Rajasthan Dilemma: Will Vasundhara Raje be BJP’s CM face after Karnataka debacle?

After the poll debacle in Karnataka, the BJP cannot risk another defeat and may be forced to overcome their aversion to Vasundhara Raje for Rajasthan Assembly elections. (File image)

The stunning defeat in Karnataka polls has crucial lessons for the BJP. Among the biggest is the need for potent, popular regional leaders without whom the Hindutva/polarisation plank and even PM Modi’s popularity may not be enough to win state elections. As the saffron brigade mulls over its debacle, the political buzz suggests BJP is seriously rethinking leadership issues in states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where electoral battles are due in the winter.

Any honest assessment of BJP’s political strategy after Karnataka would conclude that it needs to treat regional satraps with dignity. The recent policy of sidelining seniors with a mass base simply to ring in a generational shift in regional leadership seems open to scrutiny. It is in this context that the BJP needs to reassess former chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s role in the upcoming battle in Rajasthan.

Raj BJP: A Divided House

Ever since she led the BJP to victory in 2003 to become the first woman chief minister of the state, Raje has been a dominant fulcrum of Rajasthan’s politics. Her charisma and emotional connect helped her forge an enduring bond with the masses. But after the loss in the 2018 elections, she was distinctly ignored.

Besides not making her the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, the BJP top brass gave her no role in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and she was further snubbed when PM Modi roped in known Raje baiters into his cabinet. Though appointed BJP’s vice-president, it was a bid to make Raje give up her regional dominance and take on a national role.

In the name of creating a gen-next leadership in Rajasthan, several Raje opponents from the RSS stable were brought into the limelight like Satish Poonia, a first-time MLA who was made state BJP president, and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, a protégé of Home Minister Amit Shah. Even Om Birla’s elevation as Speaker of Lok Sabha, with just five years of experience in Parliament. was a rebuff to Raje as the two never shared warm relations.

Inevitably, Raje and her loyalists were cold shouldered in the state unit. The running battle between her loyalists and critics has been a dominant leitmotif of the Rajasthan BJP in recent years. Raje’s frosty relationship with the BJP high command made many a junior leader nurture chief ministerial ambitions.

Vasundhara Raje No Pushover

As she became aloof and stayed away from party campaigns, the  BJP lost a vast majority of Assembly bypolls. Factional feuds between her and state chief Poonia and her cold war with Union minister Shekhawat blunted BJP’s public agitations in the past four years.

A cornered Raje soon devised a clever strategy to stay in the public eye. Her Dev Darshan Yatras or religious trips to major temples across Rajasthan became a means to showcase her mass appeal. Her loyalists also turned Raje’s birthday bashes at temple towns into mega events.

Since religion is an integral element of Hindutva politics, Raje’s events within a religious idiom ensured that nobody, including BJP biggies, could attack her. Her religio-political programmes enabled Raje to remain politically significant and boost her bid to be the BJP’s CM face in Rajasthan – a demand her loyalists have been making ad nauseam.

In contrast to these high-profile events, Raje’s low profile during the Sachin Pilot revolt against CM Gehlot’s leadership cost the BJP dearly in 2020. Her inaction ensured that the Gajendra Shekhawat-led bid to topple the Gehlot government floundered. Despite charges of a nexus with Gehlot, the episode underlined Raje’s political clout in the state.

The Karnataka Lesson

To counter Raje’s strategy and check internal rift, the BJP top brass has often announced that PM Modi would be the face of the party’s Rajasthan campaign. But as the Karnataka verdict has shown, the strategy to bank solely on Modi’s shoulders may not work, especially since internal assessments suggest the party may hardly reach even a simple majority in Rajasthan.

Recent attempts by the BJP central leadership to cut regional satraps to size - like BS Yediyurappa in Karnataka and Raje in Rajasthan - have demonstrated that while it is easy to weaken leaders, it is tough for any party to make a mass leader. With Congress going strongly “vocal for local”, the BJP can hardly ignore the risks of over-centralisation and sidelining of strong regional leaders.

In Rajasthan, a state with deep feudal roots, the role of local leadership is critical to win voters’ confidence. From Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in the past to Ashok Gehlot and Vasundhara Raje today, the personal connect of major leaders plays a key role in electoral wins. As it struggles for a winning formula in the desert state, it is quite likely that the BJP may now rely on Raje.

With the Rajasthan polls set to be seen as a precursor to the Lok Sabha battle, the Modi-Shah duo cannot risk a defeat and may be forced to overcome their aversion to Raje. Lessons of the Karnataka crash and realpolitik calculations for electoral success may soon see Raje getting a vital role in the Rajasthan campaign.

Rajan Mahan is a senior journalist who headed NDTV and Star News in Rajasthan. He was also a Professor of Journalism at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.​