Trusted, then targeted — from Sasikala to Sanjay Yadav: Why advisers fall when leaders falter

Those considered the ‘eyes, ears and sometimes the brains’ of the ‘supreme leader’ are on the firing line the moment there is a setback electorally or otherwise

New Delhi: Credited earlier and discredited now for mentoring Tejashwi Yadav, Sanjay Yadav is now at the receiving end for the troubles in the RJD’s first family, but he may not be the first such person to face the music after an electoral debacle.

Be it former IAS officer V K Pandian in Odisha or V K Sasikala in Tamil Nadu, no one batted an eyelid when the going was good but those considered the ‘eyes, ears and sometimes the brains’ of the ‘supreme leader’ were on the firing line the moment there was a setback electorally or otherwise.

Sanjay had triggered tremors in the Lalu Prasad family, with elder son Tej Pratap Yadav first walking out of the party before Assembly elections and daughter Rohini Acharya after the results. Both as well as a section of workers blame Sanjay for misleading Tejashwi into making wrong decisions.

Introduced to Tejashwi by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in the 2010s, the 41-year-old from Haryana, who quit his job in an MNC, has been considered a tutor to the RJD scion on socialist politics. He is said to have helped Tejashwi on his launch in politics.

But, his influence on the Lalu Yadav successor had created heartburns in the family and in the party not just now. Tej Pratap has called Sanjay, who was made a Rajya Sabha member, a “traitor” while Rohini has accused him of telling her she had donated Lalu a “bad kidney”.

“At the top, leaders are lonely and that is why we see such characters with whom they share their insecurities. They may not want to open up in a party forum but these conscience keepers act as a buffer and a sounding board. Over a period of time, they derive power and leaders prefer to lean on them to manage party affairs,” political commentator Rasheed Kidwai said.

If Jawaharlal Nehru had M O Mathai, who eventually fell out with the first Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi had R K Dhawan, M L Fotedar and Yashpal Sharma and Rajiv Gandhi had Vincent George. BJP veteran L K Advani had leaned on Sudhindra Kulkarni while Mulayam Singh Yadav’s man Friday was Amar Singh.

Most of these “gatekeepers” emerge from the non-political stream unlike the late Pramod Mahajan, who was a sounding board for A B Vajpayee, Amit Shah for Narendra Modi, Ahmed Patel for Sonia Gandhi and K C Venugopal for Rahul Gandhi. “All these leaders have faced questions but none of them lost their political power because of their grounding in politics,” a senior leader said.

Pandian, who quit IAS and joined the BJD, was considered one person who could influence Naveen Patnaik while Sasikala was the conscience keeper of the late J Jayalalithaa at good and bad times. Both Pandian and Sasikala faced the ire of BJD and AIADMK cadres, respectively, for becoming a wall between their leaders and cadre and when things went wrong.

For top leaders, these conscience keepers and advisers acted as a substitute for party forums where discussions on policy issues take place. “Leaders were reluctant to test their ideas in a party forum fearing rejection or modifications. They use their trusted men to force ideas fed to them through such people,” the leader said.

“All these people derived disproportionate power. They also became the convenient fall guys when there was a downfall,” Kidwai added.