New BJP president will have to deal with factionalism at the top level and a demoralised ground force.
Nitin Gadkari formally took over as BJP president Saturday, after a meeting of the party’s parliamentary board put its seal of approval on his name.
At 52, Gadkari is the youngest party president the BJP has ever had and he has his work cut out for him if he is to revive the demoralised party reeling under two successive Lok Sabha defeats.
Senior party leaders have been at loggerheads in Rajasthan, Karnataka and Uttarakhand, denting the party’s once-cherished image of a unified outfit. Gadkari will have to first neutralise the parallel power centres that have emerged in recent years. And that will be no easy task.
At the state level, there are leaders like Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi whose writ runs large within the party. Then Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and M Venkaiah Naidu have emerged as power centres with their own loyal constituencies.
As a junior, Gadkari may find it difficult to crack the whip. “The problem is that there are now so many veteran and senior leaders within the party that Rajnath Singh never got a free hand to run the party. Gadkari might not find himself in any different position,” a veteran BJP leader said.
At his formal taking over, Gadkari tried to strike a purposeful note, in keeping with his general image of being the one to “get things done.” “When I was PWD minister in Maharashtra, many people said that the Mumbai-Pune expressway could not get done. I believe that where there is a will there is a way. If you want something done, you just have to go ahead,” he said to the BJP’s senior officebearers.
In fact, it is the expressway which has become the yardstick for measuring his capabilities. Even newly elected chairman of the BJP parliamentary party, L K Advani said that he hoped that Gadkari would take the party forward on the highway of achievement.
Gadkari hails from Nagpur where the RSS’ headquarters is also located and is said to be the RSS’ choice for the job. “The transition has been more or less smooth,” said a senior MP of the party. “By allowing Advani to appoint his favourites as leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and bringing in its own man in the party, the RSS is sending the message that everyone has been accommodated, so show us what you’ve got,” said the MP.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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