Neither will BJP support Advani, nor will RSS dump Modi

At no point Lord Krishna thought of usurping Hastinapur from the Pandavas after the 18-day Mahabharata war. He had won the war for Pandavas or helped them win it guiding them, especially Arjuna, using smart tactics, grand strategy and even deceit. But the charioteer was content with driving the chariot, not looking for a share in the post-war pie.  

Senior octogenarian BJP leader LK Advani is not content with having played his role as a charioteer of Modi during his early years and doing all for him that that made Modi what he is today. He wants Hastinapur for himself. 

Modi would not have become the prime minister if Advani had not mentored him in his early years in the BJP, not promoted him through organisational hierarchy. And most importantly, if Advani as the deputy prime minister and home minister had not shielded him during the Gujarat riots, Modi’s political career would have come to an ignominious end. 

At a time when a section of the BJP was baying for Modi’s blood to bring him to books for his role in the 2002 riots, when none other than the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted him out to fulfill his “raj dharma”, Advani maneuvered Modi’s chariot employing deceit, falsehoods and the smart “every action has a reaction” theory. He stood as Shikhandi before Bhisma Pitamah, Vajpayee, to shield his protégé. And shield he did unabashedly throwing all morality to winds. Vajpayee had no choice. He was bound by life-long vow to maintain camaraderie with Advani in the saffron brotherhood. 

The tension between the South Block and the North Block during and after the riots was palpable. On many issues Vajpayee and Advani didn’t agree and even let out their frustrations. Editors and beat journalists close to the BJP were regularly briefed on the differences and the rival camps used to take pot shots through newspaper and magazine columns and stories.  

One of the key organisational issues on which the two senior leaders differed was promotion of a coterie by Advani in the BJP. Advani as the party president during the BJP’s ascendancy handpicked leaders such as KN Govidacharya and Narendra Modi and various RSS pracharaks, who were assigned crucial role in the organisation. Vajpayee had uneasy relations with many of them, including Govindacharya who, after describing Vajpayee as a “mukhauta” (mask) to a British diplomat and Advani as the real leader, was banished from party on the insistence of Vajpayee and later from the RSS too. 

Advani chose Modi to organise the Gujarat-Mumbai part of his Rath Yatra from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in 1990. Then Advani was riding a chariot and Modi, though not driving the chariot, was a key organiser of the Rath Yatra. Advani’s chariot left a trail of destruction through whichever path it rode. Advani was impressed Modi’s organisational skills. He promoted him further and finally Advani sidelined party strongman in Gujarat Keshubhai Pate to install Modi as the chief minister. 

Now Advani had become Modi’s charioteer. He ensured that Modi continued in power without fulfilling his raj dharma and despite Vajpayee’s reservations over the latter. Advani was quick to defend Gujarat riots as a reaction to the killing of kar sevaks travelling in the Sabarmati Express. Though Advani maintained that riot was indefensible, he felt there was no need for apology. 

It’s not that Modi did not pay back or all that Advani had done for him. He secured the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat for him. But unlike Lord Krishna of Mahabharat, Advani was not to remain content without having tasted the power as prime minister of India. He had accepted Vajpayee as a senior partner but never reconciled with his fate that had written the end of his career as deputy prime minister. 

Advani refuses to accept the reality that after having given certificate of secularism to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, he had lost the war within the RSS and the BJP. No one should know better than him that one can’t aspire to rise to the top in the BJP without active consent of the RSS. Yet he is busy mobilising disparate groups of people, hardline RSS apparatchik Murli Manohar Joshi, party veteran Shanta Kumar, non-RSS and late entrant to the BJP Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, who is not even a member of the BJP now. These “veterans” want the party to fix accountability for the Bihar defeat which basically meant demand for action against BJP president Amit Shah. 

There are rumblings in the BJP and it will continue.  But the BJP will not rally behind Advani and the RSS will not dump Modi for defeat in Bihar. For you Advaniji: “Hunnoz Dilli Door Ast”.