Varun Gandhi has split both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Democratic Alliance wide open, even as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its activists have hailed him as the new saffron hero of Hindutva.
Sources in the BJP state that a disturbed Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar had got in touch with senior BJP leaders including LK Advani in the wake of the utterances by Varun Gandhi which created quite a stir.
Kumar had pointed out that since the JD-U was fielding a number of Muslim candidates and since the NDA could expect to substantially increase its tally from Bihar in the wake of the good performance of his government, such statements should be unambiguously condemned by the BJP leadership, in particular L.K.Advani who was being projected as the NDA's prime ministerial candidate.
Sources state that realizing the wisdom of what Nitish Kumar was saying and their own calculation that giving a carte blanche to Varun could damage the BJP in other states outside UP and to get the back-up of its allies, LK Advani had agreed to issue a statement condemning Varun Gandhi and his "hate speech against the muslims and the sikhs".
But before that could be done, the newly installed RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is reported to have put his foot down and instructed the BJP top brass to fully back Varun Gandhi. Bhagwat is reported to have made it clear that there was no question of either condemning words of the young Gandhi, or apologizing for it.
In the context of this strong endorsement for Varun Gandhi by the RSS supremo, sources said Advani is said to have kept his counsel and remained mum. But BJP leaders say they are worried of the fallout of the Varun episode in Bihar and other states, in particular how it would impact the allies as the BJP is once again seen to have rolled back its consensual agenda and gone back to Hindutva with a vengenace.
This became amply clear in the latest issue of the RSS mouthpiece Organizer, where in its editorial, a violent defence of Varun Gandhi has been offered. The editorial attacks the election commission, the Congress, the media and Priyanka Gandhi who had advised Varun to read the Gita.
The Organizer says that the Gita is not a treatise on pacifism but it states that to defend your religion you should be violent. It is clear that under the new dispensation in the RSS, there would be no compromise or going back on the Hindutva agenda.
Worried at the momentum which the Varun campaign has picked up in the BJP, a senior BJP leader was concerned about how this would impact LK Advani's attempts to reach out to the largest constituency possible and the hope of forming an inclusive government like Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This concern has increased with even the BJP's own internal survey showing that the NDA is falling short of a majority by more than 50 seats. Whether the BJP can bring in new friends after it reverts to its Hindutva agenda or whether the old friends may also desert the party, is a matter which BJP leaders need to deliberate on.
As far as the Congress is concerned, it has clubbed both the BJP an the Bahujan Samaj Party as being together in creating a communal divide and polarizing the Uttar Pradesh voter with both Kapil Sibal and Digvijay Singh making the charge that the Mayawati government deliberately allowed the build up to Varun's arrest to take place to reap political advantage.
Digvijay Singh said if he had been the chief minister he would have arrested him at midnight as happened in the case of Sadhavi Rithambara and Acharya Dharmendra in Madhya Pradesh while Sibal said that there is a deep understanding between the BJP and the BSP and both are together behind the scenes.
