Nitin Gadkari Begins Batting With Hands Tied.. .. .. ..

He may have had little or no role in the succession of adversities suffered by his party within days of his taking over as president of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Rajnath Singh, but right now it does not look that Nitin Gadkari will prove to be the man of the hour for the Hindutva torchbearer.

Priorities can be set for sorting out various problems that have bedevilled the BJP since it lost power to the old foe, Congress, six years ago, but the all-important job is to regain its appeal among a wider section of the electorate and make it a political force to reckon with in a state like UP and at the national level well ahead of the next Lok Sabha poll.

That looks like a tall order since the BJP has steadfastly refused to align itself to the realities of Indian politics, the chief of which is that narrow, sectarian appeal is a handicap at the hustings. The BJP does not seem anywhere near recovering the important vote base of youth and the middle class, it refuses to come out of dated shibboleths and slogans that do not appeal to the 21st century Indian who is young and likes to look ahead rather than back. A mere formal change of guard at the party HQ cannot be enough to revitalise the party.

Widely dubbed as the choice of the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh, more specifically its head, Mohan Bhagwat, it is difficult to see Gadkari becoming the face of a resurgent BJP. He has inherited a multitude of problems from his predecessor, who was also said to be an RSS appointee.

The stewardship of Rajnath Singh was eminently forgettable. Indiscipline in the party had surfaced with an unprecedented vehemence. The ‘party with a difference’ became the ‘party with differences’. The base that the BJP had built among large sections of voters had disappeared as it veered back towards undiluted Hindutva to which Rajnath Singh subscribed wholeheartedly. The old guard—the duo of Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani—that was largely responsible for building the party from the ashes was on the wane.

Much before Gadkari’s coronation, Vajpayee had faded from the scene due to ill health. Advani’s position remains ambivalent: it is not sure if the party will play him up or dump him altogether even after ‘elevating’ him to the post of chairman of parliamentary board, a post created exclusively for him. The wily politician that he is, Advani has been able to install his own choices as the leaders of the BJP (and Opposition) in the two houses of parliament, Sushma Swaraj (Lok Sabha) and Arun Jaitley (Rajya Sabha). That alone cannot underwrite a good future for him in the party where strings are pulled by the men in Khaki half pants who reside in the RSS bastion at Nagpur.

Both Swaraj and Jaitley—probably not the best of friends---can outshine many leaders inside and outside the BJP in parliament. But parliamentary debating skills will not be sufficient to regain the ground lost by the party. Ironically, it is these two leaders who as part of an allegedly mutually suspicious quartet of the young leaders of the BJP are believed to be among the players responsible for denting the image of the BJP in recent years.

At 52, Gadkari is also part of the younger generation of leaders. The expansion of the quartet of young (all in their 50s) leadership into quintet may not necessarily add to problems within the party. Gadkari has made it very clear that he has no intention of contesting any election for three years, which coincides with his tenure as BJP chief. He wants to concentrate on the hard job of restoring discipline in the party. He would also like to see some of the better-known rebels return to the BJP fold. Besides, it is too early to know about the full potential of Gadkari as a powerful challenger to those aspiring for the top job as and when it falls into the lap of the BJP.

Gadkari will be severely tested in his efforts to quell internal discipline, which has affected most of the states considered vital for the BJP. In Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje has shown all intentions of sparring with the official faction of the party headed by the state unit president of the BJP. In states ruled by the BJP, factionalism has been swept under the carpet only temporarily. It can resurface anytime, especially in Gujarat and Karnataka where party members have accused the chief ministers of being highhanded.

Gadkari has to revamp the state units, a task that could not have become easy after BJP was hit by the disease of infighting and washing of dirty linen. UP was once a prized possession; it is not going to be an easy ride back to eminence there under the captaincy of Gadkari who has no experience of leadership at the party HQ and, therefore, little familiarity with the intricate functioning of parties outside his home state, Maharashtra.

His political life has been centred round Maharashtra where he was the state unit chief. He would not like to recall that as the BJP boss in Maharashtra his relations with ally Shiv Sena were anything but cordial. The BJP cannot do away with the Shiv Sena, unless it wants to rope in the more xenophobic Maharashtra Navnirman Samiti run by the nephew of Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray. That, of course, will be suicidal for the BJP because any party that shakes hand with the rabid anti-North, more specifically anti-UP and anti-Bihar, party like the MNS, should be ready for a total eclipse in the vast Hindi heartland.

As a protégé of the RSS, Gadkari is in no position to amend the dated Hindutva agenda of the BJP that Nagpur will ask him to pursue vigorously. The BJP may say that it will not depend on minority support to come back to power, but it certainly has to win back the support of many other castes and communities, particularly the OBCs who seem to have deserted it. The pursuance of the Hindutva agenda is not the right recipe for winning back support of those communities. In short, Gadkari may have to function with his hands tied.

- Asian Tribune -