In Panindranath Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, the BJP has lost perhaps its only credible, young, national leader from the South. Rangas death is both a blow to the partys short-term prospects in Tamil Nadu, and a long-term setback at the Centre.
Because Ranga was that rare commodity, a minister who enjoyed the confidence of both L.K. Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee and had friends in the rss as well. A testimony to Rangas ability to play both sides of the fence, which was just the ticket to prosperity in the existent bjp set-up. It was a mutual dependence - the party rescued him from political vanvas and he paid it back in full measure by emerging as one of its very few experienced administrators and skilled troubleshooters. He was made to order - young, popular, bright, efficient and apparently free of crass ambition.
Advani inducted him into the bjp only days before the 1998 general election and Ranga remained a faithful acolyte, cultivating the "chacha-bhatija" relationship he had with former boss P.V. Narasimha Rao. Vajpayee, too, quickly came to rely on him, impressed with his efficiency and intelligence and beguiled by his affectionate nature. Whenever a portfolio fell vacant, be it Coal, Law, Food Processing or Parliamentary Affairs, Vajpayee would hand over the temporary charge to Ranga.
With Pramod Mahajan deliberately withdrawing from the limelight and toning down his role in party affairs, it was Ranga who slipped into the role of fund-raiser, negotiator and pointsman for the party. With only two-and-a-half years in the bjp, as opposed to the life-long association of other "young" leaders like Mahajan, Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley (or even Sushma Swarajs dozen or so years in the fold), he consciously refrained from pushing himself forward or stepping on sensitive toes.
He went about cultivating friends, quietly. At the bjp headquarters, the buzz was that the house next door - 9, Ashoka Road - allotted to Ranga but occupied by pracharaks, had been refurbished, furnished and funded by the young minister. Following the controversy over his palatial but patently illegal home at Anant Ram Dairy, he discreetly moved his official residence elsewhere and Jaitley took over the house.
Like Jaitley, Ranga was the youthful, urbane face of the party - a successful, sophisticated professional, comfortable with e-speak and the new economy. Despite the (admittedly big) handicap of his Congress background, he had many advantages over his party colleagues. Primarily, the fact that he was from the south, where the bjp is woefully short of leaders, had a mass base (at least in two Lok Sabha constituencies) and an impressive political lineage. His engaging personality and excellent pr skills made things easier for him. He pursued friendships, according each interaction an intimacy and warmth which eventually translated into personal loyalty.
If you were a smoker and a journo or a young politico, chances were Ranga would have bummed a cigarette (Wills Navy Cut, unless desperate) off you. If you were female and personable, a little harmless flirtatious banter was inevitable. Rarely indiscreet, he nevertheless managed to come across as being straight-from-the-shoulder. His frequent lapses into four-letter terminology never caused offense.
And he had his own share of detractors. Some in his adoptive party, but mainly among his out-of-work contemporaries in the Congress, who couldnt quite stomach his success in the bjp and frequently decried his ideological flexibility.
With some justice. The man Indian industry last week mourned and hailed for his aggressive pro-reform stance was the first Congressman to have criticised Manmohanomics. Then a minister of state in Raos council, he hadnt quite shaken off his socialist moorings and introduced the first hint of strain in his relationship with "uncle" Rao by speaking out against liberalisation. A greater irony followed last year, when the former trade union leader successfully took on the striking Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board (upseb) employees and forced a capitulation.
Joining the bjp seemed an enormous - and cynical - ideological leap for a man whose grandfather had been a member of Jawaharlal Nehrus cabinet and his father, first a communist and then a member of Indira Gandhis cabinet. His break with Rao came after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the partys subsequent poor performance in assembly elections. Ranga, who had been Raos negotiator with the vhp during the run-up to the demolition, felt that the old man was now on his way out and spoke up against him, only to find that he had miscalculated. He was demoted and then eased out altogether.
At a loose end, he aligned with the equally disgruntled N.D. Tewari and Arjun Singh whod floated the Congress(T). That phase, he was to say later, stripped him of any illusions he had regarding the secular credentials of the Congress leadership, whether it was Rao or those who opposed him. He saw Arjun Singh & Co up close and didnt particularly like it. To add to his troubles, he lost the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, after a 12-year stint in Parliament. There was no going back to the Congress, however. Advani played godfather, shaping his career in the bjp.
Ranga was an asset to both party and government, in that he was the most forward-looking Power minister the country has had in decades. In fact, he was almost too ambitious, unveiling a perspective plan all the way up to 2012. Bureaucrats found in him a minister they could not bamboozle. His face-off with ntpc chairman Rajinder Singh is now the stuff of legend in the Power ministry. They respected him but the Class III and IV staff genuinely liked him. His grasp was phenomenal; he could conduct simultaneous conversations on different subjects in four languages: English, Hindi, Bengali and Tamil. A leader for all seasons and regions.
