New Delhi (03.02.2024): Forcing Lal Krishna Advani to hang
his boots was the biggest allegation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
also meting out such a shabby treatment to his political mentor who stood by
him as Union Home Minister after 2002 Gujarat riots despite attacks on him from
all across including within the BJP. Occasionally, the BJP faced embarrassment
by verbal attacks from Opposition for making Advani part of the Margdarshak
Mandal in view of his contribution to build the party but conferring Bharat
Ratna, the highest civilian award of the country, on him has changed the entire
political narrative around Modi once again.
It was his Rath Yatra that catapulted the BJP from a party
with two members in the Lok Sabha in 1984 to 85 members in 1989 and brought the
BJP to power from 1999 to 2004. But Advani failed to muster enough support to
break the image of the PM in the perpetual waiting and the era of Narendra Modi
started with a bang who managed to get the BJP cross the magic mark of 272 when
it had won 282 seats in 2014. This is when dusk on leaders like L K Advani and
MM Joshi set in. The era of A B Vajpayee, L K Advani and M M Joshi was replaced
by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who politely refused to give them tickets in
2019 Lok Sabha elections. The process started when Modi was announced Prime
Ministerial candidate despite Advani having reservation over it and Joshi
waiting for his term had to vacate the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat for Modi to
contest from Kanpur in 2014.
A section of the media lapped up the occasion and suddenly
became very sympathetic towards Advani for his so-called humiliation at the
hands of his own political creation. However, this is also a media creation as
Modi was always his own man. No one has created him, he always created space
for himself. But criticism of Modi and Shah was a regular subject of media
discussions. Now, with conferring Bharat Ratna, Modi has not only silenced his
unwavering detractors but also rubbed salt into the wounds of the critiques of
Hindutva politics. In the bargain, he has become even a bigger and more
towering leader and one and only Hindu Hriday Samrat by conferring Bharat Ratna
to such a leader whom he is accused of sidelining.
Let’s talk about the politics behind the move, which is bound to be discussed
after this decision. There are many Bharat Ratna decisions that were alleged to
be politically motivated. The Congress found it fit to confer the award on M G
Ramachandran 1988. Sardar Patel was given in 1991, Jay Prakash Narayan and Amartya Sen in 1999,
Sachin Tendulkar just before election in 2014, Pranab Mukherjee and Nanaji
Deshmukh in 2019 just before elections to name a few.
By conferring Bharat Ratna on Karpuri Thakur, the Modi
dispensation has sent across the message in the OBC community especially EBCs
that it is Narendra Modi who takes care of every section of the OBC. He
mesmerised Hindutva supporters by giving Bharat Ratna to L K Advani in the same
year when just a fortnight ago he participated in the consecration ceremony of
Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The emotionally surcharged environment in the country
will get a further boost with this decision when any moment Lok Sabha elections
are likely to be announced. No one knows what Modi will pull out next from his
hat!
(Rakesh Ranjan & Vinod Kumar Shukla)
