I will be back: Vajpayee to partymen

BJP NATIONAL EXECUTIVE MEET

The BJP's National Executive in Bhopal, the first in the city after 1996, is laying bare all the insecurities and problems of the party still struggling to answer not just the question of who after Vajpayee but also of who after Advani.

Speculation that L K Advani may be announced as the party's prime ministerial candidate, has led to an absent Vajpayee's letter of assurance to partymen about his road to recovery, as a sign that he is willing to slug it out with Advani if push comes to shove.

His words that he will soon return is being seen as the ailing Vajpayee's challenge that he was not done yet.

What is also being accorded significance is the fact that BJP President Rajnath Singh met Vajpayee in Delhi to bring his letter to Bhopal, as a kind of challenge to Advani. Vajpayee has quoted an old poem of his, asking partymen to sweat it out in the sun, while also pointing out that he was surrounded by obstacles put up by his own people. His enigmatic poetry seems to be fuelling more speculation on the leadership issue within the party. While senior leaders like Jaswant Singh have dismissed the speculation as "completely unnecessary", the leadership agenda seems to have captured the imagination of the executive.

A perception of differences at the top, has also percolated in a more substantive way in the various states ruled by the BJP.

Most significantly, detractors of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, led by Keshubhai Patel, have done a no-show at the National Executive. This bit of rebellion in a state about to go into polls at the end of the year does not bode well for the party.

In Madhya Pradesh too, 12 ministers in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government are now facing inquiries from the Lokayukta on various corruption charges, and the threat of damage by the unpredictable Uma Bharati also means that Chouhan's tenure remains uneasy.

A last-minute addition to the agenda of the National Executive has been a special resolution on the Ram Setu issue. Earlier, this issue was to form part of a larger political resolution, but the pre-occupation of the Sangh Parivar outfits like the VHP with Ram Setu means that like earlier times during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, it is the larger Parivar agenda which is running the party's agenda.

The National Executive has been referred to as a meeting to decide the party's campaign line for the mid-term polls, yet it has only succeeded in exposing the deep rifts in the party, which an uncertainty over leadership and direction seems to have spawned.