The Hindu, 18 November 2009
RSS plans to clip wings of BJP’s ‘Delhi 4’
Neena Vyas
| Keen to separate functions of BJP parliamentary wing and central organisation |
Arun Jaitley
While the parliamentary wing will work through its own parliamentary party executive and take decisions relevant to parliamentary strategy and day-to-day functioning with the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha in the chair, decisions about the functioning of the State units and central party programmes will be taken by the team of central party office-bearers with the party president in the chair.
M. Venkaiah Naidu
With Maharashtra State party president Nitin Gadkari being the favourite to take charge from Mr. Singh, efforts are also on to ensure that he is not frustrated or stymied by the seemingly well-entrenched and more powerful ‘Delhi 4’ leaders — Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar — who were kept out of the race for the top job by the RSS. The plan seems to be to keep them busy with parliamentary affairs.
Coordination panel
The first signal came on Tuesday. Mr. Jaitley and Ms. Swaraj left for Bangalore after a parliamentary party meeting to help set up the coordination committee for the Karnataka government that was part of the compromise formula that was worked out among the BJP leadership, Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and the Reddy brothers of Bellary to buy peace. Even before the two left for Bangalore, Mr. Singh constituted a 14-member coordination committee including the Chief Minister and one of the Bellary brothers, G. Karunakara Reddy.
Sushma Swaraj
Ananth Kumar
o o o
Outlook Magazine | November 23, 2009
[photo] Gadkari in his office at the BJP party HQ in Mumbai
politics: bjp
The Default Emperor?
Maharashtra BJP president Nitin Gadkari is a reluctant candidate for party chief
by Saba Naqvi
A few years on, when the tale is told about the great hunt for a new BJP president in 2009, it might sound like a fable. Once upon a time, the mighty princes of the land of the BJP fought and squabbled. So bad was the situation in the kingdom that the gods themselves had to descend from the heavens and begin the search for a new king. They hunted across the length and breadth of the land and finally found a suitable man in the place where the gods have their abode. (The dictionary meaning of fable is a short moral story or an improbable account).
It’s now highly likely that a local man from Nagpur, the headquarters of the RSS, will be the next BJP president. If all goes according to the RSS plan, 52-year-old Nitin Gadkari will be the national president of the party after the term of current incumbent Rajnath Singh comes to an end in December this year. Since the process of organisational elections could still take a few more months, RSS/BJP leaders have been toying with the possibility of making an interim announcement soon after the Jharkhand assembly election results are announced on December 23.
In other words, the long-winded process and speculation will continue till the year-end. But clearly the process is coming to a climax, with various BJP and RSS emissaries turning up in Delhi over the last few weeks to sound out national leaders about accepting/cooperating with Gadkari.
Which is indeed the big question. How will a regional leader, some years younger, and with no national exposure, exercise authority over the BJP’s second-rung biggies? To add insult to injury, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat made it clear in a recent interview that the leaders from Delhi are not in contention for the president’s post. Which is why Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ananth Kumar and Venkaiah Naidu are now referred to as “D-4” or “B-4” (the Delhi Four or the Blacklisted Four). “The issue is not that one of them has to be made president. But it’ll surely annoy each of them that the RSS has decided arbitrarily that they will not be considered at all,” says a senior party leader.
There is another catch to the planned anointment of the (relatively) young Maharashtrian Brahmin. Nitin Gadkari himself. Well-placed party sources say Gadkari has told the leadership he would prefer to focus on Maharashtra. He has also reportedly said it would not be “appropriate” for a regional politician like him to suddenly land in Delhi and exercise authority over seniors with far greater experience.
All The Saffron Men’s Presidents
Rajnath Singh
2005-to present
Plus: Close to RSS
Minus: No base, at odds with the big Delhi-based leaders
Venkaiah Naidu
2002 to 2004
Plus: Good terms with Advani and the RSS
Minus: Not liked by then PM A.B. Vajpayee
J. Krishnamurthy
2001 to 2002
Plus: Amiable figure and organisation man
Minus: Even in NDA rule, no real authority
Bangaru Laxman
2000 to 2001
Plus: Dalit who made it to important post
Minus: Caught on camera taking a bribe
Kushabhau Thakre
1998 to 2000
Plus: Formidable grip on organisation, cadre
Minus: No image, loyal only to the RSS
M.M. Joshi
1990 to 1992
Plus: Good profile with good RSS links
Minus: Undone by LK, hardline image
L.K. Advani was party president in the interim periods, 1992-98 and 2004-05
Gadkari is an amiable figure in party circles, a man who maintains good relations with seniors and RSS leaders. He is from an RSS-ABVP background but is not really known for ideologically rigid positions. In Maharashtra, he’s best known for his term as the state PWD minister (1995-99), credited with building the Pune-Mumbai expressway and putting up several flyovers in Mumbai itself. He also runs several successful businesses in Nagpur that manufacture pipes, steel furniture and even silk saris. His electoral experience, however, is limited. He has been a member of the legislative council five times from the Nagpur region but hasn’t been in the state assembly although he is the president of the Maharashtra BJP.
There is nothing spectacular in Gadkari’s past although his future may be different. Piyush Geol, Mumbai-based investment banker and Maharashtra BJP party treasurer, describes Gadkari as a simple and accessible leader. “His house in Worli serves as a bhandar for any visiting party leader or worker. He is so down to earth that he will buy vegetables in Nagpur and carry them on the flight to Mumbai where everything is more expensive.” Fellow Maharashtrian Prakash Javadekar, now Rajya Sabha MP, says that Gadkari’s energy levels are phenomenal and “for 10 years I almost lived in his house in Nagpur, he’s so open-hearted”.
But does he qualify to be BJP president? Well, there is the problem that he looks like the fall guy—except for the “B-4” all state leaders turned down the offer. Sources reveal that two months ago Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chauhan was first sounded out by the RSS. Chauhan panicked and began a counter-campaign to remain in state politics. Then L.K. Advani suggested the name of Narendra Modi. The Gujarat CM refused. Apparently, Modi has planned huge celebrations in 2010 to mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of Gujarat and has no incentive to shift to central politics now. Advani also suggested the name of people like Manohar Parrikar of Goa and Nitin Gadkari. The RSS has had differences with Parrikar so they seized on Gadkari’s name—the local Nagpur boy who has always obliged them. As a party insider says, “Advani possibly suggested his name as a diversionary tactic and not as a serious contender. The Sangh, though, made him the sole contender by declaring the others out of the race.”
Gadkari currently finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He will move to Delhi if the RSS insists but by all accounts is not lobbying or even enthusiastic about the job. What happens then? The Big Four will pretend to accept his leadership but covert sabotage is very much possible.
Meanwhile, another subplot brews. Advani is expected to quit as leader of the Opposition and hand the reins to Sushma Swaraj. But it now turns out that a strong section of the RSS believes Murli Manohar Joshi should get the job and he is currently the frontrunner for the constitutional post. Hence, Sushma Swaraj has been quoted as saying Advani will continue as leader in the House—she would be left with nothing should Joshi pip her to the post. Meanwhile, Rajnath Singh too has been quietly lobbying for the post after his term as president ends. He has nowhere to go except UP where the BJP seems to have no future.
It’s all a sorry mess. No wonder life in Nagpur seems better to Nitin Gadkari.
o o o
The Telegraph
18 November 2009
RSS revival pill: Bharatiya ‘Mamata’ Party
by RADHIKA RAMASESHAN
Mohanrao Bhagwat, Mamata Banerjee, Nitin Gadkari: A leaf from Trinamul?
New Delhi, Nov. 17: If the RSS could rename the BJP, what would it be? Bharatiya Hindutva Party? Hindutva Dal? No. Bharatiya Trinamul Party, perhaps.
As the Sangh grapples with what seems like a long-drawn revamp job of its political progeny, a source privy to the exercise said the Sangh would “ideally want to use elements of the Trinamul Congress’s approach and strategy”.
“Our understanding is Mamata Banerjee’s entire focus is on building bricks at the grassroots by identifying people’s problems, the target of their anger, the people on the ground who could channel such feelings against the ruling coalition and grooming them into leaders. Unless the BJP sheds its top-heavy obsession with the Delhi leadership and puts the bricks in place, there is no hope. Trinamul is as loaded in symbolism as it is in substance.”
However, unlike the Mamata-centred Trinamul, in the post-Rajnath Singh phase, the RSS wants a BJP that revolves around itself and, specifically, Sangh chief Mohanrao Bhagwat, not L.K. Advani or his proteges. Nor even the prospective president, Nitin Gadkari, who is likely to be seen more as Bhagwat’s alias.
The Sangh’s view, not shared by many in the BJP, is that the “cabal” of four —Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar — thwarted Rajnath’s working. The implication is that they had foiled the Sangh’s plan to take the BJP back to its “roots”, politically and “ethically”. The Sangh sees them as “Delhi leaders out of touch with ground realities”. BJP sources contested the perception, saying Jaitley had steered the party to victory as a general secretary in several state elections — Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab. Sushma, earlier a Sangh favourite, was the biggest crowd-puller after Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the sources pointed out.
In an attempt to “curtail the interventions” of the four, the sources said the RSS planned to separate the party organisation from its parliamentary arm. The leaders, the sources said, would be “at liberty” to run the parliamentary party in whatever manner they liked but they would be “expected” to keep off the day-to-day running of the organisation.
The first casualty of the changes expected to kick in after Rajnath’s imminent exit might be Kumar, the senior-most general secretary. The sources said the RSS hadn’t taken too kindly to Kumar’s role in the recent Karnataka crisis as he was a detractor of chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and was reportedly stalling a resolution for one reason or another. “Egged” on by Kumar, the sources said, the Reddy brothers of Bellary kept insisting that Yeddyurappa be replaced. The Sangh was opposed to the idea.
Bhagwat checkmated the ploy by iterating that the next BJP chief would be from outside Delhi and not one of the “four”. “It was a message to the Bellary brothers that the power centre was shifting. “They got the message and agreed to let the chief minister stay with some riders,” the source said.
But in a sign that the “Delhi four” were not pushovers, Kumar was today inducted into an oversight committee set up by Rajnath to coordinate affairs between the BJP and the Karnataka government. Its other members are Yeddyurappa critics like Jagdish Shettar and K.S. Eswarappa.
