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- Sheela Bhatt speaks to Professor Dipankar Gupta
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Coming back to the BJP, how do you see the mutinies by Arun Shourie and others that went on within the BJP?
In our country wherever there are equals, we can't function.
We are like a joint family where when the father dies the brothers quarrel and kill each other. What is going on in the BJP is similar.
The Congress survived because everybody is not equal in the party. In the BJP everybody is equal. It does not have a strong ideological base that the CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist) has. They don't have a Politburo and such bodies that draws inspiration from the international Communist movement. That model of the Leftists is also ideologically supported.
The Leftists feel the Communist ideology will be forwarded if they follow what they term as 'democratic centralism.' It is a vanguard of their priorities.
The BJP party structure today is not part of their ideology. They have a flat party structure. Their ideology stems from the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh).
Unless the BJP comes up with a stellar figure like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, these brothers will quarrel and the cousins will disintegrate.
This is the common trait of all Indian parties. Only those parties have survived which revolve around a person -- like Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
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Modi's identity as a Gujarati is very strong. He will remain in Gujarat. He will have a strong role to play within his party and will become the BJP's longest surviving chief minister.
I think the BJP and he himself has realised his limits. On a national scale you need to have a national presence. Vajpayee and Advani had it, but Modi is too much of a Gujarati.
Sushma Swaraj is a strong candidate, she is difficult to handle and is much tougher to fight than Modi because she is a woman. She is articulate and has an all-India image. Arun Jaitley does not have that image yet. He is still very much an organisation man.
If you are talking in terms of going out and fighting an election I think Sushma Swaraj is a better bet than Narendra Modi.
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Modi's identity as a Gujarati is very strong. He will remain in Gujarat. He will have a strong role to play within his party and will become the BJP's longest surviving chief minister.
I think the BJP and he himself has realised his limits. On a national scale you need to have a national presence. Vajpayee and Advani had it, but Modi is too much of a Gujarati.
Sushma Swaraj is a strong candidate, she is difficult to handle and is much tougher to fight than Modi because she is a woman. She is articulate and has an all-India image. Arun Jaitley does not have that image yet. He is still very much an organisation man.
If you are talking in terms of going out and fighting an election I think Sushma Swaraj is a better bet than Narendra Modi.
