For 2014, BJP bets on Modi
by B. Muralidhar Reddy and Prakash Kamat (The Hindu, Panaji, 9 June 2013)
Got blessings of Advani for new job, tweets Gujarat CM
Playing for high stakes, the Bharatiya Janata Party took a gamble in the only State where casinos are legal, by naming Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the party’s face for the 2014 general election.
Though on paper Mr. Modi has been appointed Chairman of the National Election Campaign Committee, the categorical speeches made by BJP leaders at a workers’ meeting later on Sunday evening left nothing to imagination that the party leadership considers him the best bet to take on the UPA.
Minutes after BJP president Rajnath Singh announced the decision here at the end of the two-day National Executive meeting, in the presence of Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj and her counterpart in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, the Gujarat Chief Minister tweeted that he called up senior leader L.K. Advani and got his blessings for the new job.
The anointment was preceded by hours of agonising backdoor negotiations to bring on board sulking leaders, including Mr. Advani who skipped the meeting on grounds of ill-health. The news of a video conference from New Delhi by Mr. Advani to a gathering in Jaipur and his earlier blog has not gone unnoticed here.
o o o
The Hindu, June 10, 2013
Editorial
Manufactured consent
Indeed, veteran Lal Krishna Advani turned out to be as much in the limelight for resisting Mr. Modi’s elevation as Mr. Modi himself for getting his coveted prize
In the end, Narendra Modi’s promotion to campaign committee chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party happened not by consensus or by consultation but by diktat, with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh virtually cracking the whip on the dissenters. Yet through the three days of the BJP’s national executive meet in Goa, one man stood his ground, defying multiple attempts to coax and cajole him out of his reluctance. Indeed, veteran Lal Krishna Advani turned out to be as much in the limelight for resisting Mr. Modi’s elevation as Mr. Modi himself for getting his coveted prize. The BJP tried hard to sell the story that Mr. Advani had been kept away from Goa by his poor health, the first time he had missed an important party meet in three decades. But the latter made sure the world knew he was hale and hearty by blogging on a film with pointed references to the Mahabharata and Bhishma Pitamaha. The situation bristles with irony, starting with the fact that a man with such a presumed fan following as Mr. Modi could not find universal acceptance in his own party. And who should be the dissident-in-chief but Mr. Advani, the Gujarat Chief Minister’s former mentor who once intervened to save his job in the aftermath of the 2002 anti-Muslim violence.
Equally paradoxically, Mr. Modi finds himself pitchforked to the national stage courtesy the RSS, which self-proclaimedly abhors the personality cult so evident in the Modi phenomenon. If despite this history of antagonism, the BJP’s spiritual mentor has handed over the election management charge to Mr. Modi, it is obviously in response to the growing clamour from the BJP rank and file. But the decision also shows the absence of real democracy in a party controlled by the RSS. What next, now that Mr. Modi has won, overriding objections from senior leaders, among them Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj? That Mr. Modi will electrify his followers on Twitter is a given. And yet, it is over-the-top to equate his new, enlarged brief to a ‘coronation’ or to see him as the BJP’s prime-ministerial nominee. Mr. Modi cannot be the BJP’s Prime Minister-in-waiting unless the party has decided to disband the National Democratic Alliance, which is surely not the case. NDA partners have chosen to treat Mr. Modi’s elevation as an internal BJP matter, clarifying that they would need to be on board for deciding who will run for Prime Minister. Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley headed the BJP’s campaign committee in 2004 and 2009 respectively without the automatic assumption that either would be Prime Minister. NaMo’s frenzied fan clubs will do well to understand that their hero has some way to go before he becomes the face of 2014.
o o o
The Telegraph - 10 June 2013
BJP Modivated
Satrap elevated inblow to oligarchs
RADHIKA RAMASESHAN
SEE PHOTO HERE
Panaji, June 9: The BJP today made Narendra Modi its spearhead for the general election, seeking to tap into a perceived national mood of “despair” through a polarising but poll-proven satrap who was for the first time given primacy over “parlour oligarchs” in Delhi.
Egged on by electrified cadres and nudged by the RSS, the BJP ignored misgivings of the old guard as well as a key ally and appointed Modi chairman of the BJP’s national campaign committee for the elections scheduled next year.
Speaker after speaker in Goa — the “lucky” state which set the stage for his survival after the riots — spoke of the mood of negativity in the country after nine years of UPA rule.
If the strategy seemed to be single-minded focus on the present to gloss over the past that carries the millstone of the riots, the mandate for Modi was to transform the alleged negative national mood into a positive vote for the BJP.
“Well begun is half won,” Modi, 62, told charged party workers after his elevation, which promises to mark a generation change in the BJP and the official end of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-L.K. Advani era.
BJP president Rajnath and Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Arun Jaitley dropped enough hints at the workers’ meeting that Modi would be declared the party’s candidate for Prime Minister sooner than later.
BJP sources said an announcement about the 2014 polls being contested under Modi’s leadership was expected in New Delhi “very shortly”.
If and when that happens, Modi will wield a veto on candidate selection and emerge as a power centre over and above party apparatuses such as the central election committee and the parliamentary board.
The BJP, the sources said, will go through the motions of sounding out allies and patriarch Advani on the prime ministerial candidate before making the choice public.
Party hotheads had been demanding a simultaneous announcement today. But, the sources said, the leadership did not want to provoke more adverse headlines after Advani’s sulk-induced absence from the Goa national executive meeting.
However, the “consultations” with allies, including key partner Janata Dal (United), are expected to be a formality. A rethink on Modi appears unlikely even if Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar repeats his strictures about his Gujarat counterpart’s “secular” credentials.
“We do not require certificates of secularism from anyone. Every person in the BJP is as secular as the other,” spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said, reflecting the aggressive mood that has set in after the leaders brushed away ideological cobwebs and personal reservations over Modi.
Rajnath announced the decision on Modi shortly after the party’s two-day national executive conclave ended.
Seated by his side on a makeshift podium outside the venue were Lok Sabha Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj, Jaitley and seniors Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar. Their presence was meant to reinforce the message that Modi’s elevation had been “consensual”.
Sushma, Naidu and Kumar are known acolytes of Advani, who had opposed Modi’s promotion till the bitter end.
However, Sushma, who had yesterday tried to delay a decision on Modi till Advani had ratified it, failed to show up at the workers’ meeting, hosted by the Goa BJP at an indoor community hall. She had by then apparently left for Delhi.
Modi’s formal ascendancy on the national stage, via a tortuous process that unmasked a power struggle, was a groundbreaker for many reasons, sources said.
One, the BJP, like the Congress, had so far shown little appetite for promoting regional bosses. Any excuse in the past was good enough to snuff out the ambitions of state stars such as Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti or B.S. Yeddyurappa.
Modi has been able to buck the trend because, like Uma, he has had long stints in Delhi and is familiar with its slippery power terrain while, unlike the sadhvi, avoiding perceptions of being overtly mercurial. More crucially, the pressure to anoint Modi came from below — from a cadre openly critical of the “disconnect” between the Delhi leadership and the perceived expectations and aspirations on the ground.
“Left to themselves, the parlour oligarchs would not have lifted their little finger. They would have chanted the mantra of collective leadership and played their little games with Nitish Kumar and the Shiv Sena,” an office-bearer said.
“The cadres made it clear to the Delhi bosses that if they dithered, the workers would not work during the elections. In one voice, the message was: Modi or nothing.”
The suspicion was that Advani had pinned his hopes on the “secular” Nitish to propose his candidature despite his primacy in the Babri Masjid demolition. Sushma, on the other hand, had managed to endear herself to Sena chief Bal Thackeray months before he died.
It seems that at one stage, Modi got peeved at the delay in his elevation but was persuaded by his supporters not to be deterred by the goings-on.
Today, Jaitley praised the BJP’s “innate democracy” and claimed that while leaders were decided by the parliamentary board, the “opinions of lakhs and crores of workers were taken on board”.
Rajnath said: “The scales of justice demanded that I should take this decision (on Modi). Jaitley felicitated me for taking the decision but he should congratulate the workers and people at large.”
The issue was decided late last night despite some “mild” reservations expressed by senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who never tires of letting on that he was Modi’s original mentor because the latter had accompanied him on his 1991 rathyatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.
The first fallout of the changing equations was a statement from “dissident” Yashwant Sinha who, like Advani, had skipped Goa.
Sinha said Modi had “no match” in the Congress or elsewhere and that the only issue he had was with the decision being announced in Advani’s absence.
o o o
Shiv Sena welcomes Narendra Modi's appointment (ET)
MUMBAI: NDA's key ally Shiv Sena today welcomed the appointment of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as chairman of BJP's Election Campaign Committee for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. "We welcome the appointment of Narendra Modi as head of BJP's election
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/shiv-sena-welcomes-narendra-modis-appointment-as-poll-campaign-chief/articleshow/20508554.cms
o o o
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130609/jsp/frontpage/story_16988212.jsp#.UbTS-nBlaMQ
Anoint-Modi pressure mounts
RADHIKA RAMASESHAN (The Telegraph, 9 June 2013)
Panaji, June 8: BJP president Rajnath Singh is under pressure to appoint Narendra Modi the campaign committee chief for the general election at the end of the national executive session tomorrow in “deference” to the wishes of the cadre, sources said.
“Expectations and sentiments are riding so high on Modi that the absence of a decision could instigate a revolt,” a source said.
Rajnath is facing calls to go the whole hog and state that Modi would lead the BJP into the next Lok Sabha polls.
For the greater part of the day, though, doubts shrouded the anticipated announcement as the party chief was huddled for hours with senior colleagues such as Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu.
Rajnath’s dilemma arose from several reasons. One, the perceived “inappropriateness” of making the announcement in the absence of party patriarch L.K. Advani, who is set against Modi’s elevation, from the Goa conclave.
Two, Saturday’s protests outside Advani’s Delhi home by a group that called itself “Narendra Modi’s Army”.
Three, worries over the impact the announcement might have not only on the BJP’s electoral fortunes next year but also on its internal power equations.
“One lobby says we will be making a huge mistake by side-stepping Advani,” a source said. He added that this view gained strength after Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury openly commiserated with Advani’s “plight”.
Till late evening, nobody was sure whether Modi’s anointment was inevitable despite a hint from Rajnath during his presidential address in the morning.
What fed the feelings of uncertainty was the still-fresh memory of how Nitin Gadkari’s hopes of a second term as party chief, which had seemed in the bag thanks to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief’s blessings, were crushed hours before the announcement was to come.
In the afternoon, there was talk of a “compromise formula” linked to Rajnath under which Modi would be the convener and not the chairman of the campaign committee — a move that might have, at least for appearances’ sake, limited the scope of his mandate. But by evening, BJP sources discounted the possibility.
Spokesperson Prakash Javdekar quoted Rajnath as telling executive members that when the session concluded tomorrow, they could expect to return home “surcharged with new energy, enthusiasm and hope”.
Most members interpreted this as a hint about Modi’s elevation and seemed pleased that the usually non-committal Rajnath had “taken a stand” against Advani.
The party patriarch’s plea of ill health to stay away — an indirect expression of his resentment at the prominence being given to Modi — has invoked jocular comment in the party.
Still, BJP sources said, Sushma had invoked the parivar norms about “appropriate” deference to elders and advised Rajnath to withhold the announcement of a decision that Advani would dislike.
Sushma, Advani’s only surviving political confidant in a changing BJP, is said to have spent hours today trying to convince her mentor that he must show up at the executive, if only for a few hours.
She and general secretary Ananth Kumar told the veteran that an aircraft would be on standby to fly him back if his health worsened suddenly. But Advani refused to budge, after which Sushma asked Rajnath to talk to him, sources said.
“Advaniji is really ill,” spokesperson Javdekar later said. “He wanted to come but on his doctor’s advice, he will not. Rajnathji spoke to his doctors. Finally, Rajnathji advised him not to strain himself. So what if he cannot come? The party will go to him.”
Off the record, most national executive members are furious with Advani for spoiling the event with his “shenanigans” although many of them hold no brief for Modi.
The Congress mocked the squabble-ridden conclave as a “concert of performing monkeys” and a “hospital of sick people”.
Former finance and foreign minister Yashwant Sinha has joined the ranks of Advani backers and skipped Goa. He told the media that unlike other absentees like Jaswant Singh, he was “hale and hearty” but had his “own reasons” for staying away. He did not elaborate.
Uma Bharti, also missing in Goa, wrote to Rajnath today from Bhopal, apologising and pledging support to whatever decision he took.
The BJP has distanced itself from the “unidentified” people who protested outside Advani’s home carrying banners that said: “Narendra Modi’s Army”.
“Our party does not hold demonstrations against its own leaders. They were not from the BJP,” spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.
Still, the dominant view, as articulated by a party official, was: “For us, Modi is the only leader. The message has travelled down to the last grass-root member. Rajnath has to see that the message travels upwards to those playing games in Lutyens’ Delhi.”
SEE ALSO
Modi sena leader protests outside Advani's house