Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s political career was cradled in turbulence and has advanced through turmoil. Right from his RSS pracharak days to his deputation to the Gujarat BJP in 1987, through a series of engineered crises via the Sanjay Joshi saga and now the Nitish Kumar conundrum, the more things changed, the more they have remained the same over the years. The simple living pracharak has in a quarter century metamorphosed into a stellar designer dressed politician who is now positioning himself strategically for the prized prime ministerial post. Essentially though, his politics has remained the same: Rise to conquer, provoke to prevail.
Provocation has been the bedrock of Modi’s politics. It was his advertisement campaign in Bihar newspapers during the BJP national meet in Patna in June 2010 that incensed Nitish and set off a chain reaction that almost threw a spanner in the coalition works in a state where polls were due a few months later. Again it is Modi’s reference to the casteist politics of Bihar and UP politicians that provoked JD(U) in general and Nitish in particular to issue a riposte, thus triggering the latest prime ministerial slug-fest between the two NDA coalition partners. Notwithstanding the fact that the Gujarat chief minister is himself a practitioner of fractious caste politics, a media too engrossed in the juicy story of a Modi-Nitish personality clash, for still yonder prime ministerial pluckings, failed to notice what he managed to achieve through his snide provocation. He has extracted an official RSS endorsement for his Prime Ministerial candidature. And it is no mean a personal achievement at a time when he is locked in a grim battle within his own party, both in Gujarat as well as at the national level. The official stamp comes in very handy!
In Gujarat which goes to polls later this year Keshubhai Patel, the BJP patriarch whom Modi outmanoeuvred to replace as chief minister in 2001, is now openly railing against him. Patel had similarly opened a front against him before the 2007 assembly elections but shied away from a straight confrontation. This time, the man has become a magnet attracting support in hordes from his own Patel (Patidar) community besides dissidents within the BJP, including those hurt by the Sanjay Joshi episode. Patel who ranks among the founding fathers of the Jan Sangh in Gujarat has vowed to take the battle to its very end. The old RSS hand did the rounds of the top BJP leaders in Delhi—LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley from June 20-21—knowing fully well that they were incapable of acceding to his demand for replacement of Modi. For all practical purposes his was a trip to bid farewell to the BJP and a few more of the old warhorses are set to follow suit. This in effect means that Modi will have to contend with two rivals, the Congress and a third front spearheaded by the BJP rebels banded under the Mahagujarat Janata Party (MJP) banner hitherto led by Modi’s former MoS, Gordhan Jhadapia. MJP, bolstered by Keshubapa as he is fondly called, hold the potential of cutting into BJP votes.