Gadkari’s exit: Blow to BJP, boost for Modi

Every effort of embattled BJP chief Nitin Gadkari to wiggle out of the Purti quagmire has backfired and the proverbial final nail on the coffin was stuck by the I-T raids on the company stakeholders’ offices. As the negative publicity brought by its appointee became too big to be pushed under the carpet, even the all powerful RSS could not help him.
Rajnath Singh’s return could not be more spectacular. Gadkari’s term at the helm was a disaster. Revolt after revolt broke out in the party’s state units — its Karnataka situation is the worst scenario.

It was not long ago that the party’s national leadership was forced to kneel down before the Bellary brothers and revoke all disciplinary actions against them and their confidants. Late realisation of its mistake and the subsequent tough posturing before BS Yeddyurappa have resulted in its sole government in the south hanging to power by a wafer-thin majority. The Lingayat strongman enjoys considerable support among the party’s cadres and has the ability to spoil it for the saffron party.

And more than anyone else, one person stands to gain the most — Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi’s chance of being the party’s prime ministerial candidate got a major boost with Gadkari out of the way. Modi and Gadkari had clashed several times in the past with the pracharak CM skipping the party’s national executive meetings in protest.

The harbinger of Gadkari’s dwindling elbow room was the May conclave where the party body had to drop Modi-baiter and Gadkari loyalist Sanjay Joshi.

With an outspoken Hindutva hawk like Rajnath Singh at the helm of the party, Modi will look like a moderate (though he is anything but one). Singh’s elevation also spares Modi of worries about strengthening the party before laying siege to Delhi — the former has proven his mettle with excellent organisational skills during his previous stints.

Modi has also greatly benefitted from Rahul Gandhi’s elevation to the number two slot in the Congress. While junior’s tearjerker speech might have sent the nation reaching for tissue paper boxes, the ‘anointment’ has effectively ruled out the possibility of any leader of calibre rising to the top in near future.

Every time Rahul has tried to take on Modi politically, his rhetoric failed to scratch Modi’s image, let alone dent it. Sonia’s last best shot — maut ka saudagar (merchant of death) — boomeranged and Modi emerged stronger than ever. The recent state elections underscored the Gujarat’s CM’s upper hand in this unequal fight.

Modi’s success has been in forcing his most vehement critics to come out with praise for him through good governance. Congress leaders, civil society activists and even leading Muslim figures have turned fans.

With booming business opportunities in Gujarat proving to be too lucrative to be ignored, most countries which blacklisted him in the wake of 2002 riots have quietly backtracked, the UK being the latest to join this list. In the US too, the number of voices calling for going soft on Modi is increasing by the day.

Though kin of victims of 2002 massacres in Gujarat continue to wage their legal battles, a series of clean chits by courts have boosted Modi’s credentials.

Gadkari was a weight that was dragging the BJP down (no pun intended), and freed of that, the main Opposition party is in a better position to put its house in order and pose a credible challenge to the ruling combine in the 2014 General Elections.

(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on January 23, 2013.)

Testing times ahead for Congress

It has taken a series of electoral debacles to shake India’s Grand Old Party, the Congress, from its political slumber of denial mode and complacence.
Despite cross-country hut hopping by the heir apparent Rahul Gandhi and charm offensive by his sister Priyanka, the voters chose to bring non-Congress alliances to power.
The emphatic defeat for the 127-year-old party has been in the national capital, where the BJP swept to power in the local body elections.
Long has the era passed when the public tended to forgive and forget or get swayed by the personal charisma of Congress leaders. Uttar Pradesh voters refused to buy the ‘yuvraj’s’ charm offensive of mingling with the crowds and dining at Dalit huts.
For all the efforts that Rahul put in, the party was reduced to the fourth place after SP, BSP and BJP. Even the last-moment marriage of convenience with the RLD failed to draw the caste votes to the party.
Another area where the party keeps getting beaten black and blue is its alliances with regional parties — the most glaring example being that with West Bengal. Stuck with Mamata for meeting the magic numbers in Lok Sabha, the Congress is constantly humiliated without ‘mamta’ at the Centre and state.
She blocked a river water sharing deal with Bangladesh, got a sensible Railway minister sacked, is blocking several key policies in segments such as FDI and counter-terrorism. The latest whimsical threat was a 15-day deadline to the Centre to waive the state’s debt to the tune of Rs22,000 crore.
In Tamil Nadu too, the picture is not much different. The Centre’s hands are tied on ties with Sri Lanka owing to pressure from the state’s two major parties, the DMK and the AIADMK.
The Congress is perceived as weak because of its failure to get even the UPA allies on board regarding key policies. Key areas such as legal reforms, disinvestment, FDI, counter-terrorism, anti-graft law and police reforms have been languishing without policy commitments.
The constant announcements of new policies and subsequent volte-face due to pressure from allies have hit the credibility of the party. Massive cases of fraud at the Centre running into lakhs of crores of rupees have definitely put the party on the back foot.
When senior party leader and telecom minister Kapil Sibal said the loss to the government in 2G spectrum auction was ‘zero’, whereas the CAG put it at Rs1.76 lakh crore, it came as a shock even to the Opposition.
Maybe the firebrand Supreme Court lawyer has forgotten that gone are the days when an elephant in the room would not be seen by the public.
The infighting in state units and lack of party discipline has left the party in a lurch. While loose cannons like Digvijay Singh go on the warpath firing salvos at anything that moves and manages to capture his fancy, senior leadership is forced to do the damage control.
The party’s inability to make its leaders toe its line is threatening the survival of its government in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress has been forced to swallow its pride and take the help of its rivals in Parliament to suspend eight of its MPs from Parliament as they refused to obey party directives and stalled the House demanding for a separate Telangana state.
An organisation is usually able to tide over crises when there is clarity regarding leadership and a vision for the future. In the case of Congress, there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding leadership. With the scion Rahul failing to sway votes and shying away from any executive post, the focus has shifted to Priyanka.
However, Congress president Sonia Gandhi hasn’t cleared the air about who is going to take over the party reins. For all the reform and internal democracy Rahul has been championing, the party is still practicing nepotism and favouritism in selecting its low- and middle-rung leaders — and the lack of quality is showing in its poll performances.
India’s oldest party has a Herculean task of cleaning its Augean Stables. If it fails to put its house in order, it will share the fate of several dynasties that had their share of glory before becoming extinct.
(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on April 25, 2012)