The believers are still euphoric, but the expectations among BJP activists about a week ago has been somewhat dampened. The momentum of Narendra Modi's campaign has suffered an unexpected slowdown at a time when it should otherwise have been peaking.
The wide range of people making a beeline for the BJP's central party headquarters at 11 Ashoka Road, either seeking tickets or investing for a share in fruits of power, was taken a healthy sign. It was taken as an indicator of the national mood, a yearning for a change and a yearning for Narendra Modi. This lasted until Sunday afternoon when Pramod Muthalik, a lumpen fringe element and chief of Sri Ram Sene who thinks that people with a slightly liberal outlook needed to trashed in public for deviating from his version of Hindu philosophy, was welcomed in the BJP by party's Karnataka unit. If others, including non-believers in the BJP and Sangh Parivar's core ideology could be welcomed, why not Muthalik, who supposedly has his ideological moonings in Hindutva and has a following of hundreds of goons, whose services could come handy on polling day?
When he last made news in January 2009, again before the general elections, Muthalik hit the headlines for organising the chasing and beating of young girls in Mangalore. At the time he was only seen as a goon, using some a distorted philosophy of Hinduism to hog headlines.
But on Sunday he acquired the legitimacy of a front ranking supporter of the BJP's prime ministerial candidate and of being a respected leader of the principal opposition party in the state. This was expected to give him basic immunity against law despite his actions as an outlaw on previous occasions.
Will decisions like inducting Muthalik damage Modi's chances? PTI
The Sri Ram Sene chief had bargained his entry into the BJP with the threat of eating into the party's vote base. He had two grounds to threaten the BJP with. The first, that he would contest the elections from Dharwad, a move that could affect the re-election of state BJP chief Prahlad Joshi. The second, that he would field seven to eight candidates in other parts of the state, not to win, but to jeopardise the prospects of the BJP in those areas.
A source in Karnataka unit of the BJP told Firstpost that a proposal to induct him was first made over a fortnight ago but it was nixed after leaders like Ananth Kumar protested against it. Kumar, the BJP's national general secretary and candidate from Bangalore South, is pitted against Congress's Nandan Nilekani and could ill afford to have Muthalik by his side during the campaign.
As a result when Muthalik's was welcomed into the party on Sunday by former chief minister Jagdish Shettar, his former deputy in government KS Eshwarappa and state party chief Prahlad Joshi, it took everyone concerned by surprise.
No central party leader was willing to accept that they had prior information about this decision, leave alone consenting to it. But before he could start celebrating his new found honour, the move sparked outrage in the media and Muthalik was shown the door by the BJP central leadership.
The BJP's prime ministerial candidate has so far steered clear of anything related to Hindutva and could easily see the potential loss emanating from inducting Muthalik in the party. Modi has earned some negative perceptions in the public over the alleged ill treatment of the party's older leaders. The embarrassment in the form of Muthalik's induction was announced barely an hour after Modi had asked supporters not to use Har Har Modi chants because it had the potential to shift the electoral discourse from development to accusations of Hindu communalism.
In the past Modi had avoided attending any VHP function. Muthalik with his image of being a rogue was a big no. As a result, Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, Sushma Swaraj, Anath Kumar and other senior leaders got on the phone lines immediately to express their displeasure over the move to those concerned.
Modi, who had landed in Delhi to attend a Baba Ramdev function, and party chief Rajnath Singh got in touch which each other and swiftly decided to cut their losses. Singh read the riot act to Karnataka unit chief Prahlad Joshi and the Muthalik membership was promptly rescinded.
But the damage had already been done. Modi's carefully crafted strategy to lure the youth to his side, in one stroke was hit with the kind of losses that Congress with months of meticulous planning and Rahul Gandhi ads, worth crores of rupees, had failed to do. Modi's advertisement tagline Bahut Hua Nari Par Var, abki bar Modi Sarkar (Enough attacks on women have taken place, this time bring in a Modi government) was suddenly questioned and seemed hollow to many. It was only natural that the Congress latched on to the issue to deride BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
The geographical continuity between coastal Karnatka and Goa, also impacted the latter's chief minister Parrikar directly. Parrikar over a period of time has earned a reputation of as a good clean administrator. He is also the one who brought the church in Goa closer to the BJP, giving the party a chance to highlight its inclusiveness. It therefore comes as no surprise that Parrikar went public with his protest against the move.
"His (Muthalik's) membership should be cancelled. I have told the central leadership that he should not be in the party," he said.
Muthalik was thrown out just like DP Yadav, an alleged mafia don of western UP, was thrown out in 2004. The two situations are slightly different but it shows that the party had learnt nothing from the past.
Yadav was inducted the BJP by their then campaign strategists in their enthusiasm to maximise the votes for the party in the region. At the time, LK Advani, then the Deputy Prime Minister, got to know about it in the evening after he finished watching a film at Mavlankar Hall. Even as he was taken by surprise, he instantly gave his verdict that Yadav would have to be thrown out. The next morning he spoke to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the then BJP chief Venkaiah Naidu was asked to cancel Yadav's membership in the party.
Following the decision on Muthalik, many have expressed surprise over the party's decision and spoke passionately of improving intra-party communication. Muthalik's case has generated revulsion and acted as a wake up call to party top brass that they must employ a filtering process while inducting new people. A series of incidents over the past ten days have shown that though there existed a clear communication gap between senior leaders, like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley responding to each other through social and mainstream media, there was a determined push to force decisions that had been cleared by the Modi-Rajnath duo. While not many in the party dispute the decisions taken by Modi and Rajnath, there is concern and unhappiness over the manner in which these were being taken.
The party could have avoided so much of the present controversies. It has, in fact, hopped from one controversy to another, as if they were taking place by design or things were just getting out of control.
A BJP leader said while one could debate whether Harin Pathak, a seven time MP, or film star Paresh Rawal was better suited for the Ahmedabad East constituency, there couldn't be much debate on the mishandling of the Advani and now Jaswant Singh issues. The leader's point was that Advani was mollified and the damage was contained because Modi took personal initiative to resolve it, but in Jaswant's case there was no such endeavour.
What will the party do, if he does not resign from the BJP and enter the fray as an independent candidate? Most likely expel him like it did in August 2009. But that would amount to days of "bad press". Jaswant's candidature as an independent, given the support he enjoys among the Rajputs and a section of Muslims, could make it really difficult for chief minister Vasundhara Raje's pick Colonel Sonaram Chaudhary.
The issue has also led to senior leaders Swaraj and Jaitley disagreeing with each other in public.
Swaraj had expressed her pain over denial of ticket to Jaswant Singh and said, "As far as the issue of Jaswant Singhji is concerned, it was a decision of the party. It was not a normal decision."
"Such type of decisions (asaadharan nirnay) are not taken without any reason. There must be some reason because that ticket was not decided by the (BJP) Central Election Committee. It was decided later. There must be some reason, but personally I am pained with this," she said.
A day later Jaitley responded and wrote on his blog:
"What does a politician do when after a successful political career the party is unable to accommodate him once? That is when his discipline and political loyalty are to be tested. Membership of political party is a privilege. It is also an act of self oppression where personal views and ambitions are subjected to the collective wisdom of the party. "
"At times, the party may flood leaders with privileges and positions. On other occasions, the leader may have to take "no" as an answer to his desires. How does a politician or a leader react to such "no"? He must accept the decision with a smile. This becomes a test of his loyalty and discipline. Restraint and silence are always a preferred option. Over-reaction may prove be a transient storm in a tea cup. Silence is always dignified and more gracious," Jaitley wrote
However, Jaswant is not accepting Jaitley's advice and his son Manvendra, the MLA from Barmer, has gone on "medical leave". The intra-party politics in BJP will continue making headlines till the last phase of nominations are over. Modi will have to watch out.
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