[India Today]

Published date: 26th Dec 2005

Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the struggle within

“We are all like a family and there is bound to be dissent in a democratic party.”

The trouble with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 55, is he is too transparent. A rotund, dhoti-cad orator given to over- heated rhetoric, his misfortune is that he heads a party consisting in large part of hard core adherents of the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) and he cannot conceal the fact that the RSS bit chafes. Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was formed on April 5,1980, Vajpayee, its president, has been playing out a battle of wits with his opponents within the party. The battle will have no winners or losers—such is the character of the BJP and the men who make up its ranks. But its highs and lows have ruffled the party’s facade of solidarity. Vajpayee’s differences, particularly with a powerful section of leadership led by General Secretary Lal Krishna Advani and vice-presidents Vijaya Raje Scindia and S.S. Bhandari, surface with almost predictable regularity. Last fortnight he drew fire from critics when he told a meeting in Andhra Pradesh’s Telangana region that his party was prepared to cooperate with the Congress (I) government if it came out with “viable programmes” for solving “burning problems” like unemployment.