In the great, wide open of Uttar Pradesh, where theBJP once made history by demolishing a 16th-century mosque, the party may be landing itself into a hole over a CD, now famously disowned by the faithful. Anyone who watches the disc released by a senior leader in the run-up to an assembly election can be in no doubt about its blatantly communal intent. To put it in a nutshell, there are crudely crafted sequences of Muslims engaging in the following activities—planting bombs under cars, tricking Hindus into selling cows and then slaughtering Gaumata, kidnapping Hindu girls and forcing them to convert and to quote verbatim from a dialogue, producing "litters of dogs".
Another view into the subterranean BJP. For those who think of it as just a traditional rightwing party where even some of the hawkish leaders are gaining increasing acceptability in the mainstream, the CD—named Bharat Ki Pukar—is a reminder of the ugly underbelly. It encapsulates all the propaganda that the cadre live by and actually believe. Senior leader Arun Jaitley may look sophisticated every night on TV as he smartly defends the party, but even he admits "all political parties have the loony brigade. Maybe there are a few more in theBJP."
Now, with the threat of an Election Commission reprimand hanging over the party, the spin being given in the Delhi headquarters is that the CD was probably made by an "overzealous" worker out to make a few bucks. And that it was never commissioned or cleared by the leadership. But in Lucknow, veteran leader Keshrinath Tripathi told Outlook that the VCD was produced by the party’s cultural cell. Nevertheless, he hastily adds, "it was yet to be edited and cleared by senior leaders when by mistake someone kept it along with five campaign CDs." Eventually Lalji Tandon, veteran A.B. Vajpayee’s man in Lucknow, released the CD. That is believed to be one of the reasons Vajpayee is in a foul mood and showing no interest in the campaign.
Clearly, the BJP hasn’t learnt that the souffle does not rise more than once. After the Ayodhya high, it’s been downhill for the party in UP. And the only formula it appears to have is to try and create a communal polarisation. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi denies this and glibly says "we were fighting the election on conventional issues like price rise, terrorism and law and order. It is others who can only see the CD."
But there is a distinct nervousness in the party about a possible reprimand. At one point, there were fears that a section of the Congress wanted theBJP’s symbol to be frozen for the last and seventh phase of the ongoing UP election as a reprimand. In the midst of this scare, a controversial advertisement attacking madrassas—with former CM Kalyan Singh’s face on it—created another occasion for the Congress to capitalise on. The ad was released in western UP areas going to the polls in the third phase that includes seats like Rampur, Moradabad, Bareilly and Amroha which have huge Muslim populations. It shows a locality where green flags are hoisted all over with the bannerISI along with the slogan—Kya inka irada pak hai? (Is their intention pure?—with an obvious pun on ‘Pak’). Below this is Kalyan’s face and the officialBJP logo. Impossible for the party to disown this one. So the BJP had no choice but to defend the indefensible.
The furore being created over such communal campaigns should caution the BJP that the absence of its own government at the Centre would mean the party cannot always get away with blatant targeting of minorities or even mass murder—as in Gujarat in 2002.
The BJP’s legal strategy, as devised by Jaitley, has sought to divert attention to the issue of election commissioner Navin Chawla sitting in on any hearing since there was a petition against him in the Supreme Court filed by seniorBJP leader Jaswant Singh. The party got a breather when the next hearing—slated for April 12—was postponed by a week. ButBJP insiders now fear that the EC might—by April 21—actually freeze its symbol for the seventh and final phase.
But then, there were sniggers by some partymen who said an EC reprimand may have in fact helped theBJP save face since there were fears that its UP campaign was not clicking on the ground. In between all the running to and fro to the EC, some jokes too were cracked. Jaitley said his relevance to the party had again been reaffirmed. And Naqvi said he would reply another day when asked if he had converted his Hindu wife to Islam. All the Muslims who have made successful careers in theBJP espousing Hindu nationalism share a common trait. They all married Hindu women. From the late Sikander Bakht to Naqvi and Shahnawaz Hussain. If one existed in the head of the directors of the CD, that would mean all these leaders disguised themselves as Hindus, kidnapped the unfortunate women and forced them intoburqas!
with Sharad Pradhan in Lucknow
