State BJP gets discipline dose

Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi Monday, July 6, 2009

The Jharkhand BJP leaders sat like students in the class and tuned in to the stories that national organisational secretary Ramlal read out from the Hitopadesh to teach them the need for discipline and unity in the party.

These stories had an element of interest: scores of party leaders felt Ramlal had chided the party leaders through story telling without involving high ideological note. And after each story, Ramlal asked the party leaders to draw a moral lesson.

"What lesson you draw from the story of a king who announces capital punishment for those who brings the news of demise of the parrot he likes," Ramlal asked the party leaders. The leaders, insides, were quick to draw their conclusion. "I do not know the moral of the story.

I was just trying to correlate it with party affairs and in every story and character I was trying to find Raghuwar Das and Arjun Munda, the two bete noir," a young party MLA kidded. After the two-day meeting of the State BJP working committee concluded on Sunday both the warring groups, one led by State BJP president Raghuwar Das and the other by Arjun Munda, held their separate meetings to analyse the loss and benefit they derived out of this conclave, which was attended by national president of the party Rajnath Singh too.

Das appeared to be standing firm. He seemed to be relishing the sudden rise of his stature in front of Singh, and the other BJP brass stayed silent. Nevertheless, on the first day of the meeting, BJP MLA CP Singh directly hit at Das for running the party on the caste line.

But he largely failed to dim the aura that Das so carefully built around him after the party won eight out of 14 parliamentary seats in Jharkhand. When it came to deliver his presidential address, Singh talked tough about the party discipline and warned the leaders with stern actions for failure to follow the same.

While Das camp interpreted it as a clear indication of Singh's unquestioned believe in the leadership of Das, the Munda camp largely remained reticent. The future course of the State BJP in the view of the coming Assembly election largely remained opaque.

"The reason is that Singh put a blanket over the leadership issue in the State. He gave both the groups enough room to speculate about their fair chance to grab the leadership," a senior party leader said. If there was an immediate outcome of this session, it was a clear polarisation between Munda and Das. The division was not restricted among the top brasses; the rank and file too echoed similar view. Viewing a clear division in the party on this issue, the BJP bosses do not want to give unnecessary hype to the leadership issue.

"There is no crisis of the leadership in the party and will be decided by the parliamentary board of the BJP after the election," Singh told the mediapersons. So far, the BJP has a policy to opt tribal face for the post of Chief Minister and Singh kept everybody in confusion. Leaders have gone; workers are left to muse over the political meaning of the story.

Disconnect
Musing, yawns and three days’ confinement for BJP bosses
Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi

This is bit like having to play the political version of the TV reality show ‘Big Boss’ after the senior BJP leaders on Friday evening locked themselves inside the room of the Holyday Home resort for the next 72 hours.

On 7:20 pm sharp leaders entered the venue and the doors were locked form the inside. The party named this closely guarded exercise as Yojna meeting.

“The office bearers, MPs and MLAs will lead a community life—sit, dine and sleep together—to take stock of the party affairs. There will no break. Leaders have been asked to keep their cell phone switched off, rather to keep it on the silent mode. They have been strictly instructed not to interact with the media about the content and the findings of the meeting even in the future,” authoritative sources in the BJP informed.

The party leader started trickling to the state capital by the Friday evening. The sources in the party said that the state BJP in-charge Karuna Shukla, party organizational secretary Saudan Singh and the party MPs were expected to arrive the state capital by the evening.

The decision to hold such a meeting was kept as a close secret. Even some of the senior party leaders including the former presidents had a wild gaze when they were contacted about the meeting. “I do not know about the meeting…I can not say whose brainchild is this,” a senior party leader said. But a close aide of state organizational secretary Ranjan Patel said that this was Patel who actually chalked out the plan.

But what BJP leaders will discuss in the next 72 hours quite away from the prying eyes of the state media. Have the state BJP bosses indeed sensed trouble ahead that prompted them to such a quarantine exercise.

Officially the party said that the meeting had no such mutinous minutes to discuss. “Everything is okay in the party. The meeting has been called to discuss party’s strategy for the forthcoming elections. There is nothing new in this,” Sanjay Seth, the state spokesperson of the party said.
Another party leader made a value addition into what Seth said about the meeting and said that the leaders would discuss the issue of ticket distribution and how to strengthen the party organization.

“Such meetings are called when it requires a serious overview of the things happening around. It is one of the ways to bridge the communication gap among the leaders,” another party leader said. On the face the BJP has emerged as a jubilant house following its victory in the general elections in Jharkhand and it is quite confident to swing to the power in the state.

But it is quite evident that the senior party leaders including the party state president Raghuwar Das, the party MP and former leader of the opposition Arjun Munda and the former national vice president Yaswant Sinha are not on the same page over the several issues.

On the other hand Karuna Shukla and Ranjan Patel do not enjoy any bonhomie. In the confines of the rooms there will be a great rumbling over the issue of chief ministerial ship. If Das has ever wished to be the ‘Big Boss’ of the game, his own style of functioning will be in the line of fire. Munda camp has amassed enough arsenals to exhaust against Das.

Whether the meeting will yield wine or vinegar will be known in the coming days it has put a bad taste in the mouth of scores of party leaders. “The state unit has divorced itself from the core ideology of the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Attempt should be made to revive the core ideological plank of the party. And, those who claim to be the ideologue (read Ranjan Patel) are behaving like the CNF agent of the RSS controlling the affairs of the party from air conditioned room,” a young party leader having RSS background said.

The central BJP will undertake similar exercise. This muse with debate and several yawns, the ‘Big Boss’ will keep watching it.