While V C Shukla's clearance from the hawala net would be of little consequence to the Congress, the vindication of Lal Kishinchand Advani will make a world of difference to the prospects of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The clean chit to the BJP president will not only boost the party's morale but also dramatically change its national profile. More so, at a time when the United Front and the Congress are caught up in political shenanigans and a mid-term poll is looming on the horizon.
It was this factor that drove the United Front and the Congress to opt for negotiations, to what end remains to be seen. They might well rush into a new arrangement, but the BJP now will undoubtedly be better positioned for another Lok Sabha election, whenever it comes. That is, if. Yes, some ifs and buts do remain.
Would the party be able to sustain the bizarre arrangement in Uttar Pradesh? Can it extend its alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party to other parts of the country? More importantly, can it resolve its differences with the RSS and work with it? These are among several questions that still remain to be answered before the BJP can wrest power at the Centre.
Starry-eyed BJP publicists predicted an absolute majority even before the last Lok Sabha election. But they have been doing this before almost every election. When their predictions went wrong, they rationalised and split hairs: why the results were not actually what they should have been, how the party had, in fact, increased its votes, why the increase had not translated into seats. And so on.
Perhaps they were never sure of their predictions coming true, but they did it all the same simply to create an atmosphere. It could be a sort of auto-suggestion, a way of hoosting the party's morale.
There are, however, realists in the Sangh Parivar who did not believe in such ivory-tower calculations. As one down-to-earth RSS leader observed even before the crisis overtook Gujarat, there was no point in BJP commentators building castles in the air. "It can serve very little purpose, but perhaps it makes them feel good, so why not?"
Such analysts had little illusions about the BJP being able to form a government the Centre, even if it emerges as the largest single party. They could see that all the others would gang up against it. Some RSS men pointed out that the BJP was the single largest party in Uttar Pradesh and yet it got nowhere near forming the government. Why didn't the BSP support a BJP government? But then the hard-core Sanghis never quite relished and idea of getting into "unholy alliances" just for the sake of power. "What sort of government can the BJP form if they are forced to make all sorts of compromises all the time?" asked a well-placed member of the Sangh.
Even before the rifts in the lute developed, the more pragmatic ones in the RSS realised the hurdles ahead. They believed that the Sangh Parivar still lacked the cutting edge which could take the BJP through the last, and the most difficult lap, of its yatra to power. Its biggest despair at that point was that if was unable to focus on any great 'Satan' that it could bring down. As one analyst put it, "The RSS is at its best when it is facing a big challenge." It was unable to find that big challenge: there wasn't even a Babri Masjid any more to bring down.
Nor was there a political enemy diabolical enough to rouse passions to the required pitch. Even the hard-boiled Sanghis had found it hard to build up a frenzied opposition to the then prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao. It was not just that they were unable to hate Rao strongly enough to be roused into fierce opposition. They found it difficult even to spell out strong enough reasons to damn him. Which was not to say that they were not going to oppose him.
Indeed, one of the main slogans of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad was directed at Narasimha Rao. Even so, they could not bring themselves to the pitch of belligerence which they could do, say, against Arjun Singh. One has really to hate the enemy strongly enough in order to put one's heart into the flight, and that seemed an emotion the Sangh Parivar was unable to rouse in itself against Rao.
And then erupted the new power struggle inside the BJP and upset the new equations between the BJP and the RSS. "Unless the equilibrium is restored," said a veteran BJP leader, "there is little hope of the party getting anywhere near its goal."
During the past few years, the BJP took several hard knocks: the Vaghela revolt in Gujarat, the growing factionalism in Maharashtra, the failure to head a government in Uttar Pradesh. Even more upsetting was the sudden strain that had developed between the BJP and the RSS.
In Gujarat, sections of the RSS had seen the removal of Keshubhai Patel as an undermining of its own authority, and were far from reconciled to the change. While some in the BJP may had considered it as an assertion of the party against the "remote control" by the hard-core Sanghis, others were clearly worried about the future implications of the "unhappy strains" between the two.
After Professor Rajendra Singh became the RSS sarsanghchalak, the Sangh Parivar had resolved to put all its strength behind the BJP in the elections, which meant a qualitative change in the BJP's position. Over the years the RSS had remained essentially apolitical; the quest for power had not been its main priority, and even today there are people in the organisation who feel it is not for them to indulge in politics, because it militates against the more important objectives of the organisation, discipline and character-building, both supposedly the Sangh's primary goals.
An exception was made in 1977 because of the abnormal circumstances in which the Lok Sabha election was held. The polls came after one of the most trying ordeals the organisation ever faced during the Emergency. Suddenly released from the trauma, the RSS was galvanised into unprecedented activity and played a major role in Indira Gandhi's downfall.
After the victory of the Janata Party in 1977, the RSS again changed its attitude to politics, disenchanted apparently by the ragbag nature of the government and the inherent contradictions between the various components of the Janata Party. The BJP was just one of the tunes in a totally discordant orchestra. By the end of 1979, top RSS leaders even discouraged cadres getting too involved in the BJP's election campaign.
The indifference of the RSS was a major factor in the party's dismal performance in the 1984 Lok Sabha polls when it was down to just two seats. It could have been more than just indifference; there was perhaps a positive distaste for a BJP trying to become a Congress clone. Indeed, there were RSS leaders who thought Indira Gandhi had become a better Hindu leader than the top BJP leaders.
There has been a gradual shift from that position, especially after the BJP dropped its inhibitions about Hindutva. With the change figured in the RSS, the pace of change quickened. Professor Rajendra Singh was much more politically-oriented than his predecessor, the late Balasaheb Deoras. He struck the right wavelength with L K Advani, and not only injected new life into the various front organisations but also gave a political orientation to their action plans.
The mood is suddenly upbeat. Analysts believe that another crucial political juncture has arrived, and if the BJP and the RSS can resolve their differences and work unitedly, they can now make a real breakthrough in their quest for power.
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