By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,
L.K. Advani’s decision to continue as leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha for the next five years underlines remarkable physical and mental stamina for an octogenarian. It also shows that he is not daunted by political setbacks.
A less resilient person would have preferred to gradually withdraw from public life after the kind of reverses the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered in the recent general election. The defeat was compounded by the shattering of his own ambition to become prime minister.
But the twin blows seem to have made him more determined to continue the political battles. He did offer to step down as the opposition leader soon after the defeat, but that was apparently more for form’s sake than the result of a genuine desire to call it a day. So, when his party asked him to stay on, he had little hesitation in doing so.
But those who thought that his continuance was only a temporary measure intended to stave off a damaging succession battle were sorely mistaken. As Advani has now clarified, he had never done anything reluctantly. He accepted the party’s suggestion to remain at his post not as a stop-gap measure, but as an arrangement lasting till 2014.
There is little doubt that not everyone in the BJP is pleased. The reasons are many. First, his continuance means that he will be thwarting the ambitions of not a few contenders for the coveted post. They may not say so openly out of respect for Advani’s age and long record of service to the party during which his domination over the organisation was second only to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s.
But five years are a long time in politics. As it is, the party is currently in the doldrums. Nor is there any sign that its fortunes will look up in the near future. As a consequence, those who might have aspired to replace Advani, such as Jaswant Singh or Sushma Swaraj, would wonder whether they would still be regarded as worthy successors in 2014.
Advani himself may not be too worried over the secret hopes nurtured by his putative successors. He is fully aware that in Vajpayee’s absence due to ill health, he remains the only inspirational leader who can hold the party together. Even his detractors know it, which is why he was asked to continue.
All that they can do at the moment is to vent their ire in newspaper articles, as Arun Shourie has done, and was left out of the party’s forthcoming chintan baithak or introspective session for his pains.
But Advani is probably not worried too much about his critics inside the party. It is the objections of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the head of the sangh parivar, which must be of concern to the rath yatri of 1990.
Ever since he dispensed with his earlier aggressive espousal of the Hindu cause, Advani has lost favour with the RSS. The reason is that the latter firmly believes that it is the BJP’s retreat from Hindutva which has cost the party two successive general elections in 2004 and 2009.
For several years now, the RSS has been demanding the withdrawal from public life of both Vajpayee and Advani because of their preference for moderate policies. It had a taste of success when it forced Advani to relinquish his position as the BJP president after his ill-advised praise of Mohammed Ali Jinnah during a visit to Pakistan in 2005.
But it was a short-lived victory because both the RSS and the BJP subsequently realized that there was no one else of Advani’s stature who could enable the party to face the general elections with confidence. Since his rehabilitation, therefore, Advani has been the virtual No.1 in the party. Now, his latest decision shows that he intends to remain in the position.
But the question before the BJP is whether he will again be the party’s prime ministerial candidate. It goes without saying that Advani will dearly love to fulfil his life’s ambition by taking another shot at the post. But his party knows that the gulf of nearly half a century between his age and that of Rahul Gandhi, who is likely to be the Congress candidate, will be the mismatch of the century. Little wonder that a Congress spokesman has said that his party’s victory in 2014 is already assured.
For all the criticism of the Congress’s dependence on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, it is undeniable that the party has found a stable core in the first family round which the organization revolves. This dubious precedent is followed by several others from the National Conference in the north to the DMK in the south, and from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the west to the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the east.
The BJP, in contrast, has always been a two-man party centred on Vajpayee and Advani. Now that the former prime minister is in virtual retirement, Advani is carrying the torch all by himself. Yet, his is a lonely journey because he is facing open opposition from the RSS and a hidden one from sections within the party.
(15.08.2009-Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected])