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The unilateral decision of the BJP stalwart L.K. Advani to undertake a ‘Rathayatra’ in the wake of Varanasi blasts has definitely caused consternation in the cross sections of the society. Even from the BJP and Sangh parivar, the conflicting signals have been emanated about his proposed yatra, which is being looked upon more with scepticism rather than with any amusement. The parent body RSS too has sent confusing signals about its explicit support to it and the VHP appears to be least bemused by the initiative undertaken by the BJP’s septuagenarian leader.

Although Advani has attempted to win over the Parivar, with his latest article appearing in the Hindi weekly ‘Panchjayna’ in which he has extolled the virtues of the ‘Hindutva’, ‘Bharatmata’, ‘Janasangh’, etc., the elements in the Parivar are no longer in any mode to pardon him, over his unpardonable act of praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah in his Pakistan tour last June, which had caused lots of chaos and confusion within the rank and file of the Hindutva Parivar.

What is amazing is that Advani, who announced about his proposed yatra after the terror attacks in Varanasi hasn’t yet found time to visit the holiest city in the country even ten days after the attack and console the minds of those who have been bereaved in the heinous act.

The manner in which the life in the trouble torn city was restored literally overnight manifest the thick and fast bond of communal harmony which exists in that city.

Advani’s decision to undertake yatra without the concurrence of the party’s national executive, has landed his own party in a piquant situation as assembly polls are to be held in five different states of the country in couple of weeks from now. On the top of that, he has announced that party president Rajnath Singh too, would undertake a similar exercise on a different route has further compounded the problems within the BJP.

Even the former NDA partners of the BJP are treating it with lots of scepticism. Mamta Bannerji announced the list of her Trinamul Congress candidates for the WB assembly polls, without entering into any seat sharing pact with the BJP and indicates has it that she might enter into a tacit understanding with the Congress (I). Even Nitish Kumar is unwilling to concede any seats for his alliance partner in Bihar for the elections of the Upper House of Parliament. The BJP’s honeymoon with the AIDMK & TDP is already over in the Southern states and there are definite strains in it’s relationship with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra as well. All these things are sufficient to indicate that the BJP’s former allies are increasingly considering that any tie-up with the BJP in the distant future as a ‘liability’. Such kind of isolation is bound to mar the poll prospects of the BJP in all parts of the country in the various kinds of elections right from Zilla Parishad to Parliamentary elections as well.

Although it was Advani’s ‘Rathayatra’ in late eighties propelled the BJP from 4 to 192 Parliamentary seats, which infact laid foundation of BJP’s power path, the scenario has drastically changed all over the country in the last decade and half. The people are no longer going to be enamoured with his Rathayatra. It won’t be too long, when the BJP would realize that Advani’s utility is akin to a medicine of which expiry date is over. One apprehends that if Advani vehemently decides to undertake the ‘Rathayatra’, then any untoward incident arising out of it, would give not only to him, but even to his party, a very bad name and image, the popularity graph of which is already nose diving. In that case, Advani would become a huge ‘liability’ to the very party and he would become a ‘parasite’ having no utility value to himself, or to the party. Sooner, the BJP and Advani realize this, it would be better for both of them and for the nation as well.

Ganesh Sovani

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