Can we see more internal democracy, after what BJP did in Bihar? | Girish Nikam

Published on 12-06-2008 In National

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Can we see more internal democracy, after what BJP did in Bihar?

It can be considered one of the most important developments as far as inner party democracy is concerned. The decision of the BJP central leadership to ask its Bihar legislators to go in for a secret ballot to decide if their legislature party leader and the State's Deputy Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, should continue in the post. That the BJP resorted to this most democratic method of all, to decide the fate of one of its key leaders, is certainly a welcome move.
Though he is the lesser known Modi, in the BJP, compared to his Gujarat colleague, he is also like him an OBC leader and a contemporary of Lalu Yadav and present Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and easily one of the most recognized face of the BJP in Bihar. He however has come in conflict with some upper caste legislators of his party, who were peeved when they were dropped from the Cabinet by Nitish. They saw the hand of Modi in it, and had kept up a sustained campaign to get him sacked from the Deputy CM's post.
After having dilly dallied for weeks, the central leadership, called all the legislators to Delhi and decided to take their opinion. When it was felt that they may not say what is really in their mind in such an exercise, they resorted to secret ballot. Though the numbers have not been made public, apparently Modi had a majority, albeit a thin one in his favour. And he has now been allowed to continue, and the central leadership hopes that this would put an end to the factional rivalry. It's another matter that the reason BJP can't let go Modi is that he belongs to a community, the baniyas, who are the only community who can be termed to be solidly behind the party. How long this truce will prevail is worth watching.
But what the BJP central leadership has unwittingly done is to introduce an inner party democracy, which every party only talk about, but rarely practices.
Remember, only a few weeks back, the Congress' heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi had spoken rather forcefully about the need for more inner party democracy. In fact he has even been talking about it in party meetings in private. The last time the Congress party witnessed inner party democracy was when his mother, Sonia, a green horn then, contested the elections for the Party Presidentship against late Jitendra Prasada and won handsomely. But ever since no one has dared to contest against her, and the choice of Chief Ministers or even legislature party chiefs and Presidents in States have also been through the infamous "consensus" method.
Even the BJP has no great track record in inner party democracy. It has also followed the Congress in imposing leaders from the top. Even its latest Chief Minister B.S.Yediyurappa cannot claim that he came through the democratic method. In fact, it had unilaterally declared recently that L.K.Advani was its Prime Ministerial candidate, and later the NDA partners also had no other option but to endorse it.

In the case of the ousted sanyasin, Uma Bharati, the party central leadership got rid of her as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh without consulting the legislators. Her successor Shivraj Singh Chauhan was certainly not elected through any democratic process.
Instances of such in both the Congress and the BJP are endless. Of course the only party where the inner party democracy is still alive and thrives, though hardly anything gets outside is in the left parties, particularly the CPI(M). No other party could imagine what happened to its most celebrated leader in its existence, Jyoti Basu. When Basu was at his height of glory, the party's most influential and canny General Secretary, Harkishan Surjeet proposed the name of the former for the Prime Ministership in 1996. Both the octogenarians were unable to convince the party politburo and its Central Committee however. That was some inner party democracy at work.
Both, politburo and CC decided that it was neither the right time nor the right atmosphere, for the party to accept the proposal of then United Front parties, to have the venerated Basu as the Prime Minister. And the two tallest leaders of the party could do nothing but acquiesce to the majority decision.
This is something unthinkable in the mainstream parties like the BJP or the Congress, leave alone personality-oriented parties like the Samajawadi Party, Telugu Desam, DMK AIADMK and the like.
It is therefore so much more interesting that the BJP undertook a secret ballot to decide the fate of Sushil Kumar Modi. But the inevitable question which crops up is, is this one shot affair or is this something the party will follow in future scrupulously in electing all its leaders for important positions? Even the BJP leadership is not willing to commit itself to it. The reasons are obvious. It is not that they can do this and get away with in all States, as the local conditions and circumstances will be different.
The problem however is entirely different. None of these mainstream parties have developed in their cadres and leaders a sense of democracy. It is rather surprising and intriguing that the same leaders and cadres who cannot countenance inner party democracy and are quite happy with patronage culture all the parties are afflicted with, however accept more or less gracefully their defeats or success in various elections. Though there are murmurings of various forces and lobbies and so on having been the cause of their defeat in either Lok Sabha or Assembly or Panchayat polls, we have hardly seen any serious problems in the way power is passed on.
Then why this reluctance for inner party democracy? Now that the BJP has shown the way, we can only hope that it will be the first step towards internalizing democracy in all the mainstream parties, atleast to begin with.

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