A jolt to the hegemon

Himanta Biswa Sarma’s selection in Assam has shown that the Modi-Shah combine can be coerced and opens the possibilities of altering the power dynamics within the BJP

Article 1 of the Indian Constitution states: India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. The draft article was debated and finalised after discussions on November 15 and 17, 1948 and again on September 18, 1949. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, speaking on behalf of the Drafting Committee, emphasised that the term ‘Union of States’ was used to put it beyond doubt that India was a federation of states.

Ambedkar added that the chosen nomenclature, to describe India constitutionally, was “not the result of an agreement by the States to join in a Federation”. Since the agreed federation was not a structure or arrangement agreed to after negotiations, “no State has the right to secede from it.”

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That being the country’s structure, the organisational arrangement of political parties is too on similar lines. Barring regional ones, all parties have national office bearers and larger national councils or executives. Every party has state units, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) included, and there are state-level office bearers and state executive bodies.

To ensure a democratic character, every party has units down to the districts, cities, towns, blocks and village levels. Yet, barring the odd party, mainly communist parties, few are run on truly democratic lines. Usually, national leaders decide for the states, the state leaders do so for the districts, and the system percolates down to the lowest rung.

India’s democracy, however, was not dysfunctional from the beginning, especially when the Congress party hegemonised the political and electoral system. Back then, the Congress party had robust state units and satraps were authoritative individuals of standing. The situation started altering after the Congress split in 1969 which paved the way for Indira Gandhi’s emergence as the party’s unchallenged leader.

Her hegemonic style of running the party continued even after returning to power in 1980. Her habit of appointing faceless state leaders as chief ministers reached a peak within a couple of years of her comeback and prodded cartoonist RK Laxman into drawing one of his unforgettable ones. It had her walking past a file of Congress leaders. After stopping, she pointed at one of the leaders standing in the file: ‘O.K. you, there, you are the CM. What’s your name?’

In contrast to the Congress style of the national leadership (read Indira Gandhi and her coterie) micro-managing state units, the BJP, which began becoming a party of consequence from the mid-1980s, showcased what being a “party with a difference” meant. Although three stalwarts, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi dominated the central leadership, several among other national office bearers and the executive body were an able foil to them.

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In addition, there existed within the party extremely influential satraps, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in Rajasthan, Sunderlal Patwa in Madhya Pradesh, Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh, Shanta Kumar in Himachal Pradesh, the duo of Keshubhai Patel and Shankersinh Vaghela in Gujarat, Madan Lal Khurana in Delhi and BS Yediyurappa in Karnataka.

Although the BJP led the coalition government at the Centre between 1998-2004, the party was not hegemonised by the government and organisational leaders had sufficiently fair elbow room and played a role in influencing policy. Even after the defeat in 2004, partially due to Vajpayee’s divergence with the party and Sangh Parivar, the state leaders continued holding sway in states, for instance, Shivraj Singh Chouhan in MP and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh, along with others already named, were dominant leaders and were primary deciders when it came to decisions regarding their state.

This situation was dramatically altered in the Modi era. Besides being marked by excessive centralisation and mere lip-service to the principle of federalism, post-2014 the BJP has become a party driven by an all-powerful duo. It is pertinent to recall the letter by party veterans led by Advani after the BJP’s defeat in Bihar in 2015. It voiced the concern at the disappearance of inner-party democracy and domination by a handful.

In almost every state election during the first term of the BJP in office, the party contested state elections, except where the party was the incumbent, without a chief ministerial candidate. Narendra Modi acted as the principal vote-catcher and the eventual chief minister was made out to be a proxy for the prime minister.

In most states, new faces from non-dominant social groups were chosen as chief ministers. Simultaneously, the stature of regional stalwarts like Chouhan was clipped as part of the drive to eliminate any possible threat to the Modi-Amit Shah duo. In time, especially after becoming the chief minister in March 2020, Chouhan too became a pale shadow of the two and often aped them, while he earlier steered clear of the politics of extreme polarisation.

Curtailing influence of regional leaders blunted all challenge although it was self-limiting in states where there were strong regional leaders. As a result, in several states, the assembly election results were at variance with the parliamentary polls held previously.

In the recent bunch of state elections, the BJP in West Bengal and Assam, the two states where it had stakes, post-verdict has propped up not just popular regional leaders but also those who are not part of the ideological stable. Both Himanta Biswa Sarma and Suvendu Adhikari did not rise vertically to their positions but are lateral entrants.

Historically speaking, the BJP took on several leaders from outside the RSS/Jana Sangh fold when the party was established in 1980. This trend has continued over the decades but the party became more liberal after 2014 in encouraging lawmakers and mass leaders from other parties to cross over to the BJP.

This has led to contradictions in several state units as the old guard has flagged increasing reliance on turncoats, as in Bengal where a large number of Trinamool Congress legislators and ministers left and joined the BJP, where they were given preferential treatment over those who worked for decades to strengthen the party. Adhikari’s appointment, made with the intention to prevent his possible ghar wapasi to the Mamata Banerjee camp, will certainly dampen spirits of the likes of Dilip Ghosh. It also sets a wrong precedent by sending a message that loyalty is not always rewarded.

Sarma’s selection, however, also has the potential to set a dangerous example for the power duo in the BJP. According to reports, the national leadership was inclined to continue with Sarbananda Sonowal because he was part of the party and RSS since his youth. But Sarma succeeded in forcing his selection due to support among legislators, which has shown that the Modi-Shah combine can be coerced.

That this has come at a time when questions have been asked about the efficiency and administrative capacities of the government, opens the possibilities of altering the power dynamics within the BJP.

A clear message has been delivered to the BJP national leadership - the polity is still federal in character regardless of greater centralisation and emergence of coercive federalism in the country. How the inner equations within the BJP shape up over the next couple of years will have a bearing on the future direction of politics.

(The writer is an NCR-based author and journalist. His books include, The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right, and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times)