New Delhi: Even as BJP celebrates its 25th anniversary in Mumbai, the party that gave it it's present form is turning 54 this year. But over the past half-a-century, the Bhartiya Jan Sangh has given India just two icons.
The 54th foundation day of the Jan Sangh will soon be celebrated in Delhi. About half a century back, on this very day, some men present at a similar ceremony came together to form the political wing of the RSS.
After all these years, only two members of the Jan Sangh could reach the pinnacle of political power in the country.
Whereas Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani became the poster-boys of the Bhartiya Jan Sangh's Hindutva movement, their Jan Sangh contemporaries did not quite make a mark.
While Advani rode the Ram Rath to emerge as a Hindutva hardliner, Vajpayee used his oratory skills and moderate image to become Mr Acceptable across party lines.
While the power-duo carved out their own luck and rode high on their success, others like Sunder Singh Bhandari, Kushabhau Thackeray and Balraj Madhok were marginalized and nearly disappeared from the political scene.
BJP leaders understand the phenomenon well. "It doesn't mean that the leaders in an organisation become dictator; though, there are a couple of people who call shots in the party." J P Mathur, Leader, BJP
In a country where polity thrives on hero worship, the BJP has made a deliberate attempt to cut a larger-than-life image of Advani and Vajpayee to reap a rich electoral harvest and quite successfully at that.
" There has been a weakening of the what we in the RSS have called collective leadership in the BJP," Tarun Vijay, BJP leader says.
But, in the process the ace duo has, perhaps inadvertently, led to the 'Congressisation' of the BJP.
Just like in the Congress, where the Gandhi family has held supreme, the Atal-Advani duo in the BJP have ruled the roost for more than a generation.
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