|
|
|
| July 28, 2005 | Thursday | Jumadi-us-Sani 20, 1426 |
Advani to lose job after Jinnah remarks: analysts
NEW DELHI, July 27: Two months after India’s Hindu nationalist party chief Lal Krishna Advani lauded Pakistan’s founder as a “great man,” the fire-storm his praise sparked appears ready to engulf him.
Now it looks as though the controversy will cost the former deputy prime minister the leadership of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and any ambition he may have entertained of becoming prime minister, analysts say.
“It is clear the bulk of the party and all of the Sangh Parivar (an influential, hardline Hindu grouping that backs the BJP) have turned against” Advani, said Vidya Subrahmaniam, political writer for the Hindu newspaper.
Analysts say Advani’s praise for Mohammad Ali Jinnah on a trip to Pakistan as a man who “created history” was a bid to steer the BJP toward the mainstream and revamp his own hawkish image to reach out to secular allies.
But the attempt backfired spectacularly on 77-year-old Advani, who spearheaded the ascent of Hindu right-wing politics in India and was once known as a wily tactician.
Media reports say the BJP and its hardline Hindu backers have told Advani to go, while letting him choose his own time to make a dignified exit from India’s political scene.
Media reports suggest he may choose to step down in December when parliament is not sitting and BJP party meetings are over.
The reports also say Advani has agreed he misjudged the domestic political fallout of his remarks. In a damage control effort, he told parliament on Tuesday that he only praised Jinnah as a “secular” leader to remind Pakistan its founder had wanted to set up a secular state but was still “happy” he made the trip.
The BJP, which has been in turmoil since its shock election defeat by the Congress party last year, has only officially said Advani will continue as party president without confirming if he will complete his three-year tenure.
“This looks like the last stage of the game for him,” said political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan.
After the outcry following his trip in June to Karachi, the Pakistani city where he was born, Advani announced his resignation only to quickly withdraw the offer after apparently winning a showdown with hardliners. His reprieve was only temporary as new calls for his resignation surfaced almost immediately.
Since its May 2004 election loss, the BJP has become polarised between moderates wanting the party to move to the centre, and hardliners who feel a return to the core values of hardline Hindutva will win more votes.
Advani’s praise for Jinnah touched a raw nerve among hardliners and BJP officials who revile the late Pakistani leader as the man responsible for the subcontinent’s partition into mainly Hindu India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan at the end of British rule in 1947.
His kind words for Jinnah also astonished many Indians outside BJP circles, as Advani had often been accused of spreading hatred toward India’s 13 per cent Muslim minority and was seen as a strident foe of Pakistan.
Over the coming months, the party expects to see hardliners and moderates jockeying for position to replace Advani as leader.
But there is no obvious successor and certainly no one with the mass appeal of former premier Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was a master at straddling India’s vast political spectrum.
All of this could mean a long spell in the political wilderness for the BJP, which appeared invincible before last year’s elections, analysts say.
“People are interested in bread-and-butter things. They’re not eager any more for militant Hindutva,” said Rangarajan. “History moves on.”
The biggest winner from the BJP’s troubles has been the left-backed Congress, which has faced no effective opposition since gaining power.—AFP
|
|
|
|
