The BJP stuck, therefore, to fielding only its national leaders. Neither Yeddyurappa, the party’s first chief minister south of the Vindhyas, nor the so-called Bellary brothers who supposedly helped his rise, were present although the Bellary sister, Sushma Swaraj was there. Although the link between them go back to the time Sushma took on Sonia Gandhi in the Bellary constituency in 1999, and one of the brothers was recently seen helping the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha put on her shoes – replicating what Narayan Dutt Tiwari did for Sanjay Gandhi – there has suddenly been a falling out between the brothers and sister.

The reason is unclear. Perhaps the taint of illegal mining involving the brothers was beginning to bother Sushma. Whatever the explanation, the latter has not only chosen to distance herself from the brothers, but has even blamed Arun Jaitley for playing a role in their induction in the Karnataka cabinet. This is the second time that there has been a falling-out between the two senior BJP leaders in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, respectively.

Previously, they had differed over Manmohan Singh’s acceptance of the blame for P.J. Thomas’s appointment as the central vigilance commissioner after the latter’s indictment by the Supreme Court. Sushma had wanted the BJP to drop the matter after the prime minister’s apology. But Jaitley wanted to carry on. Moreover, he secured the support of the party president, Nitin Gadkari, on the issue. This time, too, Gadkari has sided with Jaitley, suggesting that the earlier phase, when Jaitley was not on speaking terms with the then party chief, Rajnath Singh, is over. Instead, Gadkari is currently behind Jaitley while the RSS is behind Gadkari although this may not mean that the Nagpur patriarchs have overcome their distaste for Delhi-based leaders, as at the time of Gadkari’s selection as party president in 2009

There is nothing unusual about such tiffs although the public airing of differences between two front-ranking leaders of a national party does not show it in a favourable light. But their importance lies both in the issues which Sushma has taken up and in showing that the succession struggle has already begun for filling the vacuum at the top in the twilight years of Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. Although the RSS’s aversion for the articulate, media-savvy leaders based in the national capital made it choose a man from Maharashtra, who was virtually unknown in Delhi, it was perhaps aware that Gadkari was simply not sophisticated enough to be a front-runner for the topmost post, which, because of the BJP’s rise, automatically makes the person a prime ministerial candidate.

Given this raising of the stakes, which wasn’t a problem for the BJP two decades ago, it was inevitable that there would be a tussle between the GenNext wannabes. In this battle, Sushma has played the first card. Perhaps as an outsider – she joined the BJP in 1980 - she needs to be more proactive than Jaitley, who has always been in the saffron brotherhood. But the issues she has chosen are noteworthy. By expressing her willingness to forgive-and forget the Thomas affair immediately after the prime minister expressed his regrets, she displayed her magnanimity, an attribute not normally associated with the saffron crowd. Not unexpectedly, Jaitley refused to let the issue die. And, now, Sushma has directly blamed him for the Bellary affair.

Although she is a on a weaker wicket in this matter because of her earlier association with the brothers, she has evidently realized how important it is to appear clean in this season of scams. It isn’t only the brothers whose reputations are murky, Yeddyurappa, too, has been blamed by Gadkari for some of his decisions, including land allocations for his sons, which the BJP president has called “immoral”, though not illegal. As the earlier brief resignation of the Karnataka Lokayukta, Santosh Hegde, over the deteriorating ethical standards showed, the state’s image has suffered because of the allegations of malfeasance.

As a claimant for the coveted post, Sushma has the advantage of wider acceptability, second only to Nitish Kumar’s, in the NDA. But, for all her oratorical skills, the fact that she is not a true-blue or, rather, true-saffron Hindutvawadi will be a matter of concern to the Sangh parivar. In this respect, Jaitley is ahead of Sushma. But like his friend, Narendra Modi, Jaitley’s acceptability is limited to only the converted. (IPA Service)