Revolts Unlimited

In their own unique, fascinating, sometimes belligerent and often bellicose ways, they were the pioneer generals that led their armies to thumping and resounding victories. They handed out humiliating defeats to hitherto unconquerable opponents. They captured vast territories. They were charismatic, they connected with the grassroots. They were the vanguard of a resurgent BJP that harnessed, milked and leveraged Hindutva and the secular decline and fall of the Congress to ride triumphantly to power in Delhi.

And then they fell by the wayside and the generals became rebels. This is perhaps an untold story about contemporary India that future historians might mull over. Yes, even as the BJP has grown steadily in national importance and threatened to become a rival to Congress, the "party with a difference" became a party of rebels and revolts. In almost all instances, it has been successful generals with genuine mass appeal who've become rebels.

Let us go back to October 1990. The tottering VP Singh government in Delhi had uncorked the Mandal genie out of the bottle. To counter this, the doughty LK Advani had launched his historic Rath Yatra. In Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, the Mulayam Singh Yadav government opened fire on Kar Sevaks. A few months later, the BJP managed the unthinkable. Led by a relatively unknown Kalyan Singh, it stormed to power in the state with a clear majority. Kalyan Singh became a new mascot of Hindutva and the resurgent BJP. He was no Bramhin or upper caste warrior. He was bona fide OBC. He was hard line. He was the new face of a rising BJP. And yet, things came to such a pass that Kalyan Singh became a bona fide rebel and for a while became a partner with his once mortal enemy Mulayam Singh Yadav. Says well known psephologist and political commentator Yashwant Deshmukh, "Can there be any doubt that the Kalyan Singh saga has done incalculable damage to the BJP in India's politically most significant state? BJP cannot rule from Delhi without winning a lot of Lok Sabha seats from UP. And it seems to have lost UP."

More than a decade after Kalyan Singh unlocked the heartland gates for the BJP, it was yet another backward caste, steeped in Hindutva superstar that became a BJP mascot. Uma Bharati decimated the seemingly invincible Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh assembly elections and gave the BJP a historic two-thirds majority. So shaken and stirred was the master strategist and Gandhi family loyalist Digvijay Singh that he vowed not to hold any government post or contest any elections for 10 years. That was the power and mesmerising magic of Uma Bharti. And yet, within a few short years, she had publicly revolted against her own party and heaped public abuses on Delhi-based party leaders. Fortunately for the BJP, her eventual replacement Shivraj Singh Chauhan proved to be a canny Hindutva warrior and helped the BJP retain the state in 2008 elections. But the BJP was not so lucky in the capital city Delhi. In the first assembly elections as a state, Delhi gave a thumping victory to the BJP. The local superstar was the veteran warrior Madan Lal Khurana who became the first Chief Minister of Delhi. There was absolutely no doubt that he was a popular chief minister. And yet, within a few years, Khurana was replaced by the late Saheb Singh Verma. Khurana sulked and eventually revolted. That opened the doors for Sheila Dixit and the Congress to comprehensively capture what was once considered to be a BJP citadel. Sheila Dixit has held on to Delhi in three successive elections, and in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress humiliated the BJP by winning seven out of seven seats. There are many in the BJP who say that Khurana is a lost force. But then, if you look at it that way, even Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti have lost their charisma as well the ability to win votes and elections. Remember, Uma Bharti could not help the BJP in either in Bundelkhand or in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections held recently. Clearly, it is a loss for both the rebels and the party.  The two big questions that the national leadership of the BJP must answer for its own sake are: Why has this phenomenon become so endemic to the BJP? More importantly, to what extent have these rebels and revolts damaged the future prospects of the party?

Perhaps it is the inability or unwillingness of the party bosses to answer these uncomfortable questions that has resulted in the BJP failing to capitalise on the massive unpopularity of the Congress-led UPA regime. Perhaps that is why serious political commentators are not willing to say with confidence that the BJP would comfortably cross 150 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Of course, strategists in the BJP disagree that the rebels have adversely affected the fortunes of the party. Explains P Muralidhar Rao, who now acts as a think tank-cum-advisor for BJP President Nitin Gadkari, "You are right in saying there have been rebels. But you are wrong in a fundamental way. You see, if those who revolt do so for a genuine public cause, they will surely get the support of the people as well as voters. But if the revolt is because of ego and other personal issues, it will not affect the party. We tend to take a very long-term view about these things."

Rao does have a point. The state that has thrown up the maximum number of rebels and revolts in the BJP is Gujarat. The former BJP Chief Minister of the state, Shankar Singh Vaghela, is a now a Congress leader. Then there is the old warhorse Kanshiram Rana who is a full-fledged rebel. And the latest to join the rebel bandwagon is yet another former BJP Chief Minister of Gujarat Kesubhai Patel. Patel was replaced more than a decade ago by the incumbent Narendra Modi. Many even within the BJP agree that Kesubhai Patel was really instrumental in the BJP becoming a formidable force in Gujarat in the 1990s. Kesubhai Patel is now in open revolt and is seeking to dislodge Modi and the BJP from power. He could perhaps make an impact on the Patel vote, loyal to the BJP for decades. But then it has been about 17 uninterrupted years since the BJP has been in power in the state and the rebels and revolts don't seem to have made much of a difference to the party's fortunes. And political analysts will be shocked if Narendra Modi does lose the state.

Gujarat may well be pointed out by BJP leaders as a test case of how rebels don't affect the party. But that is wishing away trouble and big trouble in days and years ahead. The fact is: there is definitely a growing and yawning chasm between powerful grassroot state-level leaders of the party who can comfortably win elections and the Delhi-based leaders who are seen more frequently on TV screens rather than heartland meetings. And this disconnect is definitely costing the party very dear. Two electoral losses for the BJP can be clearly ascribed to this disconnect between state-level heavyweights with grassroots support and Delhi-based heavyweights with no grassroots support. Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj seem to fall in the later category. Coming back to electoral losses, take the example of Rajasthan. Nobody disputes that Vasundhara Raje Scindia was instrumental in the BJP winning big time in the state in the 2003 assembly elections. And yet, by the time the next elections approached, Scindia was constantly attacked and sabotaged. There were dark hints of a Delhi cabal led by Rajnath Singh determined to teach the royal scion a royal lesson. Despite the bitter infighting and the sabotage, Scindia lost the 2008 elections with a very narrow margin. And yet she was blamed for it and hounded. The result: five months after the assembly elections, the Congress won 21 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats from Rajasthan. For a while after that, it did appear as if Scindia, like Uma Bharti would walk out of the BJP. She was certainly missing from the public, from rallies and from the battlefield trenches. Luckily for the BJP, she is back leading the party in Rajasthan and gearing up for elections next year, despite rumours of her exit. The other state that the BJP clearly lost because of this disconnect is Uttarakhand in the recent assembly elections. Despite his immense popularity and incorruptible image, Major General (retired) BC Khanduri was shunted out by the party leadership in Delhi as the Chief Minister based on frivolous and concocted allegations. Like Scindia, Khanduri too sulked and perhaps also thought of leaving the party for good. He didn't. Just a few months before assembly elections were due, the Delhi bosses of BJP realised that the clean image of the party had taken a massive hit in the absence of Khanduri. They sent him back as the Chief Minister. Perhaps too late, and also to face sabotage from his colleagues. The result: Khanduri lost his own seat and the Congress defeated the BJP by just one seat. Fortunately for the party, both Scindia and Khanduri have not declared open rebellion.
Well, they can't say the same about another formidable state level leader who has declared war against his own party. BS Yeddyurappa is widely credited with leading the BJP to its first major electoral victory south of the Vindhyas when the party won a majority in the Karnataka assembly elections. And yet, the party is in shreds now in the state and Yeddyurappa has openly announced that he will form his own party and contest elections due next year. He is not shy of laying the blame on the Delhi cabal for his humiliation and imminent exit from the party. It is too early to say with any measure of certitude to what extent the latest rebel will affect the fortunes of the BJP in the state. But Karnataka-based political analysts are convinced that the BJP will fare miserably in the coming assembly elections. It did lose bye-elections to the Belgaum Lok Sabha seat, long considered a BJP fortress.

Many political pundits have been baffled about one thing: despite the popular anger and revulsion against this UPA regime across the country, the BJP seems to have failed to literally put the Congress on the mat. Most agree that voters are about as angry as they were in the immediate aftermath of the Emergency and the aftermath of the Bofors scam. And yet nobody says the BJP will decimate the Congress in 2014. Perhaps the reason lies in this internecine and suicidal war between the Delhi bosses and the state stalwarts?

sutanu.guru@thesundayindian.com