Sunday, December 27, 2009

BJP’s change of guard

Mr. Nitin Gadkari’s elevation to the top slot in the BJP has come as a welcome move, a positive step towards reviving the party & taking on a resurrected Congress. The new president’s bio data is better off than many other politicians and his credentials are well known. Add to this, his clean image and out-of-the-box thinking. This man could be the saviour the BJP was looking for. But the going will not be easy.

Being a regional politician, he does not have a mass following, within the BJP or outside. So his primary task will be to penetrate and work with the grass root level of the party. Given his organisational abilities, he might manage it just fine.

Sooner or later, Gadkari will have to project his image in the public domain either as a hindutva hardliner or a moderator. Hence, his decision making abilities would be keenly monitored by all (specially the RSS) . The tough choice for him would be whether to follow the core ideology or compromise it with a moderate approach on issues of national importance.

Next, he would have to battle power-hungry hawks like Arun Jaitley & Sushma Swaraj. Although their oratorical skills are appreciated by one & all, the manner in which they ass licked LK Advani & gained top parliamentary positions is quite sickening & heavily criticized within the party. Being the campaign manager of the party at the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Arun Jaitley should have taken moral responsibility for the party’s drubbing & stepped out from all positions. So was not the case because at Delhi, the BJP has a parallel power centre run by Jaitley & Swaraj (supported by Venkaiah Naidu) and they pretty much call the shots on all national decisions. The choice for Gadkari is simple – either join the club, or take the bull by its horns.

Thirdly, the silence of BJP’s biggest goon, Mr. Narendra Modi is a little surprising at this point. He seems to have taken a back seat from the BJP centre stage and is focussing on Gujarat for now, though it is only a matter of time before this tiger demands his pound of flesh at the national level. Its an easy guess as to what that position could be – the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014 polls! How Gadkari tackles Modi will be interesting. But given the fact that both are babies of the RSS, my gut feel says that they would pair well and this combination would work wonders for the party, may be even better than the Sonia-Manmohan partnership that has brought back the Congress to its best in the last two decades.

The speed with which Rahul Gandhi is running a marathon for the Congress, he may well become India’s next prime minister. If the BJP dreams to win the race, all their leaders should collaborate with Gadkari & work together to revive the party. That will be their only chance.

No comments:

Post a Comment