Power equations change: Sushma Swaraj rebellion a bid to gain clout?
The inner party conflict escalated on Friday with Swaraj using twitter to declare that Sriramulu — an associate of the controversial Bellary Reddy brothers named in illegal mining cases — had been admitted despiteher objections.
NEW DELHI: Just weeks before the Lok Sabha poll, BJP is in the throes of fresh infighting with senior leader Arun Jaitley seemingly taking a swipe at leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj over her public criticism of the party's decision to admit Karnataka leader B Sriramulu.
The inner party conflict escalated on Friday with Swaraj using Twitter to declare that Sriramulu — an associate of the controversial Bellary Reddy brothers named in illegal mining cases — had been admitted despite her objections.
Swaraj's tweet raised eyebrows because she had publicized her reservations, using her Twitter handle for the purpose, earlier too when the proposal to merge Sriramulu's BSR Congresssurfaced in media reports.
She followed the earlier tweet by raising the issue with BJP president Rajnath Singh at a meeting of the central election committee where she asked how decisions on alliances and mergers were being taken without adequate consultation. Though she put her dissent on record after the CEC overwhelmingly decided in favour of Sriramulu's induction, few in the party expected she would raise the matter yet again, let alone in public.
Her fresh move to publicly advertize her dissent over Sriramulu seems to have provoked Jaitley who wrote in his blog: "Relatively marginal issues such as declaration of candidates particularly who is in and who is out cannot be allowed to dominate the political agenda in the BJP." Jaitley argued the party should not take its eyes off the objective to focus on failures of UPA and Narendra Modi's ability to provide bettergovernance.
Saying that BJP is moving towards a majority mark in parliament, Jaitley stressed: "We must allconcentrate on these issues (UPA's weaknesses) and the ability of a Modi led government providing a solution... the big issue likely to dominate the voter's mind is who can provide a stable government."
Although the equations between the leaders of opposition in the two Houses of Parliament have always been far from smooth, Jaitley's contention that the issue of who all get party tickets or join it are "marginal issues" raised a cloud of controversy and brought into question BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's command on the party. Jaitley has been staunchly aligned with Modi and Rajnath Singh as part of what is seen as the 'ascendant triumvirate'.
Swaraj's deliberate dissent despite her alleged past proximity with the Bellary Reddys may have confirmed the diminution of the formidable clout that she seemed to wield as the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha before being passed over by the Sangh Parivar for leading the challenge to Congres in 2014. But party circles also saw it as Sushma's shrewd positioning of herself as the chief dissident within a Modi-led BJP by raising a red flag over decisions that are seen to be expedient and controversial.
To that extent, her airing grievances in public is seen as only an extension of the bitter power struggle that saw leaders like Swaraj and veterans like L K Advani and M M Joshi unsuccessfully resisting the appointment of Modi as campaign chief and later as the party's PM nominee. This had seen Swaraj opposing the decision to project a PM nominee before the Lok Sabha polls in RSS-BJP meetings last year.
The Twitter protest has belied any expectation that the convincing defeat of Modi opponents will restore order in the party. Rather, there seems a fresh resurgence. Sources in the party underlined that Swaraj chose to rake up the Sriramulu issue even after the entire Karnataka unit, including her loyalist and South Bangalore MP Ananth Kumar, strongly told the central election panel that taking Sriramulu back into the party fold will mean an accretion of 4% vote and better prospects in four Lok Sabha constituencies.
Sources sympathetic to Modi see the outbreak of concern over Sriramulu as part of a pattern of dissidence which has been marked by reports about Advani's alleged protest against Modi's ever-rising profile and the sulks of veterans like Joshi and Lalji Tandon over having to leave their LS seats.
Significantly, even as the party under Modi is widely perceived to be consolidating its frontrunner status in the run-up to polls, party circles remain rife with talks about the '160 club'- code for the widely held "conspiracy theory" that a strong section in the party will like party's score not to cross 170-odd seats. The assumption is that a tally short of 180 will show that PM candidate had failed to deliver the numbers, and open up the prospects of others who had to make way for the Gujarat CM.
The fresh eruption of dissidence marks a challenge to the authority of RSS which solidly stood by Modi, staring down the opposition of Advani who resigned after Modi was named the campaign chief and skipped the meeting of the parliamentary board where the Gujarat CM was declared the PM candidate.
Although party sources have tried to play it down by saying that it is last-ditch reistance, the public fulminations show that it is quite tenacious and the power struggle in the party is far from over.
Swarajj had signaled her unhappiness recently through her sharp criticism that she did not need enemies when she had friends like BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman over the latter's alleged criticism of Swaraj's weak defence of Seemandhra interests in Parliament.
Recently, she spoke to BJP ally Kuldeep Bishnoi over reports that controversial Congress leader Venod Sharma was set to join the Haryana outfit. This also reflected the party stand, but she made a point of it by tweeting.