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2nd Thought: Once cock of the walk, now, a feather duster

The governor of Rajasthan Kalyan Singh (Jan Kranti Party) and firebrand party leader Uma Bharti (Bhartiya Janshakti Party), both chief ministers of UP and MP, turned their back on the party at the peak of their careers and had to eat a humble pie and return to its fold.

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Senior leader Ghanshyam Tiwari unveils his Bharat Vahini Party flag after resigning from the membership of the BJP.
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Twenty years ago, on a winter noon, a middle-aged man replaced the phone’s receiver in its cradle. Kailash Nath Bhatt rubbed his palms for a comforting warmth before he set out to carry the critical mission of delivering a message from the indomitable Govindacharya in New Delhi to a man who was the shining star in Rajasthan politics. Moments later, the former BJP spokesperson was headed to his friend’s Jaipur residence, his hands clutching at ordinary-looking papers. 

Unlike the fate of other minions who haggle with the party bosses for a ticket to contest elections, Bhatt was to seek his colleague Ghanshyam Tiwari’s choice of seat for the upcoming assembly polls in 1998, a choice which would ultimately lead to one of his biggest career setbacks. He was carrying two “blank tickets” with him. Tiwari was offered two seats to choose from – Sanganer, which he represents today, and Chomu on Jaipur’s outskirts.

Based on his decision, the party would decide on the candidature of the other. He took his own sweet time to decide on Chomu, which he ultimately lost by 43,000 votes. The other candidate from Sanganer, his namesake Ghan Shyam Bagaret, would also lose to Indira Mayaram by a considerable margin.

On Monday, 20 years seemed a distant past, the shining star having faded into a political quagmire of accusations and betrayal. For a man who once commanded party tickets at his doorstep, Tiwari the cock of the walk, is now a feather duster in the party he has chosen to walk out of.

Why the odds are stacked against him

Tiwari supporters are quick to predict a complete washout of Brahmin votes in the areas of his influence – Jaipur, Dausa and Sikar districts – but BJP’s history is replete with bitter departures and false starts by some who were paraded as legends in their own right. The governor of Rajasthan Kalyan Singh (Jan Kranti Party) and firebrand party leader Uma Bharti (Bhartiya Janshakti Party), both chief ministers of UP and MP, turned their back on the party at the peak of their careers and had to eat a humble pie and return to its fold. His contemporaries Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha have been left to lick their wounds. 

Closer home, Kirori Lal Meena, the towering politician who represents the scheduled tribes in state, considered it wiser to opt for homecoming after having stayed out of the party and collaborating against it with Raje’s archrival and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, for years. Meena was instrumental in BJP’s fall in 2008 polls. He fielded candidates of his newly floated outfit, National People’s Party, with former Congress leader PA Sangma, in key constituencies. Former foreign minister Jaswant Singh too lost out after a valiant fight in the last general elections which saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi rise to the highest executive office. Singh, a Rajput icon, contested as an independent from Barmer and lost, while the party swept the polls bagging all 25 parliamentary seats. 

Is he the Brahmin face he thinks he is?

While it’s true that Tiwari has remained one of the most vociferous Brahmin representatives in state and his loyalists laud his efforts to include economically backward classes (EBC) in the now defunct reservation pie, his claims of being a community mascot is bitterly disputed. His peers and aides who still vouch by his virtues, among them organizational capability and hard work, consider it a far cry from reality. The take of credible Brahmin voices in the party is strangely not aligned with his viewpoint. A senior BJP leader went to the extent of batting for Congress legislator from Sardarshahar, Churu, Bhanwar Lal Sharma as the true patron of Brahmins in state. Another pointed at his failure to groom Brahmin candidates in his political career spanning four decades. “He would clip the wings of Brahmin candidates who had the potential to fly high,” one spoke of the alleged betrayal suffered at his hands.

Almost everyone, incidentally, was on the same page when it came to Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi’s mentoring feats.  

Jaipur-based RSS doyen Bhanwar Lal Sharma declined to comment on the saddening development in BJP. His parting shot, however, when asked if Brahmin voters would careen towards Tiwari, was, “votes are cast in party’s name, not an individual’s.” 

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