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Ground Realities, Chivalrous Facade

AS the move to form an alternative government if and when the Vajpayee administration collapses begins to acquire seriousness, it is worth recounting the mood in the BJP a couple of months ago

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Ground Realities, Chivalrous Facade
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AS the move to form an alternative government if and when the Vajpayee administration collapses begins to acquire seriousness, it is worth recounting the mood in the BJP a couple of months ago. During the poll campaign for the 12th Lok Sabha, when Sonia Gandhi's barnstorming tour threatened to push Vajpayee off the front pages, Uttar Pradesh BJP president Rajnath Singh was a worried man. "Atalji" was to commence the crucial UP leg of his campaign and Singh, despite the upbeat facade, was on the phone to mediapersons in Delhi asking them what the reaction to Sonia's travels had been. "Accordingly, we will decide our campaign strategy for UP," he said. The crucial question then—as it is now—was how much acceptability Sonia had with the electorate.

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As it happened, the matter was taken out of his hands with the "Vajpayee jhoot bol rahe hain" barb from Sonia vis-a-vis the BJP leader's pronouncements on the Bofors issue; and critical references to Sonia—till then scrupulously avoided by the current PM—found their way into his speeches for the first time. But even then, there were no personal attacks or innuendoes about her foreign origin. While some in the party put it down to Vajpayee being a "gentleman" who believed in playing by the "rules of the game", it was also clear to the BJP think-tank in Delhi that this tack may actually boomerang. In fact, the BJP seemed to evolve a strategy of letting the lesser minions launch subtle and not-so-subtle personal attacks on Sonia—her Italian birth, lifestyle et al—while the top brass concentrated on making perfectly justifiable political criticisms of the Congress president's "inexperience and immaturity".

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That is what is likely to happen again if the Vajpayee government is toppled and a Congress-led government with Sonia as PM replaces it. BJP leaders, even in private, say they are confident that the Vajpayee government is "not in danger" and point to Sonia's own ambivalence as that of senior Congress leaders such as P.A. Sangma, Madhavrao Scindia and Manmohan Singh on the issue of effecting a coup. If such a scenario does come to pass, however, they are hoping that Sonia will want to be PM. Says one of the few senior BJP leaders not in government: "That is my assessment of this hypothetical situation (of the government being toppled). There will be bloodletting if, say, a loyalist like Arjun Singh is projected at the cost of a mass leader like Sharad Pawar, or vice versa."

The difference between "then and now", a section of the BJP seems to believe, is that while Sonia has shown in some measure that she is serious about her political career and is here to stay, it only means the sotto voce campaign against her personally will be conducted in a low-key manner and aimed mainly at the hardcore conservative constituency which is receptive to the "foreigner" innuendoes. But, perhaps more importantly, the frontal political attacks on her by the BJP leadership will carry more weight now that she is no longer an "unknown political commodity", but a "scheming politician" who "subverted the people's mandate" by not gaining power the kosher (ballot box) way.

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