Many in the BJP are wondering why Nitin Gadkari went against his party leaders to seek a Rajya Sabha nomination for Anshuman Mishra, the corporate lobbyist he met just a year ago. Mishra was deputed by Nikhil Meswani of Reliance to look after Gadkari during an IPL match in Mumbai last year. Mishra later hosted several of Gadkari’s London visits. His younger brother Raju Mishra was given a ticket to fight the UP Assembly elections from Gorakhpur.
By Sanjiv Acharya
It could literally have cost Nitin Gadkari his job. The little known Anshuman Mishra missile had all the top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party including LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley and Yeshwant Sinha ranged against the BJP chief.
But the party president was quick to disassociate himself from the high-flying Mishra and dismissed his allegations against the BJP leaders as “baseless and misleading.”
Gadkari said, “Anshuman Mishra’s motivated and selective tirade against some of the top BJP leaders is nothing but an expression of frustration over his failure to make it to the Rajya Sabha with the support of BJP MLAs from Jharkhand.”
Anshuman Mishra unsuccessfully tried to enter the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand with the help of the BJP. Mishra who hails from Uttar Pradesh and has become a big player in the corridors of in the US, Britain and India, is said to be close to Nitin Gadkari, both being businessmen. Mishra was member of the delegation accompaning Bill Clinton during his trip to India. He was also close to the then law minister Hansraj Bhardwaj.
Anshuman Mishra filed his nomination papers as an independent from Jharkhand and all those who proposed his name were BJP MLAs. Mishra was confident he would manage the required number of votes to enter the powerful list of the likes of Amar Singh, Vijay Mallya and KD Singh.; Those who know him since his initial days in the political circles of Lucknow, say he is much too ambitious. He claimed to be relative of Kalraj Mishra, former Union minister and was also known to keep up with both BJP and Congress leaders due to his network in America and Britain. He is also known to be well connected with t Hollywood stars, politicians and corporate honchos much like Amar Singh. He even claimed he had helped BJP in collecting funds from abroad over the last decade.
It was former finance minister Yeshwant Sinha who finally showed courage to oppose his candidature by threatening to leave the BJP if party decided to support him. Sinha was supported by LK Advani who spoke to the parliamentary board members and convinced them not to support the “tainted” Mishra. Other leaders like Dr Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley too opposed Mishra. Coming under pressure from top leaders, Nitin Gadkari asked party general secretary Anant Kumar to announce that party MLAs would abstain from voting during the Jharkhand Rajya Sabha polls to avoid being levelled with the charges of horse trading.
An enraged Mishra attacked all the BJP bigwigs once he learnt that his entry had been blocked. He even attacked Advani by calling him old and not letting young leaders in the BJP to grow. Thereafter he attacked Dr Murli Manohar Joshi with the allegation that as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the Lok Sabha probing the 2G scam, Joshi met some of the top officials of these companies at his residence and tried to broker deal in the presence of Anshuman Mishra. And if this was not enough, Mishra continued his attack against BJP’s influential leaders including Arun Jaitley by saying that he had hosted the high profile Rajya Sabha leader during his visits abroad. Arun Jaitley decided to bell the cat. So he sent a legal notice to Anshuman for defamation.
Meanwhile, all senior leaders exchanged notes to understand the game plan of Anshuman Mishra, who until yesterday was a stranger and came into limelight with his frontal attack against senior BJP leaders. According to well informed sources, one of the leaders told others that Mishra had claimed that he had the full backing of Gadkari and that whatever he had been saying were the views of the RSS. Gadkari was then called up by one of the leaders and told in no uncertain terms that if he did not stop Mishra, then he should be prepared for worst.
Nitin Gadkari understood the gravity of the situation and sources say he spoke to Anshuman Mishra and convinced him to apologise to these leaders. Meanwhile, Gadkari issued a statement in which he echoed top leaders of the party that Mishra was doing this out of sheer frustration that he could not make it to the Rajya Sabha. After Gadkari’s statement, Anshuman Mishra offered unconditional apology to all BJPO leaders ad even admitted to have never collected funds for the party.
The chapter seems closed for now but sources point out that this is just the beginning of the big fight between RSS-Gadkari versus LK Advani and his lieutenants on the cards. The purpose is clear: The RSS top brass has decided to sideline Advani from mainstream politics, especially from the prime minister’s post. The RSS has made up its mind to project Gujarat strongman Narendra Modi for the top chair. A compromise between Modi and Gadkari is part and parcel of the big game. Gadkari understands his limits that he cannot become prime minister even though he is the blue eyed boy of RSS chief Mohan Rao Bhagwat as he is not a mass leader.
Gadkari’s term as BJP president is about to finish and he wants to get a second term. The RSS too is in favour to repeat him. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parriker and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti and Anant Kumar are also with him. Other leaders may oppose it after the Anshuma Mishra fiasco, but Gadkari is confident due to the fact that the BJP is completely controlled by the RSS as of now. Gone are the days when Advani, Joshi, Jaswant singh, Yeshwant sinha, Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj used to call the shots. It’s the RSS now.
The Uttar Pradesh elections are a proof of RSS’s control over the party’s affairs. According to a senior leader who has been sulking, the RSS did not give any importance to the top leadership of the party during the UP assembly elections. The decision to include Uma Bharti and projecting her as a potential claimant to the top post, appointment of Sanjay Joshi as UP in charge, the selection of candidates, slogans, strategy, campaign, list of speakers were all decided by the RSS. Advani, Joshi, Sushma Swaraj or any other big leader was not given due importance. Nobody in the BJP raised any objection against this because they knew that the party would not do well in the state despite the direct control by the RSS. And that happened; the BJP lost the battle.
Now the focus is Gujarat, where assembly elections are due. Gujarat will be the real litmus test for the RSS and Narendra Modi both because Modi’s stakes are high due to his ambition to be in the race for prime ministership in the next Lok Sabha polls scheduled for 2014. If the BJP repeats its victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, then the NDA will push for early Lok Sabha polls with Assembly elections for Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh also slated in 2013.