viewpoint

Mr L K Advani has failed to lead the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) going by any loose definition of leadership. That he is the most influential and powerful politician in the BJP is without doubt. But whether he leading the BJP at all is in serious doubt.

After remaining in the background and allowing Mr Vajpayee to head the government for six years, Mr Advani started projecting himself as the PM-in-waiting in 2004. Since then the BJP, which had under Mr Vajpayee run the government smoothly barring the Gujarat carnage, has gone from bad to worse. Recent events in the party that saw the Jaitley saga during the elections, the resignation of Mr Yashwant Sinha from all party posts after the elections, the exclusion of ideologue Arun Shourie from the Chintan Baithak, the over-the-phone-call expulsion of Mr Jaswant Singh and now the Vasundhara Raje being asked to step down despite enjotying support of majority of the Rajasthan MLAs - are all signals of decay in the BJP.

Mr Rajnath Singh’s assertion that Mr L K Advani will continue to lead the party “for the next 50 to 100 years” is a splendid example of the BJP’s divorce from reality. While wishing Mr Advani the pink of health for the next 100 years, one hopes the BJP would have found a leader in the near future if it has to survive as a political entity. If not the BJP would not last the next 100 years. The political spectrum badly needs a credible opposition to the ruling Congress for the good of Indian democracy. And I am not suggesting the regressive Left as any alternative at all. Didn’t they expel veteran Somnath Chatterjee for no real reason? And their espousal of causes has been a mere eyewash.

22nd July 2008 will go down in the history of Indian Parliament (sorry for the capital P this one last time). MPs brandishing cash, cross-voting, and mud-slinging; a Prime Minister not having the courage to speak; a Sikh MP from Bihar exhoring the Sikhs to vote for your own; Omar Abdullah’s crocodile tears; and so forth and so on.

With 15 cross-votes and all in favour of the UPA, imagine what would have happened if the ruling party had not managed to buy MPs. The biggest loser in this is undoubtedly the BJP which has once again proved its incapacity of offering an alternative; it cannot even hold its flock together!

The Congress, already gasping for breath hasn’t won either. It will now be hostage to smaller parties, giving in to their petty demands. Will it be able to push through the reforms the Left has not allowed it to implement so far? If it can do that and control inflation, it can hope to do well in the future.