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Modi in for a smooth ride
- First BJP national executive meet since Modi came to power
- Party constitution says national executive must meet every 3 months
- Just eight women on 111-member national executive, 32 short of requirement
- Party stalwarts like A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani conspicuous by their waning presence
- Buzz about whether Amit Shah will get a new term or be given Gujarat
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The Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo, as prime minister and BJP president respectively, will preside over the party’s national executive in Bangalore this weekend. According to the BJP constitution, such meetings should take place every three months. But this is the first such meeting since Modi came to power with the party citing “extraordinary circumstances” for ignoring its own constitution. They say the national executive will meet every three months without fail from now on.
But even as leaders were heading for Bangalore, there was more fire-fighting to be done in Delhi. Party MP and MoS for MSMEs, Giriraj Singh, made a racist statement about Sonia Gandhi, suggesting her skin colour had helped make her the Congress president. “If Rajiv Gandhi had married a Nigerian and if she wasn’t white-skinned, would Congress have accepted her as a leader?” he asked. The BJP naturally condemned the statement, saying the party had the greatest respect for women. But the damage was done.
Indeed, women’s issues have been a sore thumb for the party for awhile now. On women’s representation, the national executive has actually violated its own constitution. Here’s what the party constitution states: “The national executive shall consist of the president and not more than 120 members, of whom at least 40 shall be women.” Right now, that number is eight, which means it is 32 short of meeting its own constitutional requirement. When Outlook posed the query to a BJP spokesman, he promised to check and get back. He did not.
This is quite an extraordinary lapse in the week the BJP announced that it had become the largest political party in the world, overtaking even the Communist party of China. Clearly, in its great leap forward under Shah and Modi, the BJP has not found 32 worthy women from among India’s burgeoning multitudes. Quite tragic really considering that Modi did have a noticeably large female following during his national campaign.
This national executive is likely to be different in other ways too. The Shah-Modi duo are unlikely to be asked the hard questions. Till now, the inner party meetings of the BJP were known for debate and dissent, which made the party a tad more healthy in its functioning than their national rival, the Congress. On the sidelines of such meetings, great battles were fought and public spats involving individuals like A.B. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Narendra Modi have been recorded for posterity.
But all that seems past. The foreign policy and Kashmir expert of the Shah dispensation is current general secretary and ex-RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav. He is preparing a resolution on foreign policy because, as a member of the national executive says, “Now it’s all about praising Modi and saying what a great job the PM has done on foreign policy.” In the past, there would have been answers sought on why the Delhi campaign was so badly managed. Unlikely to happen now. (In fact, Prabhat Jha, who was in charge of Delhi, remains part of the coterie that operates around Shah.)
That said, there is an interesting constitutional detail that is being discussed. Shah is actually completing the residual part of Rajnath Singh’s term as party president (once the latter shifted to government as home minister). That will come to an end in December. If Shah is to continue as BJP chief, he must get another three-year term, of course ratified by the national council. So certain balloons are now being floated within the party. First, that in the long term, Shah is an embarrassment for Modi although a special CBI court did exempt him from all charges in the fake encounter case last December. The possibility of the case being revived in a higher court can’t be ruled out—like last week when the ghosts of Babri Masjid returned to haunt L.K. Advani and 19 others (the SC has sought responses on a petition that sought their trial for the demolition).
The theory therefore is that Modi may find a respectable way out for his trusted lieutenant who actually wants to be CM of Gujarat. But what would happen to Anandiben, the current CM who has also done loyal service to Modi? Besides, could Modi, who is not really close to many people, actually do without the Shah’s services? If there is really to be a question on Shah’s future as BJP chief, it would be raised after the Bihar assembly elections are over by October-November this year. If the BJP wins, Shah is home and dry, but if they lose (not unlikely if the Janata parivar fights united), then questions will be asked about him successively losing two states, Delhi and Bihar.
A real issue that could be discussed in the national executive, of course, is land acquisition. Many BJP leaders have reservations about it but the line is so clear they are hesitant to raise it. Venkaiah Naidu, one of the senior-most members of the Modi cabinet, says that five of them including him, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari have been travelling across India to explain the government’s perspective to farmers, activists and political parties. It is an issue on which there is no turning back, he says. The government has taken the ordinance route, while it still plans and strategises to get it made into law.
In the old BJP, there would have been open dissent on this and on forming a government in alliance with the pdp in Jammu & Kashmir. These days no one bells the cat openly but if the tide were to turn and things go wrong, then let it be clear—there is no love lost between many of the individuals at the top of the pecking order. Of course, no one can slug it out like the leaders of the BJP in the age before the Supreme Leader took over. Right now, internal forums will be dull affairs, managed of course by the great men of the BJP, with minimum of fuss and a minuscule number of women.
