Sunil Gatade
Unlike never before in the recent past, both Congress and BJP are witnessing convulsions over a generational change, a leadership change.
As they face the Lok Sabha polls, the friction and the tensions between the old and the new are getting intense in both parties day by day as a younger Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi seek to tighten their hold over their respective parties.
It is not only that an L K Advani or a Murli Manohar Joshi is being felt slighted in the BJP, but it appears the grievance of a sizable who have reached or crossed 70. They are on the wrong side of the political class when youth Is the flavor of the political season.
Though Narendra Modi is 60, he is far younger than Advani and Joshi. In fact the strength of the BJP in its formative years was the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani, both complementary and supplementary to each other.
The two veterans ensured that there was no third powerful leader in the party who could challenge them. Joshi may have thought or projected himself as part of the triumavirate that ruled BJP, but Advani and Vajpayee together never allowed him to grow beyond a certain point. It was not an accident that Joshi did not get a second term as party chief some two decades back.
Advani who brought the BJP to centrestage of Indian politics through his Ram Rath Yatra is bound to feel angry and humiliated, disappointed and dejected over the fact that despite being fit and fine at 85, he is no longer calling the shots.
Added to this is the fact that Modi whom he made a leader by first making him the Chief Minister of Gujarat and later saving him in the wake of the controversy over the 2002 Gujarat riots is instrumental in slighting him.
Modi on his part appears to have failed to give the guru the honour. It is equally true that Advani failed to understand the winds of change and could not grasp the new reality due to his advancing age.
Advani always talked of the need for a ‘killer instinct’ in the party worker to get victorious and when Modi appears to have imbibed the lesson, the Guru is at the receiving end.
In politics as in life, change in the only constant.
These elections are witnessing that both Congress and BJP are grappling with the issue of change with continuity.
This is happening at a time when politician in India, in general, has failed to understand when to take a bow, when to retire gracefully. The only example of a graceful retirement in recent decades was that of the veteran socialist-the late Madhu Limaye some three decades back.
Despite it is just a few years for Sonia Gandhi to turn 70, her case is entirely different than Advani. Gandhi who has created a record as Congress chief for being at the helm for more than 16 years, has herself initiated the process of anointing the son.
Rahul is not only the Congress Vice President but is virtually the executive head of the party with Sonia taking a backseat from day to day activities to the extent that even leaders of friendly parties are wondering whether she has taken retirement.
Sonia has taken a backseat at a time when her credibility is the strongest in the ruling alliance and many of those who had once campaigned against her foreign origin, looking at her with respect and awe.
Rahul Gandhi has made it known that the Congress henceforth would work as per his policy and that there was need for the old guard to change as per the changing times.
It is an open secret that the old guard does not like his ways, his style and his advisors as they feel, rightly or wrongly, that it is not suited to the interests of the Grand Old Party.
As a political commentator has aptly said that when a new leader comes, he does not come alone, but he comes with his own team.
The problem being faced by Congress is that the new leader has come with a new team as is bound to be and the old guard is failing to understand the change in politics and a newer politics replacing the older ones.
Being in power for long, Congressmen are a diplomatic and tactful lot and are pragmatic to the core and therefore less given to taking out their anger and frustration against the leadership.
But still there is a Bhanwarlal Sharma in Rajasthan and a Jagdambika Pal in Uttar Pradesh who feel that Rahul is no good and say so publicly and leave the party.
This apart there is an old guard galore which is not liking the ways of Rahul but has to fall in line in fear of the all powerful high command.
It is said that the inactiveness of the old guard and working against the party interests by a section of it could be adversely affecting the fortunes of the Congress.
Narendra Modi has been told by some well wishers that his failure to take along the old guard could cost him dearly at a crucial time.
Politics is for power and if one is not getting it then the old players are good at spoiling party of others is a hard fact, irrespective of which party they belong to.
The emergence of Aam Aadmi Party is in itself an indication of the turbulence being witnessed in the political field.
Congress and BJP have for long remained the forces of the status quo and therefore a leadership change has led to lot of turmoil within.
The hordes of Aya Rams, Gaya Rams is reflective of the restiveness within.
Whether anyone likes or not, Modi and Rahul are bound to call shots in their respective organizations whether they become Prime Minister in the immediate future or not.
The change in the two major national parties would be all the more intense in the years to come when they start establishing their leadership. Then it will be more like “my way or the highway”. Politics in the 21st century and its idiom is bound to be different especially at a time when India is boasting of the largest youth population in the world. An addition of nearly ten crore new voter in this election is bound to bring forth the pangs of change.
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