Gadkari's Mess In UP - The Reason And How To Clean It.

Nitin Gadkari is uninspiring, elitist (what kind of an Indian faints in sun?), loudmouth and the second worst BJP president (the worst is Rajnath Singh) but he is not inept. He did the right things with the Bihar elections, which the BJP won handily. So why did he do what he did in UP? Why would anyone bring in a crook like Kushwaha, a cast off of one of the most corrupt group of politicians i.e. the BSP? Why would someone prefer to have Kushwaha on his side rather than Narendra Modi? I have though about it hard and will try to come up with an explanation. Please read the following points.

1. The crucial Muslims votes in UP are going to be divided between various champions of secularism and new Muslim parties. Good news for the BJP but is it good enough to put the party over the top?


2. Opinion polls said that the BJP was going to finish fourth but those polls are often wrong. It is those internal party polls, which are closer to the truth. We do not know what the BJP party polls say but as per Congress’ polls, the BJP will be finishing a close second behind Congress. This brings the BJP close to a win but what about a clear win?


3. Mayawati, who is one of the most corrupt politicians in the nation, is trying to clean her administration in order to look clean to her upper caste and middle class voters. She knows that if she loses, she will spend the next five years trying to sty out of jail. She got rid of Kushwaha who is mired in a major scam, which may even involve murder. Kushwaha is an MBC (most backward class, that we have such a category is mind boggling) and a very powerful one at that. The CBI raided his holdings because SP and Congress do not want him joining the BJP as he can then help the BJP break the hereto-unbreakable hold of SP and BSP on the western UP votes.


4. Gadkari was aware of Kushwaha’s power. He also knew how close the BJP may be to winning in UP and he is desperate to prove his worth to his bosses (which include the RSS bigwigs). That is why he took a risk. He arm-twisted the UP BJP leaders and inducted Kushwaha and four other crooks. He risked the wrath of the real BJP members, the ones beholden to the Hindu Nationalist ideals and took this step out of desperation.

We all want the BJP to win in UP and then 2014 general elections. What we don’t want is the dilution of the ideology, which makes the BJP the party of difference. They did something like this in the past with DP Yadav and that move blew in their face. That did not teach them anything.

However, things need to be done to erase this ugliness. A straightforward mea culpa is extremely important. That does not look likely right now because Gadkari has invested everything in this move and is trying to justify this act by using all and every excuse in the book. Hopefully after the UP elections, someone from the party will have the moral fortitude to apologize to their supporters.

The second is the issue of leadership needs to be resolves once and forever. It has to be democratically resolved instead of being decided by the RSS leadership. The RSS elders need to adopt an advisory role and let the party members elect someone they respect and can rally behind.

I am an ex member of the RSS and come from a family of RSS members and officials. It is probably the most admirable organization of India. Its leaders are nationalist patriots but not politicians and thus not adept in political machinations. They should also allow alternate views and visions for the party and even the nation as long as the aam aadmi benefits and the spirit of the nation remains in line with Hindu ethos and accepting the demands of the modern times. This is very important because Bhai Narendra Modi is the tallest leader in the BJP but he has a different way of functioning than what is acceptable to the RSS elders (even though he served the organization for most of his life). Now he has been cast aside from any leadership considerations. On the other hand the RSS elders have made mistakes with ineffective leaders like Gadkari and Rajnath Singh. The UP BJP leaders wanted Modi to campaign in UP. Gadkari ignored that and then went ahead with his Kushwaha plan, which has now given the Congress something to hold over the BJP. This is all Gadkari’s fault and no amount of backtracking is going to remove that black spot. It was Advani and Pramod Mahajan who lost the 2004 elections with their ill-timed India Shining campaign. It was Advani and Sudheendra Kulkarni who lost the 2009 elections. Now it is Gadkari who will ruin BJP’s chances in 2014. Something needs to be done about this.

The following urls have been referred to in the article:
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-which-way-will-the-muslim-vote-go-in-uttar-pradesh/20120104.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-congress-will-emerge-as-the-winner-in-up-polls-says-survey/20120104.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/report/mayawati-richest-among-cms-of-5-poll-bound-states/20120106.htm
http://newsinsight.net/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=2241