Sticking Point on BJP Chief's Selection: Independent or From Within the Establishment

Before the BJP was founded on April 6, 1980, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is believed to have set three conditions. The first was that the party’s president and national executive should be fixed in consultation with, and with the concurrence of, Nagpur. The second was that BJP leaders should broadly abide by the RSS's ideals, although with flexibility. Third, that one of the party’s general secretaries should be a senior pracharak deputed by the Nagpur bosses.

The first such ‘political commissar’ was the highly reputed Sunder Singh Bhandari, who continued to hold the position for over a decade. In its early stages the Soviet Red Army was composed of assorted groups, including deserters from the Tsar’s Army, and the communist rulers had deputed a political commissar to every unit for better control.

When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister, the BJP chief was chosen by consensus. The government also held chintan baithaks on controversial policy issues. But Narendra Modi from the beginning resisted any restrictions on him or consultations as equals. This is the root cause of the prolonged deadlock in fixing the new BJP president.

A silent tug of war is on between the Nagpur bosses and the Modi-Shah duo. The Modi camp appears to want a faceless adjunct as party president, an appointee who can function as an integral part of the Modi establishment and faithfully carry out its directives. Nothing beyond.

Under Modi-Shah, important policies are drawn up by non-political experts and backroom boys. The duo examines these and those that it approves become the party’s policies. The function of a party president like J.P. Nadda has been only to carry out their instructions.

Nagpur, on the other hand, would prefer a person of a stature befitting the national president of the largest political party in the world. He or she must be, as far as possible, acceptable to the entire parivar, and function as the chief of a vibrant, functioning party and not as a minion of the ruling clique.

Thus, essentially, it is a war of nerves between two different approaches: a highly centralised, closed system and the pre-Modi organisational structure with what the Modi camp calls a ‘parallel’ party chief. And the war of nerves goes on.

Nadda’s three-year tenure as BJP president ended in January 2023. He was given the first extension until the general elections up to June 2024. More than a year later, he still remains in office. From time to time the ruling clique has offered a fresh deadline for appointing a new president and the godi media has lapped it up without question:

• The BJP was to get a new national president by February 2025.
• The new BJP chief from the south would be named after Holi 2025.
• The BJP would have a new president by July 2025 through consensus.

The last deadline was the monsoon session of parliament that has just ended. For over two-and-a-half years, the world’s largest political party with a claimed 18 crore members has been functioning under a caretaker president. Nadda’s full-time job is his ministry – he is the Union health minister.  This is against the one man, one post rule set as early as 2015.

Modi’s relationship with the RSS has gone through three stages. The first began in February 2013 when, during two separate meetings with Mohan Bhagwat, he convinced the RSS chief he would go by Hindutva ideals and implement RSS policies without giving excuses. Impressed by the assurance and considering his track record as chief minister in Gujarat, he was given a virtually free hand as prime minister.

When there were protests from party leaders unhappy about the way Modi was dismantling the BJP’s organisational structure and its work culture, Bhagwat stood by Modi and despatched veterans like L.K. Advani, Vajpayee and Murli Manohar Joshi to the hurriedly formed Margadarshak Mandal.

However, public outbursts by allied outfits like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) continued against the government on various policy matters. This was getting traction among the parivar ranks, who felt the rights of workers and farmers were being curbed.

Finally, Bhagwat silenced them at a chintan baithak attended by 93 leaders representing the SJM, BMS, BKS and the Vishva Hindu Parishad in September 2015. At the three-day conclave, the RSS boss and others from Nagpur virtually imposed silence saying they were satisfied with the government’s performance. The siblings reluctantly agreed. But they continued their occasional protests. Since then, the RSS has given full support to Modi’s policies.

The second stage began when Nagpur became disturbed by the mindless promotion of the Modi cult. This was accompanied by pushing the prime minister as the Hindu hriday samrat.

The RSS had always looked down on the glorification of living leaders. Modi, in an interview in 2024, claimed he was sent by God. Bhagwat then publicly decried people who aspired to be God, and advised them to be human first. The taunt had its effect. Modi admitted he was human and could make mistakes.

The third has been the continuing tug of war on the selection of a successor to Nadda. This marks the first confrontation on a specific issue, though silent, between the two sides during the Modi era.

A Mahabharata sequence (further elaborated by Bhagwata) is being recalled in conversations in RSS circles, among older pracharaks. It is about Poundraka Vasudeva, who thought himself to be the real Krishna and began sporting peacock feathers, a flute and yellow attire. The pretender was finally challenged and vanquished by the real Lord Krishna.

Nagpur has reasons to be concerned about the systematic cult build-up for Modi. It had never allowed the emergence of super-leaders within the BJP and had encouraged a balanced approach when in the early 1990s some BJP leaders argued in favour of cultivating a powerful Indira Gandhi-style leader to garner votes. During the 2013 consultations, Modi had agreed to stay within the confines of the RSS’s ideals.  Nagpur now feels let down.

Look at the Modi build-up. He is being promoted with selfies at military establishments and railway stations, a new variety of lotus has been named after him and exhibitions are held on him. Modi is the presiding deity in temples built by sycophants in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh.

The RSS brass have every reason to feel disturbed over Modi’s attempts to usurp the leadership of the Hindutva movement or at least emerge as a parallel claimant. He personally acted as chief priest at the Ayodhya temple consecration and uses every opportunity to portray himself as a Hindu hriday samrat.

This is not just imagery created by the opposition. The Hindu hriday samrat theme was being loudly highlighted by the pro-government TV channels. As a result, during the Lok Shaba elections, the annoyed RSS workers in many places were shy of campaigning for the BJP. Nadda’s remarks that the BJP had emerged as a powerful force and could win elections on its own without RSS support worsened the discord, even though the parivar camp had later downplayed it.

Despite the deadlock in negotiations with the RSS, a dozen names are being mentioned in BJP circles as possible nominees for the BJP president’s post. These include Vasundhara Raje Scindia and a known bete noire of Modi's, Sanjay Joshi.

Among others are Devendra Fadnavis, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupendra Yadav. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is the latest addition.

Then there are others like S.D. Sharma, Sunil Bansal, Raman Singh, Vinod Tavde, D. Purandeswari and Vanathi Srinivasan. All these are sourced from the Modi-Shah camp. None of these is attributed to the RSS.

Tailpiece: Several senior BJP leaders, including Chouhan and former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, have all come out  in favour of RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale’s demand for dropping the words socialism and secularism from the preamble of the Constitution. The irony has been that the BJP’s own constitution loudly upholds the ‘principles of socialism, secularism and democracy’.

P. Raman is a veteran journalist.

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