Advani and BJP old guard forget their own history while gunning for PM and Amit Shah

It almost seemed like that the Margdarshak Mandal of the BJP had been waiting for an opportune moment, a defeat in a high stake election, to strike hard against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah. The Bihar results brought them that.

The big four octogenarians - LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant sinha and Shanta Kumar - chose to go public with their grievances by issuing a printed joint statement and let the world know, at least their own party, that they were not “brain dead” and had the capacity to create turbulent waves through the media. The founding fathers of the BJP or, those in Margdharshak Mandal had earlier been sarcastically referred as Mookdarshak mandal.

It didn’t matter that only two days ago, on 6 November, Modi, Shah and party general secretary organisation Ramlal had gone to Advani’s residence to greet him on his 88th birthday. Advani has been writing such “open” letters for sometime now. There was one in June 2013, when he resigned from all party posts that he held after Narendra Modi was anointed as head of BJP’s parliamentary poll campaign in Goa.

The difference this time is that in writing a highly strong dissenting note against Modi and Shah, he has joined hands with his long time bête noire Murli Manohar Joshi and two other disgruntled leaders, Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar. This time it’s a joint statement signed by Sinha (former external affairs minister who is perhaps more comfortable in issuing joint statements than writing letters), last time Advani’s letter was addressed to then party president Rajnath Singh.

Their joint statement, incidentally circulated at the gates of Joshi’s 6 Raisina Road residence, says:

“The results of Bihar elections show that no lesson has been learnt from the fiasco in Delhi. To say that everyone is responsible for the defeat in Bihar is to ensure that no one is held responsible. It shows that those who would have appropriated credit if the party had won are bent on shrugging off responsibility for disastrous showing in Bihar.

The principal reason for latest defeat is the way the party has been emasculated in the last year. A thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as of the way party is being forced to kow-tow to a handful and how its consensual character has been destroyed.

The review must not be done by the very persons who have managed and have been responsible for the campaign in Bihar.”

Though the letter does not name Modi-Shah but the references - “…. those who would have appropriated credit if the party had won are bent on shrugging off responsibility for disastrous showing in Bihar”…… “well as of the way party is being forced to kow-tow to a handful and how its consensual character has been destroyed” – is clearly directed at them.

It is worthwhile to note that the two signatories of this letter, Yashwant Sinha and MM Joshi were made Rajya Sabha members days after losing Lok Sabha elections in 2004. Interestingly, before they were named for Rajya Sabha the party had then taken a decision that no leader who had lost general elections would be given entry through backdoor route of Rajya Sabha. But the same decision was reversed in a matter of few days and no questions were raised. It was said that their tallest leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted them to be in Parliament, victory or defeat notwithstanding.

The third signatory Shanta Kumar, too, was made Rajya Sabha MP in 2009 after he was declined a Lok Sabha ticket. Again no questions raised. In 2009, after BJP lost parliamentary elections Jaswant Singh had written a letter to then party leadership asking for an honest introspection. In that letter he had famously said “nothing succeeds like defeat in BJP”. In August 2009, he was thrown out of BJP, albeit on a different pretext for praising Jinnah in his book, Jinnah-India-Partition-Independence.

But as they say public memory is short, more so of the political leaders of whatever stature.

A senior BJP leader said “if after every defeat, responsibility had to be fixed and the top leaders of the party had to accept responsibility and bow out from the office, Vajpayee and Advani should have resigned for end number of times, including when they lost a number of state elections like Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, UP, Uttrakhand and so on from 1998 onwards when they were in power at the centre.”

Text of Advani’s June 2013 letter to then BJP president Rajnath Singh:

“Dear Shri Rajnath Singhji,

All my life I have found working for the Jana Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party a matter of great pride and endless satisfaction to myself.

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. I no longer have the feeling that this is the same idealistic party created by Dr Mookerji, Deen Dayalji, Nanaji and Vajpayeeji whose sole concern was the country, and its people. Most leaders of ours are now concerned just with their personal agendas.

I have decided, therefore, to resign from the three main fora of the party, namely, the National Executive, the Parliamentary Board, and the Election Committee. This may be regarded as my resignation letter.

Yours Sincerely

L K Advani