Mr. Jaswant Singh was shown the exit door, Mr. Sudheendra Kulkarni himself chose this door, Mr. Arun Shourie just managed to duck the door and everyone is speculating when will be the time for Mr. Advani to take the same door.
Battle of succession has always had an ugly face. Everytime it has been fought, no matter what the result comes out, there is always blood. Indian politics have not seen many such battles and hence the end of BJP is being speculated.
There is a reason why this kind of battle is happening in BJP and why they are not expected in other parties. Political parties in India, except for the left [which don’t have much to fight for] are run by one person or family. In most cases s/he is the founder of the party and if the founder is dead or retired then the heir is the son or daughter; so the chances of such battle are almost zilch. Still if there are any hints on such battle, then the disgruntled members generally results in forming a separate party [case of Raj Thakrey forming MNS, Mamta Banerjee, Sharad Pawar breaking from Congress], but no battle.
After the death of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, when Mrs. Sonia Gandhi refused to enter politics we saw the same kind of crisis [as the media is calling it in BJP’s case] in congress as well [time when BJP suddenly rose to the centre], however for a brief period. The dispute between the then party president Mr. Kesari and then Prime Minister Mr. Narsimha Rao was out in open, after which we saw the non congress government era. However such kind of struggle will not occur until there is a Gandhi lined up.
So neither the issue here is the battle nor is it the end of BJP. But who emerges victorious in this battle can play a major role in deciding the fate of BJP. In a battle of succession victorious can not be predicted before hand, so it will be futile on my part to make any speculations; although media is galore with it, but going by the track record of BJP and RSS it is always good to expect the unexpected and in this case unfortunately the victorious emerging appears to be Mr. Arun Jaitely.
I never wanted to write this, but then I guess evasion is not the solution to your lament. Jaitely, the present right hand man of Mr. Advani is up against anyone who can challenge his coming leadership era for foreseeable future, and this is called being foolish in self interest.
It all began with the ouster of Mr. Jaswant Singh. It will be very naïve to say that he was expelled because of the book he wrote, when everyone in the BJP knew all the time that he is penning it. Book was the much sought reason [By Mr. Jaitely] to show him the exit door.
With Singh out of picture from center [his senior, highly respected in the party and with the acumen of becoming the leader], Mrs. Vasundhra Raje portrayed as the rebel [another promising leader to challenge Jaitely], Mr. Modi on his side [who has no plans of leaving Gujarat as of now], Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi falling in the ‘remove old and get new’ category, Mrs. Sushma Swaraj not much of a leader material so as Mr. Rajnath Singh; Jaitley is more than comfortable and happy, doesn’t matter if it means sitting in the opposition for next 10 years.
Why Mr. Advani is letting all this to happen? Why he is being a mute spectator to the demise of a party which he built with his own hands? For everyone knows without able generals you can not win a war. This, my friend is the big question!
