BJP Future - 7

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NVS on [url=http://www.newsinsight.net/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=2241}Freeing the BJP[/url]

Freeing the BJP

Without internal polls and an elected president, the principal opposition party cannot seriously challenge the corrupt UPA regime, says N.V.Subramanian.



6 January 2012: Since the Congress is a dynastic party, it is pointless to speak about internal elections and democracy in its context. It is a family concern (Commentary, "Congress Inc." 4 January 2012), and nothing less. But though the BJP has internal democracy in the manner the Congress doesn't, it still needs to formalize it. A good starting point would be to have an elected party president, not one nominated by the RSS.



Nitin Gadkari has been foisted on the BJP by the RSS. The RSS and the BJP president may deny this. But it happens to be true. Gadkari's decision to induct the tainted Babu Singh Kushwaha into the party with an eye on the Uttar Pradesh elections has boomeranged on him and hurt the BJP's image. The RSS newspaper, Panchjanya, has obliquely criticized this. At the same time, a RSS spokesman claims the organization does not interfere in BJP decision-making. It convinces nobody.



Except for the decision to induct Kushwaha, Gadkari is not a blundering or failed BJP president like, say, Rajnath Singh, another RSS nominee. At least within the BJP, Gadkari has been non-confrontationist. He has not played factional politics. He has to be credited for returning to the party such estranged leaders as Jaswant Singh and Uma Bharati. When he took over, nearly everyone was against nearly everyone else in the BJP. He has served as glue.



But at bottom, Gadkari remains a Maharashtra politician. It is, of course, no credit to him that the BJP is floundering in Maharashtra under his charge. But he is even more clueless about the rest of India. For the Karnataka, B.S.Yeddyuruppa mess, he is partly to blame. He has no understanding of cowbelt politics. But worse, he has little sense of how Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign has changed the public mood against tainted politicians. If he had been an elected BJP president, he wouldn't conceivably have made the Kushwaha blunder.



What makes an elected party president different from a nominated one? The hard grind of elections. To win, a candidate has to convince or appear convincing to a majority of the party's members. For that, a candidate has to travel widely, canvass strenuously and imaginatively, sell his new vision for the party, appear statesman-like over his rivals, and project himself as most capable to bring the party to power, if it's in the opposition. Tony Blair did it for Labour and subsequently David Cameron for the Conservatives.



This process of electioneering brings a two-fold advantage. While the candidates become known to party members and the wider constituents, the candidates may return wiser by the experience. If candidates have to crisscross the country for a year or more to win party elections, consider the wealth of political insights and local knowledge they gain. If a BJP presidential candidate had done such intensive tours of the country, he would have been astonished by the deep countercurrents set off by Anna's movement, and at the least avoided the Kushwaha embarrassment.



An elected party president naturally brings other advantages. He knows the people's pulse. His actions and opinions carry weight since he is elected. If he is the president of the largest opposition party in Parliament, he enjoys the position of shadow prime minister. The party gets consolidated under an elected president. An elected president will be better able to give the party winning short-duration tactics, medium-term direction, and vision over the long course. And since his constituency embraces the whole country, he would be less guided by coteries, and veer towards decision-making by consensus.



All in all, his elected status would give him enormous legitimacy and leverage.



Without an elected president, the BJP is deprived of all these advantages. Even when the BJP was cadre-based, it did not have elected presidents. At least the earliest Jana Sangha/ BJP chiefs had standing in the RSS, being of the same peer group, which allowed of some autonomy. But today, those generational links have shredded. There is no love lost between the BJP and RSS. The fall from grace of L.K.Advani, who did not walk away into the sunset, has been most damaging for the BJP. The RSS simply does not trust the party to run its affairs properly.



But if the BJP has to grow and become a responsible and result-oriented opposition, it has to come out of the shadows of the RSS, and the first step in that direction would be to hold internal elections. There are too many power-centres in the BJP today, pulling in contrary directions. This may suit the RSS which is opposed to the personality cult. One Narendra Modi is enough. But it is not taking the BJP anywhere.



Without an elected president, the BJP cannot meet the rising aspirations of a resurgent democratic India. Nitin Gadkari's Kushwaha self-goal is a symptom of the malaise that runs deep. A dynastic Congress is already choking Indian democracy. The BJP with its in-built constraints is not helping matters.

One reason for not having elections is it divides the party. However in current state folks who dont agree with the leader already undermine it by working against it. The real problem is an Indian trait to not support and rally behind the cause or leader. Anywhere else once the elections or leader is decided people work towards the goal.