The maverick Mamta Bannerji may or may not uproot the rails coming from Bihar to Bengal as she has threatened to express her ire against Rail Minister Nitish Kumar but the Prime Minister has smoothly laid the transit lines for his successor with the elevation of Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani as the Deputy Prime Minister. It signifies the beginning of the end of the Vajpayee era. It also denotes the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership has put in proper order the alternative arrangements for the probable transition of the leadership in case of an urgent need for such a transition. It also indicates that the major partners in the National Democratic Alliance have accepted the fact that Lal Krishan Advani would inherit the empire when Atal Behari Vajpayee fades into oblivion for whatever reasons.

Other changes in the Union Council of Ministers were of no significance or of any consequence. The swapping of the portfolios between Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha was the political compulsion of the Prime Minister because of the increasing pressure within the BJP that Yashwant Sinha had become a political liability for the party. His continued stay in the ministry may spell disaster for the party when it has to face the Assembly elections in 10 States in six months’ time. Consequently, he was pushed out and Jaswant Singh who had given a good account of himself under trying circumstances was elevated to his level of inefficiency. He does not profess any knowledge or understanding of economy or financial empires. Both the changes appear to be inexplicable because there is no rational justification for the punishment meted out to both the stalwarts

Ever since the dismal performance in the Assembly elections in four States in February this year, it was transparently apparent that Atal Behari Vajpayee and his charisma were no longer vote-catchers for the BJP. He had failed to sweep the party back to power in State after State in the last three years. Hence, he had become a spent force and needed to be replaced was the perception of most top leaders in the BJP though no one was daring enough to put his perception into words in public. However, there was no tall personality with the BJP who could immediately replace him. The reluctance of the major partners in the NDA to accept Advani as the alternative leader was known or at least was so believed. Hence, the BJP leadership was preparing to return to the old Hindutva formula so as to put the party back on the rails. The Prime Minister was made to fall in line at the national executive of the BJP that met at Panaji in May this year.

Since then the search was on to find a way to enhance the chances of Advani and test the ground to find out whether his leadership would be acceptable. Then came the controversial report in the American magazine Time indicating that the country, a nuclear power in its own right, was being governed by a Chief Executive who could not keep his eyes open. There are various speculations as to who inspired the report. There was a vociferous protest against the report. The Time report would have passed unnoticed since the magazine’s readership is very limited in the country. However, the vociferous protest aroused curiosity and thousands of copies of the report were distributed all over the country in the name of protest. Even the scribe who wrote the report was put under harassment of questioning on various counts by officers who work under the Home Ministry. The advisers in the PMO believe that the report was inspired by circles close to the Home Minister while the circles close to the Home Minister pointed out his indignation as reflected in putting the writer of the report under rigorous questioning. It would be a long time when the truth in this matter would be revealed. The most intriguing part was the timing of the report. The Prime Minister has been openly saying for some weeks now that he was working on a major reshuffle of his Council of Ministers.

However, the elevation of Advani has merely confirmed the report that health conditions and the mental agility and ability of the Prime Minister were under severe strain and he was unable to carry the burden of his office. Hence alternative arrangements were urgently needed. The Prime Minister also acquiesced with the proposal after the Defence Minister moved it. It was surprising because it would mean that the Prime Minister would have to share his office, authority and power with a person who had complete control over the party. Similar arrangements in the past had left a bad and bitter taste in many a mouth. Secondly, it would confirm the report questioning the physical, mental and functional abilities and agility of the Prime Minister. Such arguments stood up to logic. Hence, even the Home Minister was not convinced that there was any seriousness behind the proposal.

The Home Minister’s camp was, perhaps, under the impression that it was a ploy to deliver him a snub. First, the Prime Minister and his advisers would talk about it and then not implement it. The reports that appeared in some newspapers that the idea of a deputy prime minister to assist the Prime Minister were stillborn. The Home Minister did not need to know more about it since the report was written by a scribe who was considered to be close to the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary. The Home Minister continued to convey a message that he was not aware of any such proposal nor was he ready to shoulder any such responsibility. Only when the Prime Minister himself publicly declared that he was seriously considering a proposal to have a deputy prime minister to share his burden of high office that Advani seemed to agree.

The Prime Minister was in a dilemma over shifting Yashwant Sinha from the Finance Ministry. He knew that he would not be able to keep him with the severe pressure from the party and the Sangh Parivar which perceived an electoral threat in his continuation in the Finance Ministry. His harsh decisions that affected the middle class were hitting the middle class, the traditional vote bank, hard. This reasoning was advanced to explain the electoral defeats of the party in the recent elections. Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie were in the line to take over from Sinha.

Both Vajpayee and Advani ruled out Joshi as the Finance Minister for both hate him intensely and never miss an opportunity to ridicule him. Arun Shourie lost because the Sangh Parivar was annoyed with his disinvestment deals. There was also the fear that he would not allow the use of the Finance Ministry for resource mobilisation for the party. With the elections to 10 States in a few months and the Lok Sabha election due any time between now and two years, disaster seemed to confront the party. Hence, Jaswant was the only candidate. Though the Sangh Parivar had reservations, they agreed in the given circumstances. Jaswant would carry on with the policies initiated by Yashwant Sinha since the Prime Minister had approved them. The negative points against Sinha were the UTI scandal and the escapades of Ketan Parekh and other bank scams. Since the middle class suffered losses to the tune of Rs. 20,000 crore in the UTI scam, the Sangh Parivar was out to punish him though it could not openly say so. Now the sentence has been delivered. He was chosen as the Foreign Minister only because of his international exposure as the Finance Minister. Murli Manohar Joshi was itching to take over. But there was too much opposition for his international image is a sullied one. Vajpayee succumbed to an argument that a presentable face with a proper sartorial image should take over external affairs. Sinha was more suited for it.

Jana Krishnamurthi is a lightweight politically. He was given a berth only to indicate that he had not been left in a lurch. The heavens would not have fallen if he were allowed to carry his luggage back to Chennai as he had threatened earlier. But it would have affected the regional balance. Among the 77 members in the Council of Ministers, there are only 17 from the four Southern States. Another nine lightweights from the party have been accommodated at various levels. The Shiv Sena has been given an additional seat at the MoS level while returning the portfolio of Heavy Industries to the Shiv Sena nominee Vikhe Patil who knows little about industry. He is an education and a co-operative movement man. But the Sena chief insisted on retaining the ministry by his nominee since Manohar Joshi was shifted as the Speaker. Another change of minor significance is shifting Sharad Yadav from Labour to Consumer Affairs in the midst of the labour reforms. Sahib Singh Verma who replaced Sharad Yadav in Labour would prove to be a more stubborn character and would resist the labour reforms that were under way.

Venkaiah Naidu has been shifted from the ministry to the party organisation in the belief that he would work miracles. The idea behind shifting him and Arun Jaitley was to keep the party apparatus in the hands of younger men. Both are ardent followers of Lal Krishan Advani. Thus Advani has now complete control over the party as well.

Even before L. K. Advani was made Deputy Prime Minister (a post not mentioned in the Constitution) it was openly acknowledged in      Government circles and outside that he was the de facto No. 2. The      Prime Minister has himself admitted this saying he had, and would continue to, rely on Advani’s advice in most political matters. One thing is certain, Advani is not going to be a dummy deputy as were most of the previous Deputy PMs from Morarji to Devi Lal. Perceived as a hard-line party man, he can be expected to push the party line wherever feasible. However, at the same time, he is expected to (he has done so in the past) come down on the side of national interest when there is a conflict with the party line.

His Ayodhya rath yatra, which the opposition digs up at every opportune moment and, recently, his equally criticised support to Narendra Modi in Gujarat, appear to be compulsions forced on him as, basically, nobody can deny he is a fair man.

Yashwant Sinha presented five annual budgets in two stints of BJP rule. Both his penchant for downplaying any possible effect on the Indian economy of international events as also his attempts to make the industry ‘feel good’ were wearing thin towards the end. But except for minor rushes of blood to the head which led to his having to subsequently modify his own proposals (hence Rollback Sinha), Yashwant Sinha’s budgets fully supported the reforms programme, were pragmatic to the core and included some of the most daring proposals ever to be put up like, for instance, the limited hire-and-fire proposal which everybody is praising but nobody dares to implement.

Road Crossing

In fact, the then Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, was so upset by the marching orders issued to him that he continued to give elaborate explanations to different visual networks about how he was compelled to take harsh decisions in given situations. The then External Minister, Jaswant Singh, did not have to give such an explanation. His achievements were before the country. But the Sangh Parivar was hell-bent upon the removal of Yashwant Singh from the Finance Ministry because the narrow-minded men in the Sangh Parivar and also in the Bharatiya Janata Party believed that his harsh decisions in the budget proposals, especially the reduction in the levels of subsidy on kerosene and LPG had affected the electoral prospects of the BJP in the municipal elections in Delhi and Shimla because the middle class were annoyed. True, the middle-class was annoyed by the imposition of a small burden on their monthly budgets and did not vote for the BJP candidates. But no one has explained why the poor who have never seen an LPG cylinder in their huts and shacks because they could not afford even the earlier price of the LPG cylinder did not vote for the BJP. They were also not affected by the demolition programmes that were undertaken recently. It is obvious that the causes of the dismal performance of the BJP lay elsewhere and not at the front door of Yashwant Sinha as Finance Minister.