.. The demolition posed two problems for which the BJP did not have an answer. So long as the disputed structure was there it helped the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and its allies to make emotive appeals to the Hindu constituency to remove the 'mark of humiliation'. But, with its disappearance ... the campaign lost its raison d'etre, its belligerence - and, its relevance. The second question was that of the "magnificent temple" in the place of the mosque which the saffron brigade had promised to construct.
As a political party, the BJP was more susceptible to the pulls and pressures of public opinion. It could not afford to be seen as at war with the judiciary and Parliament. Within a year of the demolition, the BJP had lost elections in three of the four states where it had been in power - Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. In Rajasthan it managed to form the government only by wooing independent MLAs.
The BJP strategists did read the electorate's message correctly and clearly. And in no time, the party persuaded the Sangh parivar to shelve the agitational programme on Ayodhya. It is indeed ironic that the party (has) tried its best to leave the disquieting memories of the demolition behind.
Chasing the ambition to rule from Delhi, the party looked for ways to expand its electoral base and made efforts to accommodate newer segments of society. It tried to absorb the Mandal message and sought to project it as part of the Hindutva agenda.
For these elections, the party is projecting the moderate face of Vajpayee ... It wants to enlarge its base by aligning more regional outfits representing diverse shades of social reality. So it has left the most contentious areas of conflict out of its agenda. In fact, both Vajpayee and Advani have sought to woo the Muslims asking them to give the BJP a chance.
The BJP is clearly also the most cohesive of the three main groups in the fray. It is spared the contradictions and chaos of the United Front and the Congress. However, the party is a victim of India's geopolitics. It's supposed identification with the Hindi heartland seems to stand in the way of its spread both in the east and the south. Even if it achieves the same level of success in its strongholds as in 1996, it is unlikely to gain a simple majority in the 12th Lok Sabha. The party's only hope lies in its ability to woo ... disgruntled segments of the Congress and the UF. Its move to dilute the Hindutva image is intended to enhance its acceptability. (Source: The Times of India, 7 December, 1997)
On BJP's Confident Steps Towards Power
... Convinced that its time has come, the BJP – like any party ambitious to rule - is keen to leave behind the areas of conflict it had so strenuously developed for almost half a century.
To the run-up to the 1989 elections party president L.K. Advani himself took part in the Ram shila pujan. Party activists along with their Vishwa Hindu Parishad comrades, conducted the asthi kalas yatra (processions with urns containing the ashes of those supposedly killed in police firing at Ayodhya).
Remind the BJP's Prime Ministerial choice Atal Behari Vajpayee of this macabre street show that was performed to the blaring of Sadhvi Ritambhara's shrill rhetoric of anti-Muslim tirades on tapes and repeated war-cries of Jai Shri Ram, perhaps he will be embarrassed. He might even feign ignorance.
True, he himself was detached from that heady phase of temple activism. But that was 1989 when the party was searching for an avenue to regain its relevance in Indian politics from the it of a two-member presence in the Lok Sabha. Since then the BJP has crossed many a milestone
and clearly come a long way. "We will give adequate representation to the minorities and women", Mr. Vajpayee told the newspersons at the conclusion of the BJP's national executive meeting in Bhubaneswar ...
According to him, a BJP government will not reverse the economic reforms but is sure to put a "human face" to it. And on issues once close to the BJP - say Article 370 bestowing special status on Jammu and Kashmir or the Ram temple at Ayodhya - negotiations will be the approach. The effort is to project a party which is responsible, broad-based and acceptable to all shades of society like the Congress at its best.
In fact, along with the changing image of the party, the profile of the crowd around it too has changed. Even a few years ago the colour of this crowd was distinctly saffron - those committed to the RSS school of thought and the Rambhakt's - the supporters churned out by the Ayodhya campaign. Not any more. The new surge is essentially middle-class ... businessmen, professionals and government employees who are worried over the prospects of a stock-market crash and blame political instability for it ..
Looking at the faces in the new BJP crowd, one cannot escape a sense of deja vu - a feeling of having seen them before ... somewhere else. The class of ticket-seekers and ... influence peddlers has now sneaked into the BJP tent. (Source: The Times of India, 24 December, 1997)
BJP's Old Reliable Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 30 Dec., 97
Advani ... is back to the Ayodhya plank ... As the BJP's star election campaigner he cannot avoid references to the basic goals of Hindutva. At Bhubaneswar ... Advani carefully omitted to mention the three shrines and also the two older hobby-horses of the BJP such as Article 370 and the Uniform Civil Code. Instead, he projected the BJP as a party which was keen to fill the political space vacated by the Congress ... The psychological gain to the party, of course, is indisputable, but already Advani may be thinking that the BJP may have to place its reliance on the old reliable – Sangh Parivar's agenda on the temples.
The campaign to project ... Vajpayee as Prime Minister is based on his greater acceptability among the political parties all over India, but within the BJP there is still a strong section which would be loath to give up the Hindutva plank and Advani may be looking at this segment of the party when he says that the building of a temple in Ayodhya is very much a part of the BJP's political agenda ... Advani should stick to its Bhubaneswar stand both for the good of his party and that of the country. Ayodhya ... still contains germs of violence which can damage peace in society.
Boost for BJP Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 15 Jan.,1998
The BJP has reasons to be happy about the outcome of the UP Vidhan Parishad elections. The party has captured 25 of 39 seats for which elections were held. The performance of the ruling party is by all means impressive though few would agree with Chief Minister Kalyan Singh that the result was a referendum on his 100 days in office. Unlike parliamentary or assembly by- elections or civic polls which often reflect the public mood, Vidhan Parishad elections cannot be a barometer of people's electoral preference. The electorate in this case consisted of elected representatives of Panchayats and municipal bodies. Local bodies were constituted in 1994 during the tenure of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chief Minister. All the same, the BJP is bound to flaunt its performance during the election campaign and seek to derive some mileage out of it. Whether the sops announced by Mr. Kalyan Singh to the local bodies on the even of Council polls were instrumental in the BJP putting up a creditable performance is difficult to answer. When the UP Government announced its decision to allocate Rs. 250 crore as grants for the local bodies on December 24, the Election Commission took the Government to task and deferred the polls by two weeks. Even though Mr. Kalyan Singh's decision to allocate over 10 per cent of the State's total revenue to local bodies was in line with the recommendations of the State Finance Commission, his objective was to reap electoral.
The results have come as a setback to the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The SP had to concede over a dozen seats to the BJP whereas the BSP had to face a total rout ... Whether the adverse Council poll results would force the anti-BJP forces in UP to enter into some broad informal seat adjustments remains to be.
Rallying Around BJP Editorial, The Times of India, 24 Dec., 1997
In the first phase of the run up to the general election the BJP is clearly ahead, of both the Congress and the United Front, in winning friends and partners. In state after state, the party of Hindutva is being assessed afresh and there is growing reluctance to dismiss it as communal", and for that reason "untouchable". The BJP's loss of untouchability with the very announcement of elections is a landmark, which may turn out to be as significant as the poll outcome. One plausible reason could be that the BJP, more than the UF now, or the National Front-Left Front earlier, is perceived as a credible and effective counterpoint to a Congress party in the decline. Another reason could be that regional forces are still strongly inclined to join hands with a party spread over many states than be limited to other regional parties ... Another stalwart of the 'secularist-centrist forces, Mr. Ramakrishna Hegde is also canvassing that no party is wholly communal. While the collapse of the secularist-communal divide as an unbreachable line has been so far in favour of the BJP, it cannot ignore the risks involved in being all things to all people.
This new-found appeal ... has made the BJP sweep all contentious issues, such as Ayodhya and Article 370, under the carpet ... Vajpayee, the party's most liberal face, was at pains to point out that Swadeshi and Ram Mandir were important but not the principal issues in this election. That the Ayodhya dispute would be resolved through negotiations is the revised position ... The message from Bhubaneswar is that the BJP's thrust should be on meeting the electoral challenge by forging alliances with different parties and putting on hold the matter of ideological coherence and its "distinctive ethos". Such dilution of its Hindutva drive, the loss of the communal' taint may be comforting to present and potential allies. The more disturbing question is how the Sangh Parivar would reconcile to this in the post-poll scenario. Should the BJP succeed in reaching office ... the VHP and Bajrang Dal may not remain restrained from reviving not only the Ayodhya issue but also the demolition of mosques in Varanasi and Mathura. The BJP's core constituencies, discreetly dormant now, may not be so accommodating to the party's new allies once the election is over. The ideological dilution ... may actually sow the seeds of discord leaving the BJP trapped between its parliamentary obligations and primeval pressures.
