Irrespective of the validity of the proposition, it has been posited that the 10-year-long UPA regime suffered from the handicap of having to sustain the syndrome of two centres of power — the Prime Minister, in whose name the government ran, and, of course, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who had nominated the PM. In media observations, leading BJP figures, including the party’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi, and most recently party chief Rajnath Singh, have spoken of Mrs Gandhi holding “the remote” in the UPA.
Rather optimistically — or naively, or deceptively, depending on the perspective one may adopt — Mr Singh wants us to believe that there won’t be twin power centres if the BJP-led NDA wins power. Mr Singh does not offer a cogent reason for this. But one can be suggested. His party’s PM nominee was proposed by the RSS — which has been in an activist mode for the past two years — and it was ensured that all resistance to the idea in the party was snuffed out. Plucked from nowhere to be BJP chief after the Gadkari scandal, Mr Singh became the RSS’ chosen instrument to implement its plan of raising Mr Modi as the PM candidate in the face of strong inner-party tension.
Unlike a presidential candidate in the United States, Mr Modi was not elected by party bodies from the bottom up through a system of primaries. It stands to reason that the RSS would want Mr Modi to do its brand of “nation-building”, whatever else the present Gujarat CM may want to do. Whether this brand of work will bear any resemblance to some ideas that people like Giriraj Singh and Praveen Togadia cherish can only be judged in the light of developments. But it’s evident to those who seek to understand the meaning and nature of power that the RSS has not been pushing Mr Modi’s case out of extreme affection for him. Effectively, then, it is easy to see the RSS emerge as the “remote” that would guide an NDA regime led by Mr Modi, or indeed Mr Singh!
It is true the latter possibility is likely to be stillborn if Mr Modi can produce even about 230 seats for his party. In that event, Mr Singh would not join the government — just as he has said in a recent interview. He would just run the party instead of playing second fiddle to Mr Modi in the Cabinet. However, if the number falls short, it would be futile to expect the current BJP president to continue labouring with dedication in his present job. For a swayamsevak (RSS volunteer), as he calls himself, it would be waste of a chance to engage in “nation-building”.
