The fight was not between Gadkari and Advani, who is too weak to impact the race
If conspiracies, power games, corruption, crime andunexpected twists and turns characterise a racy thriller, the election of thepresident of the BJP was a perfect political potboiler. On the face of it,Nitin Gadkari’s nomination for a second term was a foregone conclusion backedas he was by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, the godfather of the sangh parivar. Butbehind the scenes it was a cloak and dagger game of revenge and retribution ofthe highest order in which a sideshow (Gadkari’s continuance) hogged theheadlines while the real slugfest, a severe turf war in the parent RSS, washidden from public view.
The BJP leadership, except for veteran LK Advani, hadreadily acquiesced to the RSS’s plan and ratified the amendment to the party’sconstitution to pave the way for Gadkari’s second term in September 2012. Aperception was created in the saffron brotherhood and outside that Bhagwat’sfondness for Gadkari would see him through effortlessly. This perception was sostrong that even Bhagwat, Gadkari and their loyalists mistook it for realityand considered it a done deal. In their elation they seemed to have forgottenone basic truth: that much like the crime syndicates, closed socialorganisations and political parties, too, thrive on conspiracies.
Away from public glare, the seeds of the conspiracy weresown in a piffling event in Bhopal in the middle of December 2012: the electionof the president of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh. Prashant Jha, the incumbent wasdenied a second term by Gadkari at the behest of chief minister Shivraj SinghChauhan. Little did Gadkari realise then that he had scripted the first chapterof the palace coup that would subsequently cost him his own second term. For,Jha owed his political relevance to a very powerful benefactor in the RSS:Suresh Soni.
Soni hails from MP and has a domineering presence in theaffairs of the BJP there. The relationship between Soni and Jha is matter ofintense gossip within the parivar and it was a given that Soni would want Jhato continue as the state unit president. Soni had a similar role at thenational level by virtue of being the interface between the RSS and the BJP.Unlike other RSS pracharaks, Soni, a joint general secretary, picked up thenuances of politics and got himself well-entrenched by playing benefactor to ahost of senior BJP leaders. Rajnath Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Sanjay Joshi aresome of the leaders known to be close to Soni.
That position of pre-eminence changed with the installationof Gadkari as BJP president. Not only did Gadkari have a direct line withBhagwat, but Bhagwat himself started getting directly involved in the BJPaffairs, unlike the RSS chiefs before him. This grossly undermined Soni’sinfluence and he was locked in a silent, running feud with Bhagwat. Themarching orders to Jha were designed to further marginalise Soni in his ownbackyard. Confident of his clout within the RSS Gadkari looked quiteunconcerned to the resentment brewing around him on account of his bullish andhectoring conduct.
Soni was obviously not the one to watch helplessly as hiswings were being clipped. Weeks before Jha’s sacking, either by coincidence orotherwise, shady financial deals in Gadkari’s Purti group started hitting theheadlines. Gadkari was cocksure of getting away with blue murder because ofBhagwat’s open support.
Gadkari’s imposition as the party president was guided bythe singular impulse of Bhagwat to establish his hegemony over the party. Thisriled the BJP’s cadre which was rightly assessed by Advani and exploited bySoni and his protégés. To this cauldron was added the sudden raids by theincome tax department in connection with the Purti deals. Coming just a daybefore his anointment, this was just the stroke of luck that the Bhagwatbaiters were looking for (though it is difficult to believe that it was just aprovidential intervention on their behalf). This coupled with stories about themysterious death of Yogita Thakre on May 19, 2009, inside the Honda car ofGadkari, alarmed the Sangh leadership.
Television channels went ballistic about the raids on theBJP president’s firms. The RSS realised that it had ceded the moral ground toAdvani and started to back off. Meantime, a close associate of Yashwant Sinha,a known protégé of Soni, collected nomination papers from the party’s 11,Ashoka Road headquarters in New Delhi. This was a deliberate pressure tactic tosuggest that for the first time in its history the election of the partypresident would actually be contested if Gadkari was not taken out of theequation.
Suddenly, and for the first time, Bhagwat realised that hehad bitten off more than he could chew. Even at this stage if he had stood hisground on Gadkari, he could have perhaps called Sinha’s bluff. But the prospectof carrying the can on behalf of a lame-duck BJP president in an election yearmust have dawned on him and he blinked first.
in association with Governance Now
