Who will light the lamp for BJP

Will Vajpayee remain bedridden, or will he be back, as he declared? This is the issue that inflames the party as it seeks a new leader.

By Shahid Faridi

In December 2004, at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National Executive in Mumbai, the former prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, mixing Marathi and Hindi declared, "Pushkal Jhala. Abki bari nakko" (I have done a lot. Next time I will not take up the mantle). In his own way, Vajpayee was announcing his desire to retire. However, in the September 2007 BJP National Executive in Bhopal, an absent Vajpayee, bed-ridden in Delhi because of his falling health, made his presence felt through an unsigned five-paragraph letter with the message: "Don't count me out. I will be back."

The "I will soon come back" proclamation by an ailing 83-year-old Vajpayee effectively derailed the plans of BJP leaders who wanted the party to formally declare that the Leader of the Opposition Lal Krishna Advani would lead their challenge to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in the next Parliamentary elections. Vajpyee's one liner did both: it opened a Pandora's box and left behind a mystery trail.

The BJP-led coalition had lost power in May 2004 and Vajpayee wanted to retire. "Abki bari nakko" was his first significant statement about his future plans. A year later, again in Mumbai, an irritated Vajpayee silenced his party's sycophantic slogans and speeches by declaring that he was no longer going to play Lord Ram's role and was passing it on to his own Laxman. So, henceforth, Advani would be the Ram of the BJP and Pramod Mahajan would be the new Laxman.

Now, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar circles are agog with rumours and speculation: Did Vajpayee actually write the "I will be back" letter? If he is healthy enough to write or dictate a one-page letter recalling a poem he wrote in 1979, then why he did not put his imprimatur it? After all, the former prime minister knows the worth of a signature on a document. So, was it ghost-written? And then there was the poem:
"Aahuti Baki, Yagna Adhura,
Apnon Ke Vighnon Ne Ghera,
Antim Jai Ka Vajra banane,
Nav Dadhichi Haddiyan Galain,
Aao Phir Se Diya Jalain"
(The final offering awaits, the sacrifice is incomplete; engulfed in the obstacles created by one's own, new Dadhichis should melt their bones to make the new Vajra to score victory, let us light the lamp again) Do the lines of his poem point in some other direction?

The letter threw a spanner in the works of BJP leaders who wanted to declare Advani, always proclaimed by the party as one of the two Sheersh Netas, the other being Vajpayee, as the "natural choice for the prime ministerial candidate". This has given rise to the question: Has Vajpayee's urge to return to the centrestage become so overpowering that even if he is tired and ill, he is not willing to hang up his boots and let a friend and loyal deputy for over five decades lead the party?
This is the first time when Vajpayee's "own message" has created a foul mood even amongst those who have hero-worshiped him for decades and had so far not dared use a loose term about him even in private conversations. A section of BJP is of the opinion that the letter was not written by Vajpayee but was actually a creation of some persons close to him.

The role of party president Rajnath Singh, who claimed to have personally received the letter from Vajpayee, is also being questioned. And so is the role of a faction of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which has the official authority to supervise the party. As party old timers recall, "People close to Jai Prakash Narain used, misused and abused his name in the similar fashion when he was bedridden in his last days."

Consider the facts. Vajpayee has not attended the last session Parliament even once, his attendance record in previous sessions of the 14th Lok Sabha has been very poor and would barely touch double digits; he has not been attending BJP's parliamentary party meetings which he is supposed to chair as its chairperson, he has not been visiting BJP headquarters for the past several months and has been making only guest appearances in the last few meetings of the BJP national executive, the party's highest policy-making. In the last one, he could not even make a guest appearance.

The situation became so alarming by the concluding day of the three-day national executive meeting in Bhopal that Advani got into fire-fighting mode and told the delegates, "Let us all pray that this (Vajpayee's return) happens very soon and Vajpayeeji continues to lead and guide us."
But, for once Advani's statement, too, was subjected to interpretation and a great deal of significance was attached to it by BJP leaders.

The former deputy prime minister said he had met Vajpayee on September 20, on the eve of the national executive meeting to enquire about his health. "He told me then that doctors had advised him to skip Bhopal and take some rest. However, I was very happy to find that his health had improved considerably since I had last met him. I, therefore, felt gratified when Rajnathji showed me Atalji's own message saying that before long he would be in our midst. Let us all pray that this happens very soon and Vajpayee continues to lead and guide us."

Interestingly, Rajnath had met Vajpayee before Advani did, but Vajpayee did not tell him anything about the letter. Which is why the reference made by Advani - who is known to be very choosy about his selection of words - to Vajpayee's "own message" is seen as a loaded comment. Rajnath claimed that Vajpayee had personally handed over that letter to him and, thus, there was no chance of it being forged. Under flak from his own partymen, a perturbed he told his trusted aides: "It's politics at its worst." For Advani, however, all's not lost. He can draw comfort from the fact that after a long while, almost since the time of the Jinnah controversy in 2005, a number of senior BJP leaders openly came forward to declare that he was the "rightful and natural claimant" to the top post. Besides this, after "I will be back soon" statement, the onus is now on Vajpayee to return and steer the party. And he will do that sooner rather than later as the political pot is set to boil over.
The mystery over the authenticity of Vajpayee's unsigned letter and the BJP leadership's decision to 's current disposition's determined bid to keep the leadership issue hanging took away the basic thrust from the poll preparedness mode. The issue, according to the some senior leaders, is not about the inevitability of Leader of Opposition L K Advani leading the Opposition's challenge in the next parliamentary elections but is about the timing of "when this inevitable would turn into a reality ". There is a difference between "should be" and "is going to be", a senior BJP leader said.
Another senior leader said after the Sangh Parivar's recently held Chintan Baithak in Mumbai, it was almost clear that Advani would assume the leadership role in the party and would re-establish his position as the Hindutava ideologue and party's prime strategist.

BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad was most categorical in declaring at the official media briefing that no third name was in consideration on the leadership issue. "Atalji and Advaniji are our tallest leaders," he said. "There is no confusion among us in the party. An announcement in this regard (as to who will Vajpayee hand over the reins) would be made at an appropriate time."
The BJP made it clear that it plans to build a campaign against the Congress-led UPA on its trusted plank of Hindu pride vis-à-vis Congress's minority appeasement. Advani set out the BJP campaign agenda: "The UPA's politics of minority-ism has become a major hurdle in India's fight against terror. I charge the government with communalising India's campaign against terrorism." He criticised the UPA government for deriding the Hindu faith and asserted that a government that denies Ram's existence has no right to exist. But the key question remains: "who will light the lamp" for the BJP?