Rediff On The NeT: Vajpayee government wakes up to Budget blues


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January 4, 1999

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Vajpayee government wakes up to budget blues

George Iype in Bangalore

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's attempt to distance his ten-month-old coalition government from the Sangh Parivar and assert his authority over the party leadership seems to have succeeded at the Bharatiya Janata Party's two-day national executive.

But many believe the truce that Vajpayee has brokered with the Sangh Parivar is temporary, and that the war of words between the two could soon break out on a number of ideological issues and government policies.

As the 1999 annual Budget is just eight weeks away, the Vajpayee government's utmost concern now is on how to prepare an economic agenda that would be accepted by the Sangh Parivar and the Swadeshi advocates in the party.

Raging differences on a host of issues broke out between the hardliners in the BJP and Vajpayee. The hardline leaders headed by party president Shashikant 'Kushabhau' Thakre blamed the government's poor economic policy and its failure to arrest the price rise as the main reason for the BJP's debacle in the assembly election. But Vajpayee bluntly told the national executive that the Sangh Parivar has considerably restricted him in running the government.

As tensions between the organisation and the government hot up, the hardliners and the moderates fought bitterly over the political resolution to be adopted at the executive. The former wanted to blame the government for the economic mess and to virtually justify the attacks on Christians in Gujarat and play up the conversion of Hindus to Christianity across the country in the resolution.

But the prime minister, supported by his Cabinet colleagues, charged the Sangh Parivar and the BJP leadership with not letting the government function properly, which they stated has considerably helped Congress president Sonia Gandhi soaring on the popularity charts.

"The government is for wider consultations on all issues. But the decisions of my government are always final and our party has to play the role of the ruling party," Vajpayee told the executive members, and asserted that his government cannot be expected to pursue those policies and programmes charted out by the Rashtriya Swayasevak Sangh and its affiliates.

Vajpayee, with the active support of moderates in the party and his Cabinet colleagues, wanted the RSS-BJP leadership to assure him of complete support on a host of issues that have badly affected the government's image in the past ten months.

They include: the Sangh's disparate affiliates like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and the Gujarat Hindu Jagran Manch should immediately stop making critical accusations against the minorities, especially after the attacks on Christians in Gujarat; the Swadeshi Jagran Manch give up publicly criticising the government's economic policies every now and then; the BJP-RSS leadership should not convey an impression that the coalition government is being run on its terms and conditions.

In asserting prime ministerial authority, Vajpayee received generous help from his senior Cabinet colleagues like Home Minister L K Advani, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madanlal Khurana and Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan who virtually blamed the Sangh for ignoring the many achievements of their government.

Forced by this attack from Vajpayee and his team, the hardliners retreated and agreed to change a political resolution which lauded the coalition government's achievements and declared the continuing violence against Christians in Gujarat as "unfortunate."

Thus, importantly, on the economic front, the Sangh Parivar's attempt to force the government to peg the foreign investment in the insurance sector at 26 per cent and to allow foreign companies as the single biggest investors in insurance was dropped.

At the end of the national executive, many felt Vajpayee showed signs of becoming belligerent by making it clear to the party leadership and the Sangh Parivar that he would not allow any meddling in the government and its policy decisions and programmes.

"The prime minister and his team have made it very clear that they do not want the RSS and party leadership to control his government. But it is still an uneasy relationship between the government and the RSS organisations," a national executive member told Rediff On The NeT.

He said the biggest worry now in the party and the government is how long Vajpayee and his team will be allowed to go ahead with "the coalition government's agenda, which many of us feel, is far removed from Hindutva."

"We expect another clash between the government and the Sangh Parivar before the Union Budget is presented in February," he added.

Party strategists claim the attempt to resolve contentious issues between the government, the party and the RSS leadership has considerably succeeded at the national executive. But at the same time, they point out that "this temporary truce" could lead to serious ramifications on the BJP's relationship with the RSS in the long run.

"How the RSS will respond to the forthcoming Union Budget is what we are really worried about," one national executive member, a Vajpayee supporter from the South told Rediff On The NeT.

"It is not always ideological differences between the government and the Sangh Parivar. Often it is the personality clashes," he said, disclosing that the personalities and leadership styles of Vajpayee, Advani, Thakre and RSS chief Professor Rajendra Singh, senior RSS leaders K S Sudershan and Dattopant Thengdi have always been different.

The RSS leadership is still against the Vajpayee government's resolve to get parliamentary sanction for the controversial Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill and the patents legislation.

But senior BJP leader K R Malkani, who attacked the government on the IRA Bill, claims though there have been differences between the party and the government on opening up the insurance sector, "there has been no serious internal battle between us on the issue."

"The insurance issue is still unresolved. But that should not and will not affect the Vajpayee government's functioning and performance," Malkani told Rediff On The NeT.

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