The crisis in the BJP was waiting to happen. When the party suffered a shocking defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha election, it should have gone for a generational change in leadership and a thorough organisational overhaul. Instead, it chose to paper over its faults, bury its head in the sand and forget about the world till the next elections, hoping that anti-incumbency would help an old man achieve his life's ambition in 2009.

After a second successive defeat, the party can no longer run away from reality. But as is often the case, the truth is hard to digest and the old guard in the BJP is finding it difficult to accept its irrelevance in a political era marked by the rise of 39-year-old Rahul Gandhi.

The trigger for the BJP's present troubles is the succession issue. It has been hanging fire for the past five years and the so-called GenNext leaders are no longer content to wait in the wings for their turn while time passes by. Whether it's Arun Jaitley or Sushma Swaraj or any of the others who were once touted as the youth brigade, they're already greying at the temples. And when confronted by Rahul's 30-something team, they look close to their use-by date.

Ironically, its the new RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat who is pushing for the baton to be passed to the next generation. When LK Advani announced that he wanted to step down after the BJP's crushing defeat, the RSS top brass is believed to have advised him to see the succession through smoothly and quickly. Neither has happened. Instead, Advani got himself elected leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha and unilaterally appointed Swaraj his deputy and Jaitley his counterpart in the Rajya Sabha.

The decisions had the Sangh's approval but Advani neither communicated this to his colleagues in the party nor did he care to discuss the issue in a larger forum. Naturally, all hell broke loose as party elders Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie demanded an explanation for what they saw as an attempt by Advani to perpetuate his control over BJP instead of owning moral responsibility for the electoral defeat and bowing out gracefully.

Despite Advani's bid to buy peace through a tete-a-tete with Jaswant Singh on Monday evening, the war in the BJP is unlikely to end till two critical issues are resolved. The first is the timing of Advani's exit from the post of leader of opposition. He has indicated that he will step down in December but such is the trust deficit that there is a move to ease him out earlier just in case he tries to cling on.

The second is the choice of the next party president. This is the real bone of contention for this decision will be a pointer to the BJP's future in politics and will determine the power hierarchy that will emerge in the run up to the next general election.

Advani would obviously want to decide the succession line so that he remains relevant even in retirement. This is precisely what others want to prevent and they add up to a formidable block of old and young who see no currency in the brand of aggressive Hindutva politics that Advani has come to represent.

As the succession war intensifies in the BJP, the silence from the Sangh is ominous. It seems to be biding its time, knowing fully well that when the chips are down, the BJP will have nowhere to turn but to its mentor to prevent a bloodbath.

 

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