The undisputed queen

At a meeting of the BJP’s national executive way back in 2005, LK Advani chaired a routine session on ‘state reporting’, which essentially requires BJP chief ministers to speak about policy, programmes and political situation in their respective states. Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, was still a favourite with Advani. So when he spoke, Advani heard with rapt attention, allowing him to go on way beyond the allotted time limit.

By the time it was the Rajasthan chief minister’s turn to speak, the participants were restless. So was Advani, who typically wrung his hands a couple of times, glanced at the watch and warned: ‘Keep to the time limit.’ Not many would have considered flouting such a warning publicly; the veteran had not yet been consigned to the Margdarshak Mandal and wielded considerable influence in the party at the time. But Vasundhara Raje is not just anyone. The diminutive princess with her soft, small hands packs quite a punch. That she is the daughter of the veteran Jan Sangh and RSS patron Vijayraje Scindia only adds to her regal, combative persona. Accordingly, she peered at Advani over the rim of her spectacles and flung back: “Advaniji, this is not fair. Aur logon ko to ghanton bolne diya apne (You allowed others to go on for hours.)” She coolly continued for another half-hour, wound up and descended with queenly hauteur.

As she told me a few years later in her surprisingly husky, attractive voice, it is not easy for a woman to negotiate power structures in the BJP with its patriarchal, often sexist institutional sub-culture. “You can’t imagine the extent to which some of these people can go,” she confided in what I thought was a rare moment of feminine complicity.

I could imagine, given the glee with which MPs from her own party handed out copies of the scurrilous personal charges against her in the divorce petition filed by her estranged husband Hemant Singh. From the dizzy heights of victory in 2003 assembly polls which saw Raje being crowned queen in the desert state, circumstances had vastly altered by the end of her term. Allegations of corruption, nepotism and the rising clout of upstarts like Lalit Modi surfaced regularly. Party workers and the RSS satraps constantly complained of her inaccessibility and dismissive attitude.

And so in the run-up to assembly elections in 2008, rebellion erupted with powerful ministers such as Kirori Lal Meena and Devi Singh Bhati resigning from the state cabinet to fight as rebels against the BJP’s official candidates. The big Thakurs — Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Jaswant Singh, Rajnath Singh — formed a pressure group at the Centre to push Raje around. True to her spirit, the queen fought back. Shekhawat struggled to get tickets allotted to his cronies and close relatives. His son-in-law Narpat Singh Rajvi was kept waiting till the last minute before he was allocated the party ticket.

The infighting did not stop even after the BJP lost the elections. Shekhawat and Jaswant Singh kept the pot boiling through the rebellious Ghanshyam Tiwari, Gulab Singh Kataria and others. To make matters worse, Rajnath Singh, who was BJP president at the time, appointed Arun Chaturvedi, a relatively inexperienced party worker, as BJP president against Raje’s wishes. Factionalism reached such heights in the state unit that Rajnath Singh asked Raje to resign from the Leader of Opposition’s post. She first refused to comply and when she did, it was with the same spirit of defiance. Raje came to Delhi and submitted her resignation to Advani, refusing to acknowledge Rajnath Singh.

But she survived, getting re-elected as Leader of Opposition in 2013, just a few months before the next assembly elections were due. Her detractors had been significantly weakened by then. Shekhawat had passed away, Jaswant Singh’s popularity was on the wane and Rajnath Singh was distracted by the developments at the national level. And so in the assembly elections in December 2013, Raje consolidated and secured her position. She ensured that her loyalists were in majority when tickets were distributed and swept the polls with a staggering 160 out of the total 200 seats in the assembly. In the subsequent Lok Sabha polls, Rajasthan was the second big state after Gujarat where the BJP secured all the 25 parliamentary seats.

From this vantage point, it is difficult to expect Raje’s fortress to be breached by a minor offensive based on her support to Lalit Modi’s immigration application. Neither is the fact that Lalit Modi bought 10 shares in her son Dushyant Singh’s company for a whopping ₹96,000 each going to shake her stronghold over the state. Even before the scandalous Vyapam Scam and the spate of alleged murders in its wake diverted their attention, the BJP brass knew where they stood with Raje.

With 160 legislators firmly by her side, it was understood that dislodging Raje from Rajasthan will be difficult, if not impossible. If she could take on Advani publicly for favouring Modi, it is not hard to imagine what Raje is capable of telling the PM or his lieutenant, the BJP president Amit Shah, in private. The men from Gujarat may be ruling Delhi. But in the land of Rajputs, the daughter of Rajmata Vijayraje Scindia is the undisputed queen.

COMMENT NOW