Aditi Phadnis: UP will be Rajnath's test

PLAIN POLITICS

Few are confident he can force the changes required to get the BJP to win in UP .

He has announced his team, the surest sign that he's settling into his job. He's also had the chance to mount his first "operation", bringing the deal with H D Kumaraswamy, to form a government in Karnataka, to closure. The new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Rajnath Singh is gradually coming into his own, although if he doesn't assert himself on the issue of party discipline, he might find his authority eroded sooner than he expects.

If anyone persuades you that the Karnataka coup was the work of party leader Anantha Kumar, don't believe a word. Anantha Kumar had initially indicated that the deal with Kumaraswamy could go through only if he became the leader of the BJP-JDS combined legislature group. Singh sidelined him by pretending to hand over all the authority to the legitimate leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, B S Yediyurappa, thus averting any clash between the "guests" and the BJP. If Kumar had stuck to his guns, Kumaraswamy would have refused to come to the BJP. So Rajnath Singh must get credit for snagging a government in Bangalore, as much as Arun Jaitley got it for creating the architecture of the BJP's first historic victory in the state during the Assembly elections.

But having said that, with Rajnath Singh at the helm, where is the BJP going to head now? Back to its roots, that's for sure. Singh believes things began to go wrong because the internal balance of power in the saffron family was disturbed. His first priority appears to be to get the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to the commanding heights in the family. That could be both good and bad for the BJP. Excessive purism could cause the part to return to its original strength of 40 or thereabouts in Parliament. On the other hand, the organisational fringes are likely to be drawn closer to the core, plugging a party that is haemorrhaging internally.

Is evidence needed? In the Sangli Lok Sabha by-election, the BJP's candidate turned up at no 3, being beaten by both the Congress and the Congress rebel. Even more shameful, in the three Assembly by-elections in Maharashtra recently, except for one constituency where the BJP candidate lost by just 3,000 votes, in all others, the margin of defeat was above 10,000 votes. A Maharashtra BJP leader said it was so humiliating that at one point they stopped counting the margin of defeat, it was that huge.

What must a president of the party do? Singh's greatest challenge is to put the party back together and win the respect of his peers. Venkaiah Naidu, who had no problems about being vice President when L K Advani was the president, has announced that he will not continue in the post. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi doesn't think Rajnath Singh is worth bothering about. Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje appears to think Singh can be "managed" on the Thakur net "" she recently announced political appointments in the state (including the chairman of the Housing Board and the Haj Committee) without consulting the organisation and actually rejected the suggestion of party General Secretary Kalraj Mishra concerning the appointments. The BJP's other CMs "" Raman Singh and Arjun Munda "" are content with any president so long as he is not an overtly meddlesome one.

Where Singh scores is on restoring the system of political consultation within the BJP. After 1998, decision-making in the BJP was relatively ad hoc, with president L K Advani consulting with advisors and tending to call it a party decision. Singh has begun coming to the BJP office and sitting there. But what he really needs to restore is the pre-1998 practice of a formal system of informal consultations with general secretaries.

Where Singh will really have to bite the bullet is the 2007 Assembly elections due in Orissa, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh. The last is the most serious. To be sure he has time. But will he have the courage to replace Kesrinath Tripathi who is the president of the state unit of the BJP? Kalraj Mishra has been sounded about a posting in UP and has refused. On the surface, Kalyan Singh is extending support to Rajnath but has rejected the continuance of the Nyaya Yatra, called by Rajnath Singh to protest the killing of Krishnanand Rai, a prominent eastern UP leader. There is a widespread impression that Lucknow leader Lalji Tandon has connections with Samajwadi Party leader and Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and needs to be removed forthwith.Singh's mettle will be tested only if he can force change in UP.

There are other urgent problems that need to be addressed, relating to BJP allies in the states going to polls in 2007. In Orissa, where relations between the BJP and Biju Janata Dal are at a new low, the party general secretary in charge is Shahnawaz Hussain, whom Navin Patnaik considers entirely pliant. In Punjab, where the Akali Dal is also considering snapping ties with the BJP and adopting the Bahujan Samaj Party as its new partner, the party general secretary in charge is Jaskaur Meena. Jaskaur who, you could ask. How can a leader of the political stature of Badal, be expected to deal with Jaskaur Meena?

These are political problems. Rajnath Singh has some drawbacks he needs to address. One of them, ironically, is his accessibility. Dodgy industrialists, gangsters, shady individuals... he prides himself on being accessible to all people. It was on his advice, indeed insistence, that Vajpayee and Advani attended the Lucknow wedding of the two sons of UP's best-known industrialist. It was this industrialist group's helicopter that was pressed into service to shower Vajpayee with rose petals when he visited Lucknow for the first time after being elected as prime minister. Singh is known to enjoy friendly relations with D P Yadav, Raja Bhaiyya, Harishankar Tewari... names well-known to police officials in UP. If he wants credibility and respect, Singh has to suspend these contacts.

Singh is not the most charismatic or visionary president the BJP has had. A certain native sharpness is expected to see him through. But the final test is: can he win the elections? That remains to be seen.