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The Shadow Prime Minister

One of the major criticisms levelled against Yashwant Sinha's maiden Budget was that it was an interim Budget. This was a view held by gentlemen as distinguished as Lord Meghnad Desai, and has found ready acceptance among a significant section of the chatterati.

In holding on to this belief, what is being overlooked is that even this government is an interim one, and is being run not entirely by the prime minister of India, but by the man in his shadow who holds the home portfolio.

Conventionally, in India in recent times, barring a brief while when Arun Nehru was a mere minister of state for internal security in the Rajiv Gandhi government, the all-powerful number two position in the Union ministry was held by the man holding the finance or defence portfolio. Advani has left no one in doubt, that he may be just another minister in a large Cabinet, but that he is the first among equals. His long-standing associate Vajpayee, with his wider acceptability, may be prime minister, but it is clear that Advani casts his shadow over the government as no other home minister before him has.

Advani's exalted position in the Bharatiya Janata Party government's scheme of things is indicated, not merely by the seating order on the Treasury benches, where he sits cheek by jowl with the prime minister, but more by the fact that who calls on the prime minister, also makes it a point to call on Advani. The honourable home minister is there in Madras, trying to put out the flames that colleague Jaswant Singh is unable to, he is also right there in Kashmir, having included that state in his bailiwick.

The nation, thus, has been left in no doubt that Vajpayee may be the prime minister, but to the Sangh Parivar it is to Advani that the mantle belongs.

That point needs a little clarification. It is no one's case that the prime minister's authority has been in anyway compromised or eroded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its numerous offshoots. The point that is being made is that the BJP's parent organisation is currently involved in charting out the future of its government, and sees Advani playing a pivotal role in that future. Okay, a more pivotal role than Vajpayee.

The RSS's gameplan is clear, judging by the goings-on of the last couple of months, when it was able to form not its dream government but at best a rag-tag administration that was the BJP only in name. There was nothing distinctive about the present government, say, from the previous effort at governance. Both are multi-party coalitions that have sacrificed their core ideology in their pursuit of power. There is a difference, though, between the two attempts, even though it is only nominal: while the United Front's core support came from outside, with the Congress's bloc of votes, the BJP at least is the major partner in this government. But that has not enabled it to plough a path of its own, much to the Sangh Parivar's chagrin.

Its gameplan is two-fold, though inter-linked. One, to revive the Ayodhya controversy, not overtly but as a kind of an ongoing campaign. The other, to confer near-parity on Advani. The home minister, lest it be forgotten, is the man who powered the BJP from the lunatic fringes of Indian politics to the centrestage of the polity, and Ayodhya was what fuelled his cavalcade in its march to New Delhi.

The Vajpayee administration, thus, is an interim arrangement, something like an experiment to make the BJP more acceptable to the large sections of the electorate who have, till recently, been steadfastly voting against it.

The RSS's apprehension is that the longer Vajpayee continues to chart the middle path, much in Congress style, its rank and file, already a trifle disillusioned with the jettisoning of the party's core issues in the national agenda for governance, may drift away, or at least not put their heart and soul into the final of the ongoing tournament that is yet to be played.

In that sense, all the key players in the present political drama are playing for time. The Congress, for instance, is resisting all pressures on it to bring down the government, something that it should be able to do without much difficulty. The government, on the other hand, is aware of its shortcomings, and is also aware that its continuance in office is entirely at the discretion of a single woman. No, not Jayalalitha, but Sonia Gandhi.

This is a situation that has never come about in Indian politics before, where the government is as much dependent on the chief Opposition party for its survival as it is on its own allies. Even as the two sides continue their strange relationship, they are also moving towards the inevitable conflict.

The Sangh Parivar is keeping its power dry for that eventuality, and the actual decision to replace Vajpayee with Advani as the commander of its forces, and to bring on the Ayodhya issue upfront, are decisions that will be taken after a review of the future ground situation as they prevail then. It will depend, primarily, on the Congress's own strategy, on whether, unlike in the recent election, it comes out and states that Sonia Gandhi will be its prime ministerial candidate and not merely its vote-catcher.

Vajpayee has showed, in the recent campaign, that despite his appeal he was unable to power the BJP past the magic figure. On the other hand, Advani has proved that he is capable of injecting life into a virtually moribund organisation -- which, by all accounts, is a better record. In the future, thus, the RSS hopes that it will be able to ward off the Gandhi challenge with its traditional mix of Advani and Ayodhya. Vajpayee, at that time, will play the second hero.

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Saisuresh Sivaswamy