Dipping fortunes force BJP comeback to Hindu hardline By Ajit Sahi, Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, June 26 (IANS) Slowly but steadily, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is making a considered switch to a Hindu hardline, returning to a position it jettisoned four years ago. Several crucial decisions the BJP has taken in the last two months were guided by this touchstone, which aims to rejuvenate a party whose popularity has floundered during this period as mirrored in successive state election losses. The BJP's turnaround has followed its dramatic resolution at a party conclave at Goa in April where it aggressively rejected criticism of its government in the western state of Gujarat over its failure to contain anti-Muslim killings there. The new party mood has virtually signified a reversal of its decision in 1998, when it eschewed its fundamentalist hue to seize power in New Delhi with the backing of several secular political parties, after it emerged as the single-largest party in the Lok Sabha but far short of a majority. The latest decision underlining the BJP swivel is this week's appointment of well-known hawk and Lok Sabha MP Vinay Katiyar as head of its affairs in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. The BJP is struggling to regain lost ground in that state where it was virtually unrivalled three years ago but where it was rudely ousted from power in February. The BJP is also considering appointing Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Uma Bharti, a sharp-tongued hardline politician, as head of its wing in Madhya Pradesh, where the party failed to dislodge the Congress party in elections in 1998. The BJP is desperate to unseat the Congress government in the sprawling central Indian state led by Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. Both Katiyar and Bharti were the leading lights of a highly controversial and nationally divisive Hindu campaign of 1989-92 to replace a 16th-century mosque by a temple at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. They were mainly held responsible for the mosque's demolition by frenzied Hindu mobs in December 1992. Another indication of the BJP's return to a strong pro-Hindu stance is its continuing political aggression in Gujarat, where it has been unrepentant for Chief Minister Narendra Modi's failure to contain the anti-Muslim violence. Around 950 people have died in the state since the end of February. Modi has earned the BJP's complete backing in the face of wide criticism that he allowed the killings to occur and is shielding members of BJP affiliates implicated in the carnage. This week, the BJP kicked off a series of emotive propaganda rallies that would traverse through 18,000 villages in the state, whipping up passions. The BJP also wants to project a different image by making Home Minister L.K. Advani Vajpayee's deputy prime minister. Advani is widely recognised for espousing the belligerent Hindu nationalism advocated by the BJP's ideological guide, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as opposed to Vajpayee's perceived image of being a moderate. Advani was also a leading light of the Ayodhya temple movement. "The party is at a crucial juncture in its political life," a BJP leader told IANS. "The only way to rejuvenate the party is by returning to the ideology that brought us the big political gains earlier." The BJP's return to the Hindu hardliner roots marks the turn of a full circle. The party rose from political ignominy in 1989, riding on a pro-Hindu wave after it decided to back the Ayodhya campaign of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The BJP kept notching electoral successes thereon, emerging as the single largest party in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. But since it was still perceived as an aggressive pro-Hindu party, it failed to earn allies, and Vajpayee had to quit as prime minister in just 13 days. After it returned as the single-largest party in the Lok Sabha in the 1998 elections, a much-chastened BJP announced it was putting its several controversial demands -- most of them perceived as anti-minorities -- on the backburner, to gain the support of secular parties. Vajpayee thus became prime minister for a second time in 1998. Next year, he led the coalition to victory again in Lok Sabha elections. But in the last four years, the BJP's political fortunes suffered immensely as it lost every state election and now rules only four states. Last month, it returned to power in the tiny state of Goa but failed to win a majority. Said analyst G.V.L. Narasimha Rao: "Voters evaluate parties on the basis of their performances and not on their abilities to raise religious frenzies. "I don't think the BJP is going to impress the voters by appointing this or that person to head its wings in the states. Its record of governance is what will ultimately matter." --Indo-Asian News Service =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
