Poornima Joshi
New Delhi, June 12, 2010
In the six months since he took over as BJP chief, Nitin Gadkari has been in the news for all the wrong reasons - from going into a swoon and mouthing expletives to bursting into song of the Bollywood variety.
As the BJP chief flies to Patna to chair the party's two-day national executive meeting that starts on Saturday, the RSS's decision to pick him over others is already under the scanner.
While his counterparts - Sushma Swaraj in the Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha - are held in high regard by the party cadre as well as political rivals, Gadkari's mention merely invokes sniggers and private jokes across party lines. From his bizarre mannerisms and the near absence of social and political etiquette to the BJP's president's handling of crucial political issues, each action has evoked a negative reaction within the party.
The controversial decisions he has taken include the selection of candidates for the Rajya Sabha, the mess he presided over in Jharkhand and the formation of a new team of office-bearers.
Then there is his distasteful spiel about Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav at a public rally in Chandigarh last month. "Bade daharte the sher jaise. Ab kutte ke jaise ban kar Soniaji aur Congress ke ghar par talve chatne lage (Lalu and Mulayam were roaring like lions before the cut motion in Parliament, but now they are licking Sonia and Congress's feet like dogs)," the BJP president had said at a public rally.
The remark is still a cause of discomfiture for top party leaders even as it attracted an equally unsavoury response from Lalu.
"No BJP president has ever been engaged in such an obnoxious exchange. But if you abuse someone, he will respond. I don't know why we had to install a provincial nobody at the top," a BJP insider said. Those who were left out when the BJP president constituted his team of officebearers are actually relieved now that they do not have to take the blame for Gadkari's political misadventures.
"I was actually quite upset at not being included in the team. After having won the elections and working for years, one expects rewards. But now I am quite relieved. I do not get attacked for the central team's mistakes every time I go to my home state," a BJP Lok Sabha MP said.
Gadkari's team includes 121 new members of the BJP national executive. It has been widely criticised for the absence of grassroots workers, strategists and political thinkers. In fact, the difference between what the BJP has been reduced to now and the impressive line- up in the party's heyday - its top leaders then included Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani followed by a GenNext comprising K. N. Govindacharya, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi - is too stark to remain unnoticed.
While Vajpayee and Advani are figureheads in the BJP's top decision- making bodies such as the parliamentary board and the national executive, the RSS has desired a complete demarcation in the party organisation headed by Gadkari and its parliamentary wing helmed by Swaraj and Jaitley.
So, minus Swaraj and Jaitley, the BJP's organisation is left saddled with a president and general secretaries who do not have a national profile. The only exceptions are Vasundhara Raje and Ravi Shankar Prasad. Ananth Kumar is the senior most general secretary, followed by the likes of Thawarchand Gehlot, Vijay Goel, Arjun Munda, Narendra Singh Tomar, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ram Lal, V. Satish and Saudan Singh.
Gadkari's second biggest mistake was committed in Jharkhand - an exercise termed the " theatre of the absurd" by party elder Murli Manohar Joshi. It all started when chief minister Shibu Soren refused to follow the BJP's diktat on the cut motion against UPA on April 27 and the saffron party threatened to withdraw support to the JMM- led government.
For almost a month afterwards, the BJP pursued the idea of forming the government with its own candidate as the CM, while Shibu and his son Hemant played truant.
The drama continued till May 25 when the BJP was forced to withdraw support, leading to President's Rule in the tribal state. " It is entirely the party president's fault. We have been humiliated in Jharkhand," a disgusted state leader said.
The latest among his controversial decisions is the selection of candidates for the Rajya Sabha. There has been a huge uproar and even public protests against the nomination of Ram Jethmalani, the 86- year- old lawyer who contested against Vajpayee, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in the 2004 general elections. Jethmalani is currently camping in Rajasthan to ensure his election on May 17. H OWEVER, the state unit is outraged over his candidature, with its leader Vasundhara Raje conveying to the central party in no uncertain terms that she cannot ensure the support of all MLAs for Jethmalani. "I could have helped Hema Malini win, but I cannot vouch for support to Jethmalani," Raje is believed to have told central leaders.
Besides, RSS faithful and former editor of the Sangh mouthpiece Organiser Seshadri Chari has written a letter to Gadkari objecting to the entire process of selection. He has specifically referred to his contemporary Tarun Vijay, who is the former editor of the Organiser's Hindi version Panchjanya.
"We thought we had reached rock bottom with Rajnath Singh, but with the new president, we are plumbing new depths. One can only pray that the decline will be arrested before the next elections," a BJP MP said, succinctly summarising the situation.
Gadkari is working to rustle up the cadre while Modi is being projected as the person to lead the party in the next election. Since organizational work is RSS's forte, Gadkari will succeed in this front. The question is if anything will happen between now and the next elections to dent Modi's image. If his image keeps growing, BJP will win the next elections on the strength of Modi's charisma and Gadkari's organizational finesse.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/101232/gadkari-now-bjps-chief-worry.html
New Delhi, June 12, 2010
In the six months since he took over as BJP chief, Nitin Gadkari has been in the news for all the wrong reasons - from going into a swoon and mouthing expletives to bursting into song of the Bollywood variety.
As the BJP chief flies to Patna to chair the party's two-day national executive meeting that starts on Saturday, the RSS's decision to pick him over others is already under the scanner.
While his counterparts - Sushma Swaraj in the Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha - are held in high regard by the party cadre as well as political rivals, Gadkari's mention merely invokes sniggers and private jokes across party lines. From his bizarre mannerisms and the near absence of social and political etiquette to the BJP's president's handling of crucial political issues, each action has evoked a negative reaction within the party.
The controversial decisions he has taken include the selection of candidates for the Rajya Sabha, the mess he presided over in Jharkhand and the formation of a new team of office-bearers.
Then there is his distasteful spiel about Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav at a public rally in Chandigarh last month. "Bade daharte the sher jaise. Ab kutte ke jaise ban kar Soniaji aur Congress ke ghar par talve chatne lage (Lalu and Mulayam were roaring like lions before the cut motion in Parliament, but now they are licking Sonia and Congress's feet like dogs)," the BJP president had said at a public rally.
The remark is still a cause of discomfiture for top party leaders even as it attracted an equally unsavoury response from Lalu.
"No BJP president has ever been engaged in such an obnoxious exchange. But if you abuse someone, he will respond. I don't know why we had to install a provincial nobody at the top," a BJP insider said. Those who were left out when the BJP president constituted his team of officebearers are actually relieved now that they do not have to take the blame for Gadkari's political misadventures.
"I was actually quite upset at not being included in the team. After having won the elections and working for years, one expects rewards. But now I am quite relieved. I do not get attacked for the central team's mistakes every time I go to my home state," a BJP Lok Sabha MP said.
Gadkari's team includes 121 new members of the BJP national executive. It has been widely criticised for the absence of grassroots workers, strategists and political thinkers. In fact, the difference between what the BJP has been reduced to now and the impressive line- up in the party's heyday - its top leaders then included Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani followed by a GenNext comprising K. N. Govindacharya, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi - is too stark to remain unnoticed.
While Vajpayee and Advani are figureheads in the BJP's top decision- making bodies such as the parliamentary board and the national executive, the RSS has desired a complete demarcation in the party organisation headed by Gadkari and its parliamentary wing helmed by Swaraj and Jaitley.
So, minus Swaraj and Jaitley, the BJP's organisation is left saddled with a president and general secretaries who do not have a national profile. The only exceptions are Vasundhara Raje and Ravi Shankar Prasad. Ananth Kumar is the senior most general secretary, followed by the likes of Thawarchand Gehlot, Vijay Goel, Arjun Munda, Narendra Singh Tomar, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ram Lal, V. Satish and Saudan Singh.
Gadkari's second biggest mistake was committed in Jharkhand - an exercise termed the " theatre of the absurd" by party elder Murli Manohar Joshi. It all started when chief minister Shibu Soren refused to follow the BJP's diktat on the cut motion against UPA on April 27 and the saffron party threatened to withdraw support to the JMM- led government.
For almost a month afterwards, the BJP pursued the idea of forming the government with its own candidate as the CM, while Shibu and his son Hemant played truant.
The drama continued till May 25 when the BJP was forced to withdraw support, leading to President's Rule in the tribal state. " It is entirely the party president's fault. We have been humiliated in Jharkhand," a disgusted state leader said.
The latest among his controversial decisions is the selection of candidates for the Rajya Sabha. There has been a huge uproar and even public protests against the nomination of Ram Jethmalani, the 86- year- old lawyer who contested against Vajpayee, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in the 2004 general elections. Jethmalani is currently camping in Rajasthan to ensure his election on May 17. H OWEVER, the state unit is outraged over his candidature, with its leader Vasundhara Raje conveying to the central party in no uncertain terms that she cannot ensure the support of all MLAs for Jethmalani. "I could have helped Hema Malini win, but I cannot vouch for support to Jethmalani," Raje is believed to have told central leaders.
Besides, RSS faithful and former editor of the Sangh mouthpiece Organiser Seshadri Chari has written a letter to Gadkari objecting to the entire process of selection. He has specifically referred to his contemporary Tarun Vijay, who is the former editor of the Organiser's Hindi version Panchjanya.
"We thought we had reached rock bottom with Rajnath Singh, but with the new president, we are plumbing new depths. One can only pray that the decline will be arrested before the next elections," a BJP MP said, succinctly summarising the situation.
Gadkari is working to rustle up the cadre while Modi is being projected as the person to lead the party in the next election. Since organizational work is RSS's forte, Gadkari will succeed in this front. The question is if anything will happen between now and the next elections to dent Modi's image. If his image keeps growing, BJP will win the next elections on the strength of Modi's charisma and Gadkari's organizational finesse.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/101232/gadkari-now-bjps-chief-worry.html
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