The Gujarat imbroglio has cast a long shadow over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it gears up to face the next Lok Sabha elections. That the lesson has been well-learnt is obvious from the fact that the central leadership of party, ever so used to having its diktat followed by the state units, succumbed to the Uttar Pradesh leaders' demands that the parry withdraw support from the Mayawati government.
At a closed door meeting just five days before the Gujarat crisis erupted, the BJP top brass -- L.K. Advani, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Murli Manohar Joshi and S.S.Bhandari--had told Uttar Pradesh leaders Kalyan Singh and Kalraj Mishra in no uncertain terms that the party must carry on supporting the Mayawati government till at least the Lok Sabha elections.
The coup against the Mulayam Singh Yadav government and the installation of Mayawati as Chief minister in June this year with the BJP's support was an orchestrated move on the BJP'S part to enlarge its vote bank. That is, to shed its Brahmin Bania image and send out a message of being pro-Dalit. But the state leaders were not keen on the idea once they succeeded in ousting their bete noire Mulayam Singh. And even though the central leaders did not believe Kalyan Singh could do a Vaghela on them, the risks were not worth taking.
"Of late we have been the victim of our enormous capacity to overshoot. We absolutely went overboard in our projection of the likely advantage from the Uttar Pradesh alliance which was largely aimed at removing the Mulayam Singh government," says a party general secretary. But the withdrawal of support within four months only showed that the party gets carried away more by rhetoric than by ground realities and objective assessments. The sip also realised that the alliance did not ensure a transfer of the Dalit base to the party. And the displeasure among the BJP rank and file at the ground level could prove more damaging. They are now counting on Kalyan Singh's high profile image.
Part of the reason for the shattering of the new alliance, of course, was that BSP chief Kanshi Ram foresaw the dangers which the relationship with the BJP could cause to his own constituency of Dalits. The BSP in the last few days had been exhibiting a new assertiveness--the Periyar mela in Lucknow being a case in point--which only increased the sense of unease among the state leaders. The shadow boxing started in full earnest thereafter with Kalyan Singh repeatedly underscoring that the BSP could not take his party's support for granted and the BSP reiterating that it would not be bound by the BJP'S diktats and daring the latter to withdraw support.
"It was the BSP'S decision not to accept the BSP's diktats (that led to the crisis). They wanted five of their members nominated to the state legislative council," charges Kanshi Ram. "It is a figment of his imagination. Why did he not make the allegation before our decision to withdraw support," retorts Kalraj Mishra, president of the BJP's State unit. Mishra listed several irregularities in government deals, including the grant of distillery licences, sale of sugar mills, deliberate insults heaped on Lord Rama--the ruling deity of the party's two successful election campaigns in the past--confrontation with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad on the Krishna Janmabhoomi issue in Mathura, government refusal to grant permission to prosecute police personnel involved in the rape of Uttarakhand activists, and the blatant transfer and postings of officials In the state. It cited these as the cause of the party's volte-face.
Post-Mayawati developments, however, hold little cheer for the BJP. While the Governor has put the Assembly under suspended animation much before the air's pro-Dalit Image could be established, the Congress has crept in through the backdoor. The only way the BJP can now hope to gain power is by engineering defections which will mean yet another compromise on its objective of clean politics.
But Mulayam Singh and a section of the Congress see in the Governor's refusal to dissolve the assembly and order fresh elections a move on Narasimha Rao's part to strike a deal with the BJP, if the electoral outcome demands at a later stage. The Congress' reluctance to form a government in alliance with Shankersinh Vaghela in Gujarat only shows that Rao does not want to destroy the BJP. "Rao and Vajpayee are the two greatest friends working towards a common goal. That will come out in the open after the next elections which might return a hung Parliament," says a cabinet minister.
Advani's election as party president for the second term and Suresh Mehta's as chief minister in Gujarat might have given an impression that the BJP is once again unanimous on major issues. But what remains to be seen is how the central leadership will tackle the likely growth of more autonomous and aggressive state leaders.
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