BJP prominent leader Sushma Swaraj is one of the most seasoned woman politicians of the Bharatiya Janata Party and a prominent member of the party's Gen X.She was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2006 from Madhya Pradesh. She is not only articulate and known to speak her mind, she is also seen as a party worker with a strong sense of duty, taking on every task handed to her with gusto whether it is challenging Sonia Gandhi in a Lok Sabha election, giving up her position as Union minister to lead the party to certain defeat because the high command wanted it, to taking the BJP's anti-foreigner campaign to a pitch when she threatened to shave her head and eat only peanuts in a gesture of mourning if Sonia Gandhi became prime minister after the Congress-led coalition won the 2004 parliamentary election.
Once again, she has followed her party's diktat to contest the Lok Sabha polls to lead the party campaign from the states she has been given charge of (MP, Chhattisgrah and Jharkhand), even though others like Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu have been exempted and will remain party MPs in the Rajya Sabha, of which she is deputy leader. But Swaraj is gung-ho and as a core member of every crucial high-powered committee outlines party strategy and its future in the coming general elections. Excerpts from the interview with Vrinda Gopinath.
Few interesting questions we did throw on Sushma Swaraj, have a look...
Q. As a prominent woman leader, you have been pretty muted on the Mangalore pub violence led by Ram Sene goons?
A. Let me say it clearly, the Ram Sene has no business beating up someone else's children if they choose to do something it does not approve of. It is the individual's personal choice of what is Indian culture and tradition. It is up to parents to teach sanskar (tradition) to children, and hope they grow up with them. I sent my only daughter to England at 17. She has been there seven years and is today in Oxford University, but I do not worry when she goes to pubs, which she often does, because she does not drink. However, it is her choice if she chooses to have a glass of wine because she is grounded in her sanskar.
Q. So you would agree with party senior Jaswant Singh when he accused Ram Sene of Talibanising India?
A. No, I disagree with Jaswant Singh because, one, he not only supported Congress Union minister Renuka Chowdhury, but he also supported M F Hussain whom we vehemently oppose for his nude painting of Saraswati. I certainly do not agree with Chowdhury's "pub bharo" campaign. Hussain was disrespectful of Hinduism when he distorted the image of the Goddess of Knowledge.
We have no problem if he paints nude women but he cannot strip mythology of its symbolism. Jaswantji is wrong.
Q. The entire senior leadership, like Singh, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, suddenly seem to be challenging party policy. Are they beginning to feel irrelevant?
A. Shekhawatji is no longer a member of the BJP after he resigned to become vice-president. However, I can assure you none of them are going astray.
Q. The BJP's prime ministerial candidate, the 82-year-old L K Advani is also looking desperate, pumping iron to prove his youthfulness.
A. When your political adversaries make youth an issue, it is crucial to show that Advaniji is one of the fittest and ablest leaders among us. Sometimes, something happens and he may have picked up those weights, it was not necessary. Anyway the youth brigade of the Congress are all compassionate appointees, from Rahul Gandhi, Priya Dutt, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, who came to claim their position as legatees. Would they have been in politics if their fathers were still alive? They do not have any say in decision-making, they are still learning, if you please. On the other hand, Team Advani has no time for apprentices, we are young in our fifties, with experience, skill and exposure. We were all in our forties when we first became union ministers in Atal Behari Vajpayee's cabinet, I was barely 42 when I became minister.
Q. Is Advani nervous because Gujarat CM Narendra Modi seems to be positioning himself as PM candidate going by his latest moves, whether appointing a Muslim police officer as IG or being endorsed by his industrialist friends?
A. It is unfair to accuse Narendrabhai of ambition because he has declared aloud he is not in the race for PM. As a lawyer I would say he is damned if you do, damned if you don't. If the Muslim police officer has been superseded everyone would have screamed communalism, now that he has got his post, it is seen as a secular move. It also goes against our parampara to discuss succession when the elder is still around.
Q. Many believe you are being forced to contest so that your rivals can trap you in the quicksand of electoral politics.
A. That's not true, I will be campaigning outside MP even though I will be contesting from the state. Several other Gen X party leaders like Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Mukhtar Naqvi, are contesting the polls.
Q. Today, the BJP-led NDA is left with barely four allies. Does the party miss a political alchemist like the late Pramod Mahajan who put together the NDA coalition in 1999?
A. We have added two more allies, Om Prakash Chautala's INLD and the AGP from Assam. I was given the task of bringing them in and I fulfilled it. The party has also asked Arun Jaitley to negotiate with Ajit Singh and he is in the midst of the deal. So, it is moving on.
Q. Your ally Nitish Kumar has refused to endorse the Ram Mandir movement and will campaign only on his government's achievements. This despite your leadership's insistence it will broach NDA allies to endorse it.
A. Nitish has said nothing new, the NDA's national agenda for governance in 1999 and 2004 did not include the Ayodhya issue. We have said it should be consensus or court that should decide on building the temple in Ayodhya.
There can be goodwill to build a temple and we hope to convince our allies this round too if the NDA comes to power.
Q. Is the BJP confident about other allies like the BJD? And how does it propose to come to power when it's left with only six allies today?
A. We are confident of keeping both Nitish and Naveenbabu (Patnaik of BJD) with us. They have been dependable and amenable. There is always scope for a post-poll alliance if the BJP is the single largest party. After all, where is the UPA today? Parties like the TDP, Trinamool, AIADMK, have all indicated they are favourable towards us. Track 2 diplomacy carries on regardless of what they say in public.
Q. Will you support BSP's Mayawati as prime minister? What is the RSS view on her?
A. We will see when we come to it.
There is no point answering every hypothetical question. The RSS has never had a problem with Mayawati.
Q. Mayawati has accused the BJP of sabotaging her last attempt during the confidence vote in Parliament in 2008 by bringing up the cash for votes scam. As many as 10 BJP MPs crossvoted to save the Manmohan Singh government.
A. That's not true, her MP was on the other side, when he supposedly asked for a bribe from SP's Amar Singh to make favourable statements..
Q. What about the Samajwadi Party? Advani has admitted he came to a deal with Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1999 to not allow Congress to stake claim despite Sonia's famous remark of having 272 MPs.
A. We have as yet no talks with the Samajwadi Party. We can only talk of post-poll scenario now.
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