BJP finds a ‘sanjeevini’

Neerja Chowdhury First Published : 14 Dec 2010 12:15:00 AM ISTLast Updated : 15 Dec 2010 06:13:26 AM IST
There is a customary meeting held in the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chamber at the end of every session where the ruling party and opposition leaders exchange pleasantries over a cup of tea, discussing the pros and cons of how the parliamentary session went.
On Monday, soon after the Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die, prime minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee, Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj, BJP senior leader L K Advani along with Gopinath Munde and Shahnawaz Hussain trooped into Meira Kumar’s office. Even though the nerve racking session, rocked by the mega 2G telecom scam, was over, there were no signs of a thaw or bonhomie that is usually visible on these occasions. Nobody spoke a word. The atmosphere was frosty and the body language of Pranab Mukherjee reflected his misery. When somebody referred to him as Leader of the House, he shot back, “What leader, when there is no house!” The leaders quickly downed their tea and departed.
For all the bitterness that it entailed, ironically, the winter “non-session” of Parliament was like a ‘sanjeevini’ for the BJP, breathing new life into the party. For the first time since 2004, when it was thrown out of power, the BJP is feeling good about itself. It has found effective sticks to beat the government with. The NDA’s victory in Bihar gave the party a fillip. Its internal assessment is that the victory was as much for the BJP as it was for Nitish Kumar, given the high strike rate of the party. The victory of four BJP rebels against JD(U) official candidates was another pointer.
The BJP also managed to up the ante against the ruling UPA, first on the misuse of funds in the Commonwealth games, then on Mumbai’s Adarsh Housing Society scam, followed by the mammoth 2G scandal, and finally on its demand that the government set up a JPC to probe the `1.7 lakh-crore telecom scandal.
Though in deference to public pressure, the Congress sent CWG Organising Committee chief Suresh Kalmadi, Maharasthra chief minister Ashok Chavan and Union telecommunications minister A Raja packing, to enforce the principle of accountability, it still found itself on the backfoot.
Suddenly the ruling party was faced with a situation in which whatever it did came as too little too late, and it is often the timing of decisions which becomes critical for political management. Even though the government offered to conduct the probe by the CBI under the supervision of the Supreme Court, which is also independently seized of the 2G enquiry, there was a growing popular perception that the government was not agreeing to a JPC because it had something to hide. The teflon effect, when no charge could hold, was suddenly gone. Instead, every charge started to stick. The Congress was at the receiving end of charges of corruption — scam after scam came tumbling out, virtually by the day— creating a cumulative impact, and an impression of culpability.
The BJP lost its high moral ground when it failed to send Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa packing for favouring his sons in land allotment but it managed to keep the initiative in its hands. Whereas the Congress failed to divide the opposition ranks, or to keep its allies on its side — the Trinamool Congress, NCP and even the DMK broke ranks with the Congress and endorsed the idea of a JPC — the BJP managed to create a larger opposition unity, moving in step with most of the non-UPA parties, including the Left groups.
And now, smelling an opportunity, it has decided not to let the issue slip out of its hands and raise it again in the Budget session of Parliament if the government does not give in to its demand for a JPC. If that happens, the opposition may not allow the Budget session to function and the Finance Bill may have to be passed in a din. But what is more important is that it will reduce the Manmohan ministry to a lame duck government.
If the government does relent — though the Congress has ruled this out — it will be a case of acting under opposition pressure. The prime minister may be summoned by the JPC and if that happens, “Would he prefer to put in his papers?” is the question in everybody’s mind. It goes without saying that a JPC would keep the 2G scam, in one form or the other, on the political and media radar, including the Niira Radia tapes, month after month. This too would push the government against the wall, robbing it of the authority to take decisions. So either way, the government has been cornered.
Even though the BJP does not have a clear prime ministerial face today, nor is there a shining knight in armour to lead the forces opposed to the UPA to victory, as in 1989, the party believes that the NDA, as the largest political entity after the UPA, may naturally be the biggest beneficiary of the churning that is currently going on. The party now proposes to flog a collectivity — made up of its central leaders and state satraps — as its new engine, though collectives have never really had an appeal in this country as have individual leaders.
The BJP also hopes that its decision to take up development as its core issue, putting the more emotive Hindutva on the backburner, may bring regional parties, which had left it, to its side once again. NDA convenor Sharad Yadav is already in the process of approaching these parties so as to make corruption an issue of the entire opposition in the coming weeks.
But the BJP’s big challenge will come from within the parivar, and ironically this is the first good news for the Congress in weeks. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has said that the Sangh will now campaign that the Ayodhya site be given to the Hindus for a Ram temple instead of the three-way division ordered by the court on September 30, with one portion allocated to the Sunni Waqf Board.
While it may be true that the RSS cannot delink itself from its core issue, and that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is pushing for an ‘abhiyan’ in the long held belief that had the BJP not politicised the mandir issue, the temple might have actually been built, and that while the RSS may not be opposed to the BJP’s new focus on development, nor expect it to take up the temple issue, Bhagwat’s statement and the renewed campaign will only go to fuel suspicions in regional parties about the BJP’s bona fides. It could not have been timed worse for the BJP, as far as its efforts, to bring together the opposition parties, are concerned.
Politics apart, estranged relations between the government and the opposition in the just concluded session, touched a new low, when leaders did not feel able to exchange two words over tea. They signified a breakdown which hardly augurs well for the future of parliamentary democracy. It is time to really worry.
neerja_chowdhury@yahoo.com
About the author:
Neerja Chowdhury is political editor,
‘The New Indian Express’