Why will Nitin Gadkari fail?
December 24th, 2009If there is one person in this country who can lift BJP from it’s current mess it is Narendra Modi but he has declined to come to Delhi. The other choice was Pramod Mahajan. Unfortunately, he’s dead. Well, that left a whole lot of lesser mortals from amongst whom Nitin Gadkari has been picked by the RSS to replace the defunct Rajnath Singh. When I heard of this choice it was like - Nitin who? Nitin Gadkari, they told me, was a man from Maharashtra and who had delivered when he was the PWD minister in Maharashtra from 1995-1999. They say that he made 55 bridges and flyovers in Mumbai. They even say that Mumbai-Pune expressway was his baby. Well, so far so good. A man known for constructing bridges and roads which brought people and places closer has now been chosen to build bridges between the party and the masses of the country who are moving further and further away from the party. Remember this line and you’ll see for yourself later in this post how Nitin Gadkari has faltered right in the beginning itself.
BJP claims itself to be a cadre based party. That implies that anyone joining this party will slowly move up the ladder if he or she works diligently and sincerely. But whose cadre are we talking about here? Is it the RSS or the BJP? Because if you go by the past history the cadre based thing broadly meant the one of RSS. Take Atal Bihari Vajpayee or LK Advani or Bangaru Laxman or Rajnath Singh or even Nitin Gadkari. They all have been part of the sangh pariwar and by extension they became part of BJP and rose to become the president of the party. Nobody from BJP, except Venkaiah Naidu who was the president from 2002-2004, who has not been part of the sangh pariwar has been chosen for this post. You can check out the history of BJP president’s here. That shows the extent to which RSS controls this organisation.
Why did he refuse?
It also shows that if we were all looking for a change in the party the appointment of Gadkari does not seem to be that change. For those of us who were indeed looking for a change in BJP ideology with another RSS man at the helm of it’s affairs I really wonder how different can he be from the rest. What BJP required was to associate themselves with the middle class of India who is more secular and for whom RSS does not mean a thing. Frankly with another RSS man as president I don’t really see that happening. Also, for those who say RSS interference in internal affairs of BJP should be minimum it is again very difficult for me to visualize Gadkari doing anything which RSS does not approve of. Another related and a very important issue is the discrimination of members of the party based on their association with RSS or rather lack of it, as we saw during the Jaswant Singh episode when he was sacked but Arun Shourie who openly challenged the BJP leadership on numerous occasions, was not. Quite possibly because Jaswant Singh had nothing to do with RSS whereas Shourie has everything to do with it. And to expect an RSS man who is new to the chair to correct this wrong would be rather naive on our part.
The next problem that I have is that he is relatively junior in stature and experience to stalwarts and veterans like Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, MM Joshi etc etc. How can you expect such senior persons to toe the line of president? A cadre based party is supposed to have a hierarchy. If that hierarchy is not followed then there will be problems. Take the example of the army which is the most cadre based organisation you can possibly have. How can it function if the Chief of army were to be junior to the commanders of the various formations? It would spell chaos for sure. By the same analogy BJP too needed a person who was senior enough to be able to wield influence over these veterans here in Delhi. Agreed that age was a factor in his nomination but this kind of change has to be more gradual and not so sudden that it challenges the very basic cadre structure of the party. I also concede that army and a political party are two very different things. The policies of the party evolve through consensus unlike those of the army. But if Advani could not evolve that consensus how can you expect a green horn to achieve that? The appointment of Gopinath Munde as number two BJP man in Lok Sabha after Sushma Swaraj and who is a rival and equivalent of Gadkari in Maharashtra proves that Gadkari will most likely be relegated and equated to the level of Munde, a number two man.
Damn you Praveen Mahajan!!
When everyone was rooting for Rajnath’s removal it was quite obvious that this time it was going to be a Maharashtrian who will take charge if Narendra Modi declined to do so. RSS would have no other. And Modi did decline, as LK Advani said on his retirement. Pramod Mahajan would have fit the bill perfectly but unfortunately he is no more. Gadkari was therefore a choice by default more than anything else. Having been chosen for this post Gadkari had his task cut out. He needed to reach out to his seniors to seek their blessings and he did that. He also reached out to people like Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti to try and bring them back into the fold of BJP but that did not include Jaswant Singh who was so unceremoniously sacked from the party. Did anyone say change of guard means change of heart? Well, think again.
Another thing which Gadkari did was to announce that he will not fight elections for the next three years. Remember the line- Building bridges with the masses of this country? Well, if the aim is to build bridges Gadkari has to identify himself with the masses. If he’s indeed going to restrict himself to the work of the party they should have got a retired bureaucrat for this job. Not an ex minister who was pretty successful in his tenure as a representative of masses. To understand what I mean you have to appreciate the fact that broadly there are three major rungs in any political party. First is the top leadership of the party which takes major decisions on policies and issues. This includes the party president, parliamentary board and other top leaders of the party. The second rung is the middle level office bearers who assist the leadership in carrying out their tasks. This includes the state party chiefs, members of assemblies and general secretaries of the party etc. The third and the most important rung is that of the party workers who are actually the driving force of the party because they are the ones who are in touch with the masses. They are the ones who exhort people to join the party or support them on any particular issue which the top leadership wants them to. You can therefore see how important these guys are. And in the case of BJP the lack of enthusiasm and zeal on the part of party workers has a lot to do with the current situation they find themselves in. Take a guess people. Who will these workers identify more with, a president who is detached from the masses or a person who is not just the president but a leader of the masses as well? Also, Gadkari was moved from the second rung to the top of top rung overnight wherein he now risks losing the rapport he might have had with the lowest rung. If by contesting elections Gadkari can prove himself to be that person who is an actual leader of the masses it will surely go a long way in building bridges with his own party workers, to begin with. Agreed that this may not be the most important issue for Gadkari at the moment but truth is that for him each and every small little thing will count. Success cannot be a result of one single factor but a sum total of many small ones and this is surely one of those small but important factors.
Having seen whatever we have so far, it seems highly improbable for Gadkari to reinvent the party and build those bridges with the people of this country. Nonetheless, I wish him and his party all the very best in their endeavors. After all we do need a credible opposition to Congress, if not an alternative.
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December 24th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
No brief for the party, but a new face may just about succeed. Desperate measures for desperate times when senior, established leadership endlessly bickers and continuously fails in electoral politics. Nitin Gadkari needs to be watched; selection of his team, ideological positioning, regional/national support, views on complex communal/ nationlist issues, generate a popular theme/idea and develop an organisation to mobilise masses around the same. Remember L K Advani was relatively unknown till the Rath Yatra.. The opposition is weak and divided, there is little scope for a third front, regional parties are increasingly assertive even as Congress shows signs of regaining ground in the cow belt..
May Nitin Gadkari succeed but with a centrist agenda!! I think his success may just about be in national interest!! Somebody other than a Gandhi should rise.. Difficult to believe that a nation of i billion relies on one family to rule..
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December 25th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Excellent post.
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December 25th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Sush.. Ur wrong.. He is a dark horse,, We needed a person from RSS, the only disciplined organisaion in India.. With RSS control on BJP, he will do wonders.. We dont hv faith in ourselves.. Why do we forget that we are Hindus and we need a Hindu hardcore to check the rising of cult of Islam ? Hv faith in urself as a Hindu. Things will be in place.. What is secularism ? Can u explain ? Its a farce.. to woothe illiterate voters.. We need a man with Hindu ethos and RSS is the only organisation which stands for Hindus..
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December 25th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
@vaneet, in my opinion it is the control of RSS over the party because of which the party has not evolved beyond Hindutva. Look at Congress. There was a time when Sikhs were dead against them but the party has moved on. It learnt it's lessons and today we even have a Sikh PM from Congress, though on pure merit. You can now see that that animosity is long over and they are bearing fruits for Congress.
Similarly, BJP needs to move ahead from their age old agenda which very few people identify with. I was a very strong supporter of BJP till very recently when they proved themselves unworthy of my support. Still, I would like this party to progress so that we have someone who can turn the tables on Congress when the time comes.
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December 26th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Hi Sush, This is a very interesting blog about Telangana - http://tinyurl.com/yf4d3as
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December 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
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December 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
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December 27th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Sush.. There are more than 75 crore Hindus in India and RSS is the only organisation which works for Hindus.. Its hightime we Hindus realise, before India becomes another Islamic Republic..That will be too late.. Today we a need a strong Hindu party to bring Hindus under one roof.. RSS is the only hope..We must strengthen it, rather coming out for the minus points..
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December 29th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Hi there,
RSS is an organization with nationalistic thoughts. Its not a religious organization.it doesnt work for any one religion...the so called 'secular"media driven and funded by self proclaimed "pseudo-secular" parties have coined RSS to be a hindu organization.
The motto of RSS is simple , serving gthe nation.Its thoughs about India are vast "it takes the whole "Bharatvarsha" into account .
Unfortunaately, it is being branded as a funadamentalist organization even though there's isnt a single incident that proves that as an organization it wasbehind any criminal incident...
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December 29th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
If RSS keeps mum it only endorses the fact that RSS is indeed a Hindu hardline party. Had I been in the party I would have gone all out to ensure that it becomes a pan Indian organisation with representation from all faiths and religions.
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December 29th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Gadkari is seen as not having been very successful in M'rashtra. After this I really dont understand why he was picked up.
If tying up with tainted men like Soren is fresh idea or any indication of things to come BJP is likely to further move away from masses.
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December 31st, 2009 at 1:42 am
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Comments on : @your reply to Vaneet, Cong ha....
Comment By : S Swaroop
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