Manmohan is History, but Last Leg of Advani's Run Begins May 16
It’s a spellbinding tale of two titans riding into the sunset. One
has a record for being the third longest-serving PM. The other has an
unfulfilled dream of making it to 7 RCR even after two elections. PM
Manmohan Singh and L K Advani, the titular chairman of the inactive NDA,
have become pariahs in their homes. Even the claqueurs they promoted
and protected during their shining days treat them with disdain. In
2009, both were star campaigners for their parties. Both were declared
their party’s PM candidates in advance. Congress never missed an
opportunity to market Manmohan as India’s consensus builder and global
leader. Advani was hailed as strong and decisive regnant—the real
inheritor of Sardar Patel’s legacy. Every piece of publicity material of
both parties carried their pictures proclaiming their seigniory.
Come
2014, and their own parties do not want them. As Bob Dylan sang, “you
don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”, the coup de
théâtre is that both LKA and MMS—hailed as architects of a resurgent BJP
and a prosperous India respectively—are now perceived as destroyers of
the edifices they raised. The names of neither leader appear on the list
of their party’s key campaigners, submitted to the EC, even as a mere
formality. There is no demand for either of them to address rallies. If
Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have spoken at over 200
meetings each, Advani and Manmohan aren’t expected to address more than
20 each.
The reasons for the ignominy of each leader are
different. Advani has been in politics for over six decades. He led a
movement, which brought his party to power in 1996 under the leadership
of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He groomed the current leadership of the BJP by
appointing them CMs and giving them national responsibilities, even at
the risk of ignoring the claims of senior satraps. The BJP’s Iron Man of
Yesterday holds the world record of undertaking the longest-ever yatra
for the purpose of uniting his party and carrying the Hindutva message
through the country. Advani, along with Vajpayee, made BJP what it is
today. Advani was, in fact, its soul and body; Vajpayee its moderate
face. But the party’s poor performance in 2009 and Vajpayee’s
infirmities forcing him to opt out of tasks of politics led Advani’s
position to become vulnerable. The first sign of his plummeting
acceptability was visible during the recent Assembly polls in which most
BJP chief ministers were unwilling to invite him to campaign. Moreover,
portraits of both Advani and Vajpayee, which used to hold permanent
pride of place in the party’s publicity material started to vanish from
electoral horizons of saffron states. Now, one can hardly find Advani’s
picture on a poster or a hoarding put up for a BJP candidate.
Modi’s
supporters have ensured that his bête noire doesn’t share any platform
with Gujarat’s lord of the ascendant in any part of the country. So far,
the old warhorse hasn’t been invited onstage to any rally in which Modi
is main speaker. In a cruel irony, Advani—BJP’s leader, ideologue and
philosopher—has been reduced to being just another name in the list of
over a dozen members of the parliamentary board. The sanguine suzerain
who carried BJP out of political untouchability and brought over 20
parties to its fold is today not even consulted or informed about
alliances with other parties, which still respect him more than any
leader in BJP. His inability to anticipate and understand the winds of
change within his own party led to erosion of his supremacy. Never did
he expect that his followers would stab him in the back one day.
A
leader who once had the veto over the selection of even a member of a
state Assembly has been denied the right to choose his seat. Advani,
however, still commands a following among the old guard and a sizeable
section of middle-level cadres who see in him a leader to admire—one
with frugal habits and simple living. Prominent leaders like Madhya
Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha
Sushma Swaraj and over a dozen state party paladins still regard him as
the symbol of BJP’s ideology. It is thanks to them that he has survived
in the party and is still seen unleashing his oratory at rallies. It was
the small but formidable support Advani commands within the rank and
file that forced Modi to accompany him when he went to file his
nomination from Gandhinagar. To the dismay of detractors, Advani
continues to be an institution and not just an individual.
On
another front, it is Sonia Gandhi and Congress which made MMS what he is
today. The PM has never been seen as a person with political mettle to
lead his party. Sonia appointed him PM because he was apolitical and
wouldn’t pose any challenge to the Gandhi Parivar. During the UPA’s
2004-09 reign, he delivered on governance not because of his
administrative prowess but primarily due to the effect of the global
economic upsurge. MMS provided multinationals an easy market for making
fast money and gave them concessions to create services and invest in
markets instead of manufacturing. As the winter of global recession set
in 2009, India’s vulnerability was exposed; the national growth rate
plunged to a decade’s record low of less than 5 per cent. His
introverted paralysis led to his failure in leading the government. Yet,
his pickthank megaphones never missed an opportunity to blame the
Gandhis and dual centres of power for the massive failures and scams
hobbling the UPA. For the past few months, many of his ministers have
been defying him. They found excuses for not inviting him to any of
their ministries’ functions. Now portraits of him—so prominent in 2009
posters of the Congress—have vanished. If Advani still holds a place in
his party, the Congress is eagerly waiting for MMS to make a graceful
exit. The party had been dropping myriad signals, which forced the PM to
announce his retirement way before the elections. While it is certain
that MMS will be history after the polls, the writing of the last
chapter of Advani’s 60-year-old political Yatra will begin only after
May 16.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
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