BJP president Rajnath Singh, after meeting exalted party dissident L.K. Advani on Tuesday, gives the impression that
Mr Advani has resiled from his earlier position of resigning from all party posts. Mr Advani himself is yet to speak on the matter. However, the stalwart leader — who helped found the BJP back in the 1980s — has made moves in the context of the present crisis that has driven BJP spokespersons on the defensive. Within a day of word of his resignation getting out, they have been kept busy with the protestation that the RSS doesn’t interfere in the BJP’s affairs.
The issue of Narendra Modi’s elevation to chairman of the BJP’s campaign committee for the Lok Sabha elections has been overshadowed somewhat by the discussion on the role of the RSS in determining the BJP’s affairs. And this is traceable to Mr Advani, who had reportedly told senior BJP leaders that he felt suffocated by the manner in which the RSS was taking decisions concerning the BJP.
A hint of this is also available in the erstwhile BJP patriarch’s letter of resignation to party president Rajnath Singh, in which he notes: “For some time I have been finding it difficult to reconcile either with the current functioning of the party, or the direction in which it is going.”
It is hard to miss the strategic irony inherent in this situation. Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr Advani had led the Jan Sangh bloc out of the erstwhile Janata Party when socialist leaders led by Madhu Limaye had created a storm over the question of “dual membership” — the issue being how could the Jan Sangh group in the Janata Dal be members of both the RSS and the Janata Party simultaneously. Rather than let down the RSS, the Vajpayee-Advani duo broke away and founded the BJP, implying by their action that the RSS had an inbuilt right to animate BJP policy and executive action. It is precisely this which Mr Advani appears to question now by implication.
Does he have the right to do so? Of course he does, as a free-thinking individual. But the enormity of one who was the BJP’s patriarch till the other day raising such a sensitive issue can hardly be overlooked. It is no secret that Mr Advani was shown the door at the behest of the RSS, and Mr Singh only carried out the firman, possibly with a heavy heart. But it is evident many in the BJP, including those of the standing of former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, are influenced by
Mr Advani’s predicament and are in sympathy with him. Situations like these can presage a split unless Mr Advani has done a somersault.