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Power struggle in Uttar Pradesh BJP out in the open

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

To say that the Bharatiya Janata Party is going the Congress way may be an understatement. Lately, the party has been plagued by the same intrigues and infighting that led to the decline of the Congress.

But while in the Congress there was always someone, a high command, who could keep the warring groups under a common umbrella, that is not the case with the ruling BJP where there are a host of high commands, each going its own way. And little do members of the Sangh Parivar realise that this is going to spell their doom -- at least in Uttar Pradesh, India's most crucial state politically.

The caste war that began when Kalyan Singh, a member of the other backward classes, was proposed as chief minister, is hotting up. The BJP stands divided into several factions - other backward classes-dalit, thakur, and the traditionally powerful brahmin lobby.

While others started playing their games from the day Singh took over, the chief minister went on the attack recently when he felt "enough was enough".

Interestingly, as long as the upper-caste lobby was indulging in intrigues behind the scenes, there was no problem. But after Singh threw down the gauntlet and defied his detractors to have it out with him in the open, there has been much commotion. The upper-caste lobby is now busy hinting that the chief minister has issued a threat to no less than Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"I did not mean any threat," argues Singh. "I was simply giving my assessment of the political situation in the state."

Yet, at a media conference last week, the chief minister had burst out: "I am aware that some people from my own party have been spreading rumours about a change in leadership. But let me make it loud and clear that any step in that direction will force yet another mid-term poll."

The immediate provocation for the outburst was a meeting of the Brahmin lobby on Lucknow's outskirts. Politicians like Kalraj Misra, who masterminded the meeting, shrewdly avoided it at the last moment. Thus, the meeting was attended by barely seven Brahmin ministers, including two from the Loktantrik Congress Party, a member of the BJP-led coalition government in the state.

Singh made no bones about hitting out at his party's upper-caste lobby to which an OBC chief minister is unacceptable. According to him, it is not his "style of functioning" that has irritated his detractors.

"How can anyone accuse me of being inaccessible?" he said. "I have kept separate slots for meeting the public's representatives at different levels; not only that, each MP, MLA, members and heads of zilla parishads (district councils) as also other public representatives have been personally informed about these slots through letters sent by me."

He also pointed out how he is particular about granting an audience to representatives of the people in every district he tours. "But since some people are out to find fault with me and they cannot get anywhere, such vague allegations are being made," he said.

Bureaucrats close to Singh believe "his refusal to oblige people with undue demands has annoyed many".

Refusing to explain why he thinks a mid-term poll is imminent if he is replaced, Singh remarked, "All I can say is that a stable alternative will be impossible and the people of the state will have no choice but to face an election."

But political observers view his remark as a serious threat to split the BJP. "Those who have been trying to run a casteist campaign ought to realise that this is bound to provoke a sharp reaction from others and cause chaos that can prove detrimental to our own party," he warned.

Singh's outburst came after his return from a day's visit to New Delhi, where he met some senior BJP politicians. But he claimed his statement had "nothing whatsoever" to do with his visit to Delhi.

That he was in a belligerent mood was clear from his repeated stress on "mid-term election", which he knows no one wants. He openly threw the gauntlet down before his rivals, declaring, "If 51 per cent of the MLAs belonging to the BJP and its allies seek fresh elections, I will go ahead."

Asked if he had told the party's central leadership of the infighting in his state, he said, "My leadership is wise enough to know everything." But he refused to name the partymen whom he was willing to hold directly responsible for "creating confusion and tarnishing the image of the party as a whole".

Asked the reason for his outburst, he shot back: "I was keeping quiet in the hope that better sense would prevail. But perhaps my silence was misinterpreted as weakness."

He flatly denied that the BJP's parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, also favours his ouster. "Such canards are being spread by vested interests," he said. "I know the Sangh as well as my party's central leadership, and I am confident that both are firmly behind me."

Referring to the caste-based campaign against him, he said: "Those who are indulging in this fail to realise that they are working against the basic nationalist ideology of the Sangh and the BJP."

Singh proposes to take the issue up at the appropriate forum in the party. But the ripples caused in the party by his remarks were plain from the statements being issued on behalf of the leadership. BJP spokesman K L Sharma has repeatedly asserted that "there will be no change in UP's leadership". But that is being taken with a pinch of salt by Singh's detractors in Lucknow. "He [Sharma] said the same thing just before Sahib Singh was given the marching orders in Delhi," one politician pointed out.

One thing is certain: Kalyan Singh doesn't have too many friends left. Even those allies who came running for ministerial berths in his jumbo cabinet are ready to desert him. "We have extended support to the BJP, not Kalyan Singh", says Naresh Agrawal, the most slippery of the allies and the one who heads the largest supporting group, the LCP.

Even the Jantantrik Bahujan Samaj Party (a breakaway BSP group) and smaller groups from the Janata Dal or the independents who form part of the coalition are critical of Singh's outburst. "We do not want another election" is the common refrain. Some even ask, "If Kalyan Singh is sincerely against casteism, why did he encourage the holding of caste-based sammelans (conferences) over the past one year?"

There is substance in what they say. What began with a rally of 'Pasis' (a Dalit sub-caste) was followed by meetings of Lodhis (Singh's community), Kurmis, and Thakurs. What made these meetings worse was that even towering personalities were reduced to members of a caste or sub-caste. Thus, Sardar Patel was described as a Kurmi, something few knew or cared about before the Kurmi sammelan. Likewise, at the Thakur conference, the great warrior-king Rana Pratap was reduced to a mere Rajput. And while eulogising the Rana's bravery, the conference reduced the great Mughal Akbar to a mere Muslim.

The chief minister was a key figure at both meetings. And, interestingly, state BJP chief Rajnath Singh, a Thakur, took offence because he was only given "invitee" status at the sammelan.

The Brahmins, however, have been more discreet. Kalraj Misra, who thought himself the most prominent Brahmin politician in Uttar Pradesh until he got embroiled in the Rs 1,000 million Ambedkar Park scandal, still prefers to keep his finger in every pie. No wonder all eyes are now on Kesri Nath Tripathi, speaker of the assembly, for whom the BJP's Brahmins are showing a preference. And who knows if the BJP plans to go back to the Brahminical order, specially since it fears a mass exodus of Brahmins back to the Congress.

Uttar Pradesh

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