Advani RSS tussle

 

News from good sources:

Advani is refusing to resign his post till once of his coterie is made the President. It looks like Mohan Bhagwat is fighting a losing battle. Though Mohan Bhagwat has said that the president will come from outside of Delhi in Aaj Tak interview, he may have to eat his words.

RSS is trying to negotiate that it will give it President Post to Advani’s supporter but it can be only Narendra Modi. It looks like Narendra Modi himself will be asked by the powerful Delhi group to convince the RSS that Jaitley should be made President.

It seems to stop the RSS effort to changing the BJP leadership, Advani camp came up with a brilliant idea where it said that ruling Chief Ministers & deputy CMs should vote as they bring the mass support. In that, the Advani camp managed to get the votes of Sushil Kumar Modi (Bihar Deputy CM), Punjab BJP president & Modi. The Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh & Himachal Pradesh were not in favor of Advani camp. So it became 3 – 3 tie between Advani & RSS. The remaining Chief Minister of BJP is Yeddyurappa was expected to go with RSS as he is in very close to RSS leadership & way of work.

Then Advani camp did a smart engineered crisis in Karnataka to cut Yeddyurappa to size. Yeddyurappa was naïve and got tricked.

Karnataka crisis:
Ananth Kumar meets Reddy brothers and tells them what to do and then goes to meet Jagadish Shettar. Ananth Kumar who is from the same town of Jagadish Shettar (It seems it is Ananth Kumar’s mother who got Jagadish Shettar in to BJP many years ago) meets and tells him what to do. After the crisis starts, the most amazing move is to make Yeddyurappa to come to Jaitley for help. Yeddyurappa is naïve and believes that Jaitley can help him and asks for help.

This is where Advani camp is very smart. Swapan Dasgutpa also pitches in and helps. Instead of going to RSS, Yeddyurappa who didn’t understand the trap went to Delhi. Already it had been decided that this crises will be solved on “Nov 8th – Advani Birthday”. Slowly Yeddyurappa understands that it a trap but it is too late. The crisis is resolved on Nov 8th with Advani gracing it on his birthday.

V.S Acharya is a nice guy, so he escaped. Shobha Karandlage has done excellent work as Rural Development minister. She has learnt from Narendra Modi’s work. Of course there are ego and personality issues. But she has brought in thousands of Check Dams, irrigation facilities in a short time. She is actually a good candidate for coming years. Let’s hope that somebody will continue her good work.

Outcomes are: Yeddyurappa who was getting into dynasty mode has been stopped on Dynasty politics. Now those Reddy brothers know that their name has been tarnished by media so badly every where they would really have to build the houses they promised. They would also have to work to get a name back. Sushma Swaraj will head the co-ordination committee and will keep Yeddyurappa in check.

The RSS has been out maneuvered.

The most amazing stuff in all these things is that Advani stubbornly refusing to quit unless his nominee is made President. His earlier nominee Venkaiah Naidu was not up to the mark. Many a times he was a rubber stamp for Advani. Then during 2005 Jinnah crisis, Advani brought in Rajnath Singh. He has been a disaster.

But Arun Jaitley has shown that he has competence and has proved it many a times. But their ruthlessness might alienate some party members. They are so hungry for power that they many a times compromise ideology in front of cameras.

But if Arun Jaitley stops his leaking habit & his habit of planting new against other BJP leaders, then he can gain credibility. If Jaitley works to get BJP broaden its geographical base in Andhra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala etc it will be great. Jaitley has competence and listens to good advice.

 Another question would be how Sushma Swaraj is going to work?  She doesn’t like Modi, she doesn’t want to be cut out by Jaitley. Advani supports both Jaitley & Sushma Swaraj.  He needs to accomodate Venkaiah Naidu & Ananth Kumar.   Some times it looks like Advani is more like Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu who is constantly managing his children  like Dhritarashtra….

 

Incompetent people in BJP

 

The problems in BJP now is more organizational than ideological. They have incompetent people in BJP. That is why they are suffering a lot. Arun Shourie has also explained that.

One of the most important position in BJP is “General Secretary -Organisation”. Right now Ram Lal is holding the post. He is not up to the mark. He can’t even understand UP politics properly. Some people in RSS want Muralidhar Rao to become next “General Secretary -Organisation”. They think as Muralidhar Rao is a close to Govindacharya and Gurumurthy, it will be good. But he is far more worst than Ram Lal. This Muralidhar Rao is a total crap in understanding political issues, situations, developing new strategies for growth of party etc

For many of the problems in BJP, RSS is also an factor (may be not the only factor in BJP crisis). RSS itself doesn’t have people of good calibre. For example Ram Madhav is pathetic. Even the so called “intellectual” Tarun Vijay is found wanting in most issues.

BJP is having a problem with two kinds of people:

1. Competent people – there are lots , but many of them nurture only personal ambitions like Arun Jaitley.

2. Incompetent people – there are lots and they sitting as dead weights in the party (this includes some RSS appointed people as well and not just aya rams & gaya rams) Rajnath Singh, Sughanshu Mittal, Muralidhar Rao etc

BJP needs more people like Modi, Manohar Parrikar, Nitin Gadkari. They are competent & also put organisation first. BJP’s issue is not a ideological crisis. Nor it is about the role of RSS.

It is plain & simple : incompetence in various levels.

P.S:   People mentioned in this post like Ram Madhav, Tarun Vijay etc might be good people (honest, committed etc). But in the issue of skills & competence, many a times they lag behind.  This post is no way to demean RSS.  It has many capable people like  Vaman Acharya (who was General Secretary Organisation for BJP in Karnataka).  Govindacharya was awesomoe when he used to be organisational man.

BJP and Haryana

 

Haryana results:      

BJP has done very well in all urban areas.  Anil Vij has won Ambala Cantt inspite of  INLD & BSP taking away votes.  Saraf has won Bhiwani even with INLD taking away 18000 votes.   Sonipat (Kavita jain has won) ,  Krishan pal has won Tigaon.

BJP came second  : Ateli (lost by 700 votes).   Badkhal (Congress is strong here).  Panipat City (INLD took away 21000 votes),  Faridabad (INLD & Independent strong contenders) , Ballabhgarh , Rohtak (the party has work very hard next time)  etc 

Third position  : Badli , Bawal, Gurgaon (Sukhbeer as independent has won). Jagadhri, Kalanaur ,  Yamunanagar, Shahbad etc

 As more and more urbanisation happens, BJP will gain. But if it ties up with  HJC (Bhajan Lal) then it will have problem as both BJP & HJC are competing for the same voter groups.  Under no circumstance, BJP should tie up with HJC.   Best outcome for both BJP & HJC is to merge HJC in BJP and give Bishnoi the presidentship.  The Delhi leadership of BJP might be tempted to tie up with  INLD or HJC in the local bodies election (but it should be avoided like poison).  BJP  in Haryana takes the vote of 38% Urban Punjabis.

Chautala & INLD’s  Jat votes are going away rapidly to Congress (Hooda is a Jat).   Chautala has got a bad name with all other communities.  He is a fading feudal lord.   One interesting stuff is the consolidation of  Harijan votes (Dalit is a very abusive word)  to BSP irrespective of electoral outcomes.   Another interesting point is a big section of Muslim votes going to BSP  (not to INLD or HJC ).   In the coming years Congress might be left with only Jat votes.

Congress will easily break HJC and absorb the entire party (may be expect Bishnoi)  like it did in Rajasthan (Congress made all BSP legislators to jump).   Bishnoi will loose credibility.  BJP’s  best hope is that Congress breaks   HJC.

BJP should start working as an opposition and work in rural areas also.  There are some very good issues they can take for rural areas of  Haryana.  Haryana has the same temperment like Gujarat in some fields.

 INLD  will weaken very fast as it is competing with Congress for the same Jat votes.  It doesn’t have any other platform or issue.

Deconstructing Swapan Dasgupta’s arguments

To answer some remarks & give my opinion, I have to necessarily deconstruct some arguments of Swapan.

Mr Arun Jaitley may be a darling in the media. But the organisation & party’s growth depends upon how people work together. With Mr Jaitley at the top, there will be a lot of distrust & counter leaks. Arun Jaitley has got a very bad name with BJP circles that he plants stories against rivals, leaks some information etc. Also Advani to have remote control over the party will try to put his group as Party president (Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj or Venkaiah Naidu). Advani allowed lime light only for these people because they didn’t have any mass base. He didn’t allow any leader with mass base to grow/or take lime light because they could have challenged him in various things.

Leaders with mass base like Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Vasundhara Raje will challenge nonsense from top leadership. Shivraj Singh didn’t give Rajya Sabha tickets to Advani’s nominees this time (this includes Chandan Mitra). The only reason Modi is quiet because it was Advani who stood up to Vajpayee in 2002.

Arun Jaitley might be very honest & smart speaker. But even the Advani group (Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu etc) & other leaders will not trust him and keep fighting. On the day of results, the first person to start saying “that projection of Modi as next prime minister was one of the reasons for defeat” was Chandan Mitra. It is a common knowledge that Chandan Mitra & Arun Jaitley work together.

Swapan Dasgupta’s indirect attacks on Arun Shourie: When Swapan started questioning Shourie in his blog, many readers opposed it. So Swapan stopped it for some time. Then in TV channels, Swapan indirectly attacks Shourie. For example, after Shourie’s interview (Walk the talk) there was a program in NDTV in which Swapan & Shekhar Gupta participated, first thing Swapan did was to recite the rhyme “what a good boy I am” to take a pot shot at Arun Shourie. Then he took objection to Shourie’s suggestion of “RSS taking over”. If RSS takes over, a non-Delhi person who is Street Smart/clever like Vajpayee (Yes, Vajpayee was street smart in developing a goodie goodie image over some 10 years, he purposely didn’t go to Ayodhya on Dec 6th) might end up as president. So Swapan wants to call that person as “Manohar Lal” and ridicule him well before. Then Swapan takes it to his articles in Tehelka and other magazines.

I think Swapan understands that Arun Shourie is a towering intellectual & also a practical executioner of modernity. So he won’t take him on directly. But use snide remarks and make jovial remarks on his suggestions. Arun Shourie is a middleclass icon, which Swapan keeps talking about. When Arun Shourie talks about indiscipline of planting stories in media using 6 journalists, leaking stories – we know he is actually pointing at Arun Jaitley.

Arun Shourie’s contacts and networks are thousand times more than Swapan’s. During talks with Pakistan, our Indian side was about to agree to a complete de-militarisation of Siachin. Arun Shourie’s contacts in government machinery alerted him. So BJP leaders pressed hard with Pranab Mukherjee to change the Indian negotiating team. It was Arun Shourie who found that Arjun Singh is going to play the “backward class messiah” even before the congress spin ministers could find out.

Usually corrective actions given out by Shourie, have been bang on target in the last 2 decades. Shourie is an intellectual warrior who understands what is everybody is up to. He has his networks & contacts. Swapan is a commentator (more on post mortem side). So I would give more importance to Shourie than to Swapan.

Arun Jaitley is alleged to have worked to support the faulty nuclear deal. Swapan who has probably not read even the FMCT, NPT treaties even once, was waxing eloquence in TV studios on why we should pass the nuclear deal. Arun Shourie & to a good extant Yashwant Sinha was able to rip apart every single point put worth by the “great reformist” prime minister. Just because the media (which are in the control of Congress) support the deal, there is no need to go and fall at the feet of nuclear deal. Now that ENR technologies are totally unavailable, the true face of the deal is coming out. Even in 1998 many of our defense analysts, scientists were questioning the success of our thermonuclear device. Now that Santhanam has spoken it out in open. Arun Shourie & others understand the issue in full. But our “political commentators” , “senior journalists” who have no idea of what are nuclear agreements; future strategic scenarios; geo-politics blindly follow what the media is selling. Many of the journalists  & newspaper editors are of cranky background (from total communist/Marxist background, they all totally fell in the legs of Americans in 90’s and early 2000’s). They have no brains nor do they have Indian National interest in their mind. It is blind faith or money greasing the hands. Arun Shourie’s work in Cancun was very good. His understanding of Indian interests is extremely good. The YouTube video of Arun Shourie in World Economic Forum is a good example.

Arun Jaitley took part in a Tehelka funded conference in London. The issue with Jaitley & Swapan is that they play the game as per the agenda set by opposition & media. It is actually an easy way out. But it doesn’t help the greater Hindu/Indic movement or the party in longer term but gives very good lime light to individuals.

But persons like Modi, Arun Shourie, Kanchan Gupta etc don’t play the game as per opposition’s agenda. It is actually a very tough thing to do. Individually you will pay a heavy price, but in the helps the greater Hindu/Indic movement & the party.

Remember a huge Dharmic movement needs selfless individuals (Chanakya, Medhadithi, Subash Bose, Shama Prasad Mukherjee) and not individual ambition oriented people.

RSS also needs to understand that this “backroom consensus” is not for political party. Backroom consensus is needed in a voluntary organisation like RSS & its various affiliates. As offstumped & others in india-forum say, BJP should adopt elections for deciding posts. Without ballot, Arun Jaitley will be undermined as President even if he is brought with agreement of RSS through this “backroom consensus”

One great thing about elections & primaries is that everybody is shown where everybody stands. After primaries, all opponents like Hilary and others have to accept the verdict that Obama is the Democratic Party candidate. The internal sabotage will stop.

Arun Narendhranath says that given time, Arun Jaitley will become a mass based leader. But will he hold the leadership together given the mistrust? Can Arun Jaitley come clean on these allegations of leaks & planting stories?