In 2020, when passenger trains were discontinued due to Covid-19, the railways found in it an opportunity to save money. Among the concessions it ended was one for the elderly in train fares—40 and 50 per cent for men and women over 60 and 58 years.
Millions of senior citizens found it out to their horror after the pandemic subsided and train operations resumed. Having survived the pandemic, they were excited about visiting their relatives and friends or just travelling to rejoice in the gift of life. That had to cost more. To the Narendra Modi-led government, train fare concessions to senior citizens were obviously like ‘revadis’ that had to be stopped.
The railways saved around Rs 1,000 crore a year by withdrawing their concessions, as reported by The Hindu Business Line.
As Uncle Ellis says in No Country for Old Men (2007), one of my favourite characters in that movie: “What you got ain’t nothing new. This country is hard on people. You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.” If you can’t afford to pay full train fares, sit back at home.
The BJP had a similar message for many of its senior citizens. They had to prepare themselves to sit back home. There might be some revadis in Raj Bhawans, if at all. The message seemed to be targeted at some veteran leaders—Karnataka’s former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa, 80, former Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh, 70, and former chief minister of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje, 70, among others. The unwritten age limit for holding an official government position is 75 years but the high command would rather have them pack up and go home early. But unlike the common senior citizens, those in the BJP aren’t willing to take it lying down.
Also read: Farewell speech but innings far from over for 79-yr-old Yediyurappa — BJP ‘backbone in Karnataka’
Rajasthan, Karnataka, MP and Chhattisgarh
Raje celebrated her birthday on Saturday at Salasar in Rajasthan’s Churu district, four days before her actual birthday on 8 March. It was a show of strength with a majority of party MLAs and MPs in attendance. “Abki baar, Vasundhara sarkar,” the crowd sloganeered. A BJP MP thundered, “Rajasthan ki sherni aa gayi hai. Jaipur se Delhi tak ek hi aawaaz jaani chahiye—Jai Vasundhara (Rajasthan’s lioness is here. Only one sound should echo from Jaipur to Delhi—all hail Vasundhara).” The birthday message to the BJP high command sounded like the Queen song: “We will, we will rock you.”
About a fortnight back, I asked Yediyurappa at his Bengaluru residence if it was his last election. “I will campaign for the BJP in this election and in the next election, too,” he replied, smiling indulgently. “Now that you are not even contesting, who gets the mantle of the Lingayat leadership in Karnataka BJP? Basavaraj Bommai hasn’t proved to be the one!” I pushed a little. Yediyurappa took a pause for a minute or so and then answered in four words, “Why? Vijayendra is there.” Of course, it has to be Yediyurappa’s son, B.Y. Vijayendra, the state BJP vice-president who the party leadership denied nomination to even the Legislative council. I had a lot of questions—about Yediyurappa’s equations with the BJP high command, his sidelining, his future role and so on. He would answer them with a genial, cryptic smile, repeating the same words: “You should wait. Wait and see.”
A week later, I was sitting in the Raipur residence of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, repeating many questions that I had asked Yediyurappa. Singh, like the Karnataka leader, isn’t preparing to hang up his boots yet. But unlike Yediyurappa, Singh is preparing to contest the next assembly election. His last election as he said. He predictably skirted queries about him becoming the chief ministerial face. But is he ready for another stint as CM if the party wants? “When the party takes a decision, it becomes Raman Singh’s responsibility to abide by it 100 per cent,” he said.
Well, this is as much as you could get from these veterans. What’s their message to the BJP high command? That they have made up their mind to dig in their heels with elections round the corner. Central BJP leadership had sought to sideline them and promote a new crop of leaders, but they didn’t walk into the sunset as the high command expected.
Also read: In Rajasthan today, it’ll be BJP vs BJP as Vasundhara Raje’s b’day event clashes with party stir
Modi-Shah’s toughest test
Since late 2013, after Modi put down the resistance put up by L.K. Advani, he and Amit Shah didn’t have to face a situation where local satraps would defy their writ. Once they took a decision, the party’s rank and file came together to execute it. They could change even chief ministers at will, and the party and the voters accepted it without any question. It was easier because none of those chief ministers, except Yediyurappa, were mass leaders. Vasundhara Raje could successfully resist the appointment of Gajendra Singh Shekhawat as Rajasthan BJP chief but the high command would still not give her the candidate of her choice. Shekhawat would then be rewarded with a cabinet berth as the Centre. Yediyurappa would sulk for months before resigning. Raman Singh chose to go with the flow. In Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan ensured the ouster of the Congress government to become CM but he never felt secure with leaders close to the high command constantly undermining him.
All these leaders were expected to ultimately give in. Once the high command’s mood for a change of leadership in these states became obvious, BJP’s rank and file were expected to abandon them, and isolate them. For once, it hasn’t happened this time. It’s mostly because the succession plan didn’t work out the way Shah-Modi wanted. Yediyurappa’s successor, Basavaraj Bommai, another Lingayat leader, failed to meet expectations. Raje’s projected successors didn’t rise up despite Delhi’s backing.
The same was the case in Chhattisgarh. While Raman Singh let the high command experiment with faces who could replace him, it hasn’t happened. During my stay in Raipur last week, I would ask random people who the BJP’s top leader was in Chhattisgarh. The response, invariably, was Raman Singh. People didn’t seem to even know the state BJP president’s name—Arun Sao, an OBC leader who was expected to counter CM Bhupesh Baghel’s grip on OBC voters. Chouhan had every reason to panic with so many chief ministerial aspirants around—from Jyotiraditya Scindia to Kailash Vijayvargiya, Narottam Mishra, Narendra Singh Tomar, and many others. As a survival tactic, Chouhan even changed his image from a moderate leader into a hardcore Hindutva leader modelling himself on Yogi Adityanath.
It has worked for Chouhan as the high command also seems to have acknowledged his strength. He has the popularity, 24×7 commitment to his job as an administrator and willingness to go the extra yard to meet what Modi-Shah and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) expected from him. Besides, at 64, he is relatively young. As it is, of all the four leaders in four states that the BJP sought to replace over a period, Chouhan has earned the confidence of the party’s top leadership.
But what do Modi and Shah do with the other three? The four states send 93 members to the Lok Sabha. Of these, the BJP has 28 out of 29 in Madhya Pradesh, 25 out of 28 in Karnataka, all 25 in Rajasthan, and 9 out of 11 in Chhattisgarh. Even if it’s an established fact that people vote for Modi in Lok Sabha, can Modi and Shah take a risk on those seats by forcing their writ in assembly elections?
Also read: Raje, Raman, Raghubar — BJP’s ‘loser’ CMs remain party V-Ps only in name, have got no role
Way out for Modi-Shah
Of the four regional satraps in the BJP, Modi, and Shah may decide to bet on Chouhan again. He has been a compliant CM. There is probably no need to upset him ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Raman Singh seems to be willing to play along. As he told ThePrint in an interview, he is fine with PM Modi being the face of the Chhattisgarh assembly elections. So, the BJP doesn’t have to worry about him in the assembly election even though the party leadership had delivered a big snub to him replacing all BJP MPs, including Singh’s son Abhishek, a sitting MP, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Modi and Shah’s biggest worry must be Yediyurappa and Raje. The party leadership sought to mollify the Karnataka leader, bringing him into the BJP parliamentary board and giving a bigger organisation responsibility to his son. Modi even grabbed Yediyurappa’s hands as a show of friendship during his recent visit to Shivamogga. Few can read the Lingayat leader’s mind though. He has a clear succession plan in mind as he hinted during my interaction with him. How much the BJP high command is willing to defer to that plan in the coming weeks will decide how Yediyurappa conducts himself in the run-up to the state assembly election. As for Raje, she has proved her popularity among BJP workers and leaders at the Salasar meet, too. Imagine a majority of MPs and MLAs showing up in Salasar when the state BJP chief is leading an agitation programme in Jaipur.
Modi and Shah aren’t known to give in to regional satraps. But they are also not known to risk anything when it comes to Lok Sabha elections. The coming weeks and months are going to be quite interesting in Indian politics, especially in terms of how the top BJP leadership handles its internal crisis.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)