Seer's arrest may dominate BJP meet

The first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting to be held after LK Advani has taken charge as the party chief will discuss how best to leverage the arrest of the Kanchi Shankaracharya not only to give the propaganda arm of the party something to do, but also re-unify the various warring factions of the Sangh and within the BJP. Indications are that the national executive in Ranchi will herald a back-to-basics BJP.

The first hint that the party would take up the Kanchi seer's arrest in a big way came when the BJP decided to undertake three days of fasting and dharna on the arrest issue. All the big guns in the political firmament were employed, including some, like former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, who have been vocal critics of the BJP in Parliament.

Several kathavachaks and preachers associated with the industry of religion were also deployed at the function, lending it, in the public eye, an aura of spirituality rather than religion. It was a clear bid at Hindu mobilisation, not allowing caste or Brahminism to come in the way.

But the other side of the coin is the impact this could have on the unity of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Although Janata Dal (United) leader George Fernandes shared the BJP dais, his colleagues Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav indicated that they were not in favour of the NDA taking up this matter.

The BJP's campaign point is clear "" that the Tamil Nadu government would not have arrested a Muslim or Christian even if they had been involved in similar cases, and that this was a classical case of appeasement of the minority.

Making the Shankaracharya arrest an issue has the second advantage of taking the heat off other simmering volcanoes in the party ""the Uma Bharti's rebellion and her tearful but repeated defiance of the party leadership; the differences on what to do with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi; and the BJP's now-strained relationship with J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu which has left the party without an ally in Tamil Nadu.

To be attended by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the national executive is also expected to draw up a strategy for the coming Assembly elections in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana.

In Bihar, the issue is whether to do a deal with Ram Vilas Paswan on terms of his choosing and forego the claim over the chief ministership should Paswan manage to get enough MLAs to form a government.

In Jharkhand, the party is mulling over fielding a non-tribal candidate as its chief ministerial candidate in the knowledge that the tribal vote would be split at least two ways between the JMM and Lalu Pra-sad's Rashtriya Janata Dal.

In Haryana, the party has deferred to the local unit's feelings and decided to go it alone in the Assembly polls, a decision that is likely to prove costly for it.

The three-day meeting is also expected to target the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government on issues, including inflation, national security, reduction of troops in Jammu and Kashmir and "deteriorating" condition of farmers.

Though the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had boycotted BJP leaders, including Advani, at the recent RSS national executive meeting in Hardwar, and charged it with "abandoning Hindutva", the BJP has shown up the irrelevance of the VHP by letting it organise a bandh in support of the Shankaracharya, which was a flop.

This was a subtle message to the organisation that the VHP cannot carry out political action without the support of the BJP. With this move, the see-saw relationship between the VHP and the BJP has at least temporarily, found its centre of gravity.

Adopting a different format, the meeting would begin with a public rally to be addressed by both Vajpayee and Advani followed by the inaugural session in the evening. A public meeting used to be the concluding feature of such meetings.