Wedged between Modi and coalition compulsions, the BJP walks an electoral tightrope

An otherwise lacklustre meeting of the BJP's National Council in Surajkund last week was noteworthy on two counts. The first, that L K Advani had come all fired up to make a pitch for a new secular positioning by the BJP in order to enlarge the NDA into "NDA plus''. In the speech he wrote for delivery at the closing session, he pleaded for "an imaginative repositioning of our commitment to secularism'' to reassure potential allies that "they have nothing to be apprehensive about partnering with the BJP''.
The second was that he never read out those lines. He developed cold feet at the last minute and skipped over the relevant paragraphs. The omission would have gone unnoticed except that the party had thoughtfully circulated the text of his prepared speech before he spoke and the media pounced on the mismatch between the written word and delivery. Embarrassed BJP leaders have since tried to brush it aside as a slip. He forgot'' that bit, said one.
Forgetfulness is not a trait associated with Advani. More likely then, it was a strategic retreat. He chickened out because of the restive mood of his audience, which was noticeably impatient to hear Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. It was the wrong time and place to talk of secularism and Advani must have sensed the atmospherics.
Advani's flip-flop that day reflects the confusion and frustration within the BJP as it grapples with a conundrum to which it doesn't seem to have any answers: Gujarat 2002 and Modi. Join the dots and it is evident that ever since Modi emerged as the popular choice of the rank and file at a party convention in Mumbai last May, the BJP has been forced into a peripheral role in the emerging political scenario. By now, it should have been the spearhead of a broad-based anti-Congress front. Instead, it's been pushed into the background by a crop of regional leaders who want no truck with a party that carries a communal'' taint.
The BJP's steady marginalisation was evident during the presidential polls when it failed to garner support for a non-Congress candidate. In fact, two of its alliance partners switched sides to vote for the UPA nominee, Pranab Mukherjee. Again, it was unable to convince regional leaders like Mulayam Singh and Mamata Banerjee to join its bandh against diesel price hike and multi-brand retail FDI. Both held separate protests.
It's a galling throwback to the post-Babri days when the BJP had become a political untouchable. Then, it was the demolition of a decrepit mosque that put the BJP in what it used to call majestic isolation''. Today, it's the memories Modi brings of the 2002 communal violence and the fear of a backlash by Muslim voters that's keeping the regional parties away. In fact, Advani finally overcame his Surajkund squeamishness to speak up at a function in Jalandhar a few days later where he protested against the kind of political untouchability the BJP was facing. It should be made into a criminal offence, he said.
The BJP managed to cross the Babri hump by bringing Atal Behari Vajpayee out of retirement in 1995-96 and projecting him as its prime ministerial candidate. His benign personality and most importantly, the fact that he was not associated with the Ram mandir movement made him an acceptable face for a larger anti-Congress front, which later evolved into the NDA. The BJP has no such figure in its pantheon today. In any case, judging by the reception Modi gets at party gatherings, the BJP can dump him only at its peril. Yet, with him at the forefront, it can't attract new allies and could even end up losing existing ones, notably the JD(U). Nitish Kumar has made it clear that he will snap ties with the NDA if Modi is anointed as its prime ministerial candidate.
It is ironic that the original Hindutva icon, Advani, should have wanted to flag secularism as the preferred tool to help the BJP craft a broader anti-Congress platform that would draw in regional players outside the NDA. It speaks of a growing desperation to erase the Gujarat 2002 taint. It also smacks of political opportunism by a leadership that is coldbloodedly ready to raise (or lower) the communal temperature in the country for electoral gains. One of the arguments Modi supporters trot out in his favour is that his projection would polarise Hindu votes for the BJP. The more realistic ones understand that there could simultaneously be a greater polarisation of Muslim votes which could end up working as a veto against the BJP. This is what happened in the 2004 Lok Sabha election, which the NDA lost.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The BJP's Modi dilemma will only increase if he wins the December Gujarat state polls handsomely. It will be difficult for the party to keep him boxed in his home state after that. Advani tried to do a reality check at Surajkund on coalition politics. That he copped out in the end is a sign that not many in the BJP are ready to listen.