, mafia boss-turned-mlc Ajit Singh and controversial Lucknow corporator Kusum Rai weren’t considered as nominees despite his strong recommendations. Kalyan loyalists then began a campaign pointing out that of 52 repeated candidates, five had won the election by less than 10,000 votes and that they too should have been dropped.

The effect of these no-holds-barred intra-party battles is showing. The party had lost the Sultanpur seat even before the contest began because the nomination of Kalyan-loyalist Satyadeo Singh was rejected by the returning officer on September 15. Singh’s supporters hold that despite the Govindacharya’s "human error" argument, the fact is that the party did not send the bjp symbol in time. That D.B. Rai, the sitting bjp MP, was denied the ticket on Kalyan’s say has only made things murkier.

Then there is Sakshi, who’s joined the SP after being denied renomination by the bjp. He minces no words as he crisscrosses the Lodh-obc-dominated belt in and around Farrukhabad in a helicopter, rallying support for the unlikely duo of Kalyan and Mulayam. "Agar tum mard ke bacche ho, to keh do kisi ek manch se, ‘Jai Shri Ram’ (If you are a man, then stand on a platform and say ‘Jai Shri Ram’)," he taunts Vajpayee at every public meeting, promising that "main uski tehrvi manaunga (I’ll finish him)".

Defending the swami is no less than the Lucknow-based Kalyan Fan Association: "There was nothing wrong with Sakshi. His only fault was that he defended Kalyan every time trouble was created for him." The chief minister himself is only willing to say that he won’t comment on Sakshi because he is no longer in the party.

Vajpayee loyalist and minister Lalji Tandon claims that "such issues" will have no effect. But, says, Ram Kumar Shukla, president of the Kalyan Fan Association and a former bjp mla from Lucknow: "The bjp leadership will have to pay for this (anti-Kalyan) bias". The CM himself has given enough indications that he’s a reluctant participant in the Vajpayee-or-bust bjp campaign. His perfunctory appearance with the prime minister on September 7, when Vajpayee was in Lucknow to file his nomination, and his absence from the get-together hosted by Tandon in Vajpayee’s honour later in the day only illustrate this further.

"Why should Kalyan be at Tandon’s beck and call? He represents a section in the bjp which suffers from Mayawati moh (the urge to befriend Mayawati) so that the bjp base of upper castes and her Dalit support make things easier. They cannot stomach the spread of the bjp within the obcs which has ensured the CM’s chair for a backward leader," adds a close aide of the chief minister. Tandon’s retort is that "it is such remarks that create rifts within the party".

But the effect of these clashes is likely to be serious for the bjp. With Farrukhabad as the epicentre, the western half of the state is the worst affected. Senior party leaders concede that the party’s prospects in constituencies like Etah, Etawah, Mainpuri, Firozabad and Farrukhabad have dimmed considerably due to this factor.

Then there are constituencies where either the CM or his detractors seem uninterested in getting the party nominee elected because he/she belongs to the opposite camp. For instance, the party candidate from Aligarh, Sheila Gautam, is at loggerheads with the local party president, Kirpal Singh. Constituencies such as Sitapur and Kheri are feeling the effect of the machinations of Kalyan aide and former minister Rajendra Kumar Gupta, himself a candidate from Kheri, say the CM’s opponents. He is alleged to be busy plotting the defeat of the party’s sitting (anti-Kalyan) MP from Sitapur, Janardan Misra.

The choice of candidates in some seats is also doing considerable damage to the bjp’s prospects. For example, a powerful group of Thakurs, including block pramukhs and pradhans, defected to the Congress as soon as Arun Nehru replaced Ashok Singh, a Thakur, as the party nominee in Rae Bareli. Unpopular leaders such as three-term MP from Kanpur, Jagat Veer Singh Dron, are being given a rough ride by their potential voters. Dron, for example, was made to stand in the middle of a garbage heap and address the locals and had cowdung flung on him as he tried to flee.

Within the bjp, the debate is whether "Atal’s image" will see them through in spite of Kalyan and a waning Kargil euphoria. Kalyan loyalists claim that if their leader hadn’t been humiliated by the party, his obc base would have ensured a resounding victory for the bjp. In fact, the CM repeatedly tells the media that "everybody should get the credit for the party’s success and if we fail, everybody should shoulder the responsibility as we believe in collective leadership". His opponents in the party naturally charge him with preparing the ground for absolving himself of any blame if the party performs poorly in the state.

Of course, the real worry for the bjp is that if the divisions within come into play on voting day, the "Sonia effect" might mean major trouble. Senior party leaders have been saying that even a shift of votes to the Congress of 10 to 12 per cent will get that party only 16 to 18 per cent of the popular vote (up from around 6 per cent last time). And while this may enable the Congress to pick up a few seats, it will also make it easier for the bjp to emerge the winner (if by default) in a four-cornered contest between the Congress, bjp, SP and the bsp. The worry in the bjp is that the condition of their own party and the popular mood against the state government has provided a window of opportunity for the opposition.