Return of the prodigal

While the country's gaze is fixed on Gujarat which goes to state Assembly elections later this year with Narendra Modi as its lodestar, in neighbouring Rajasthan, another little saffron story is re-emerging in the form of feisty former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia who is on a comeback trail for the scheduled 2013 Assembly elections.

 

Scindia who has been kept out of the political sweepstakes by a combination of vicious inner-party rivalry and a strong anti-incumbency, won the 2003 Rajasthan Assembly for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 120 seats and has proved to be the state's biggest saffron draw since the redoubtable Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. If Modi is popular in Gujarat, so is Vasundhara in Rajasthan.

 

Scindia, who spent a better part of the last four years in wilderness, is on a reassertion drive: an active combatant on the floor of the state assembly demanding more time for debates, taking a group of BJP MLAs to meet governor Margaret Alva presenting a fact sheet of the 'failures' of the Ashok Gehlot's Congress government and a general aggressiveness not seen in Rajasthan politics since a decade.

 

On October 12, on the birth anniversary of her mother and former BJP leader Rajmata Vijayraje Scindia, Vasundhara Raje, used the emotions of the moment to launch a broadside against the state government, not willing to let go of an opportunity to claim brownie points. 

 

Says former chairman of the Vidhan Sabha, Sumitra Singh, "Vasundhara's political graph is rising. She is BJP's talisman in Rajasthan. It is nearly certain that she will return BJP to power. People remember her tenure for increased power supply and other amenities, as well as her control of the bureaucracy, which is currently ruling the roost in a directionless Gehlot government.''

 

Political sources claim that Vasundhara's all encompassing appeal has only one downside: the enemy within. Her rivals in the state and the centre, have virtually manoeuvered her out of state politics since she lost power in December 2008. It is a well chronicled fact that the RSS was not too amused with her ways as Chief Minister, neither were the more conservative elements in the Sangh parivar. 

 

During her sojourn abroad, Rajasthan BJP under its state president Arun Chaturvedi and his deputy Ghanshyam Tiwari tried their level best to pump oxygen into a state unit that was threatening to turn moribund. But without much success, until the return of the prodigal Vasundhara Raje on the scene recently. 

 

Adding weight to her political campaign in the run up to the state assembly elections, is said to be BJP's Gujarat observer Omprakash Mathur, who is certain to cash in on Modi's appeal for the benefit of turning the saffron tide into something substantial against the Congress government in Rajasthan. Vasundhara Raje is herself poised to start a yatra across the state to highlight the failures of the Congress government.

 

The bigger challenge before Vasundhara Raje, however, is to meet this internal challenge posed by saffron leaders, both at the centre and at the state. That appears to be the only way for the BJP to get its numbers in the 200-strong Rajasthan Assembly in 2013. 

 

For instance, during the last assembly elections in 2008, her main obstacle turned out to be Dausa's independent MLA Kirori Lal Meena, who continues to be out of the BJP and strongly poised to join the BSP. Her other Achilles heel is Khivsar (in Nagaur) MLA, BJP's Hanuman Beniwal, who has launched a no-holds barred offensive against the former CM.

 

Explains veteran journalist Narayan Bareth, "Vasundhara is popular and the Gehlot government's graph is falling by the day. Inflation and corruption issues at the centre have helped the state BJP and Vasundhara to drum up support. But it can only work out if the central BJP supports her totally. At the moment, they are promoting a parallel leadership in former BJP minister Gulabchand Kataria. At a time when the party is set to loose BS Yeddyurappa in Karnataka, it can ill afford to lose another leader and that too in Rajasthan where they are strongly poised to return.'' Good point.

 

But often in politics, what is apparent may not necessarily be true. When the BJP came to power in 2003, the central leadership gave Vasundhara total control of the 2004 General Elections in Rajasthan. Yet, the results were a washout: four Lok Sabha seats out of 25 for the BJP.

 

Yet optimists in the party feel that in an undivided house -if that was possible – a 13 per cent Dalit vote coupled with Muslims who have been at the receiving end of under reported communal riots in the state, could tilt the balance in Vasundhara and BJP's favour. Even though it remains prematureto predict the outcome of the 2013 polls, if the cards fall in place as she wants, the story of Rajasthan could well turn out a repeat of 2003.

 

pramod.kumar@thesundayindian.com