The Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah is in search of a young, next-generation leader whom it can possibly groom with an aim for a larger role in the future. And, Tejasvi Surya, the party’s MP from Bangalore South constituency, seems poised to play the part.
Tejasvi has been everywhere these past few months — given an important seat to contest from in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, appointed as the BJP’s youth wing president, become a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology, and made to campaign aggressively in states such as West Bengal and Bihar with which he has no connection. And all this when he is yet to touch 30 — a very young age in Indian politics by any measure.
So what makes Tejasvi a good fit for Modi-Shah’s vision? He is enterprising, educated, social media savvy and, most importantly, has no qualms in polarising Hindutva rhetoric against Muslims on demand. The larger point being that the BJP is increasingly looking less young, even with its oldest members L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi having been firmly pushed into the margdarshak mandal for a few years now. The BJP desperately needs to identify a strong, smart and bankable young leader, so it can weave a projection of being a party with a future and not one that is relying just on its current successful run. It also needs Modi-Shah to be seen as actively grooming the youngest lot.
The need for a young face
The BJP’s bench strength is a big concern — weak and uninspiring — and the weight of the party is entirely on Modi and Amit Shah, besides its strong regional guard.
Look at the Modi Cabinet, for instance. There is an absolute dearth of talent, and it is mostly underwhelming. To fill a key portfolio like external affairs, Modi had to rely on outside talent, in former diplomat S.Jaishankar. And given the state of the Indian economy and with no capable hands to manage it, a lateral entrant as finance minister may not be a bad idea either, as I had argued in a recent column.
Politically, the BJP is banking entirely on Modi’s massive popularity and Amit Shah’s electoral management abilities, at the national level. In various states, it has its strong leaders, like Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, B.S Yediyurappa in Karnataka, Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra and, to an extent, Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh and Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan. The jury on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who was even deployed in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for cross-state campaigning, is still out. Only the 2022 assembly election in UP will tell us how deep he has dug his heels in electoral politics. In Assam, the BJP has a very strong hand in Himanta Biswa Sarma, but his glaring weak point is that he is a Congress import and not from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background.
But this is just a handful of prominent, successful leaders and most are restricted to their respective states. At the national level, the BJP needs a young, savvy face to carry its mantle and project the party’s youthful side. Smriti Irani is young, but her political journey remains chequered. Dharmendra Pradhan, 51, is bright, enterprising and among the better ministers, but isn’t projected aggressively as a political face of the party.
While leaders like Anurag Thakur, Nupur Sharma and Guru Prakash are some names in the articulate, energetic and Hindutva brandishing gen-next bracket, it is Tejasvi Surya who seems to be the hot favourite as of now.
Why Tejasvi Surya
Tejasvi Surya, the fiery orator, hails from a family of BJP leaders and has gone through the RSS-ABVP cycle. Being an educated lawyer with a good grip over policy affairs adds to his plus points. He is also social media savvy — a key qualifier in modern-day politics. He, for instance, is said to have impressed his party leadership with pointed interventions during the IT Committee hearing of the Facebook row.
Most significantly, he can brandish the Hindutva sword and speak the party’s language when needed. Spewing venom and talking toxic will not be an issue, as demonstrated by his abhorrent ‘Arab women’s orgasm’ and ‘Shaheen Bagh Mughals’ remarks. “Call me a bigot, communal fanatic or whatever. But singular reason for BJP’s defeat in Jayanagar is the complete consolidation of Muslim vote. Look at the below numbers from Gurappanapalya, a Muslim locality. BJP must ‘really’ become a Hindu party & not just be perceived as one,” he had tweeted in 2018.
Earlier this year, Surya did his party proud by pushing its majoritarian agenda brazenly when he tweeted that the “control of state power by Hindus is absolutely essential for sustenance of Dharma”.
A ‘bigot’ who knows it and is also not afraid to say it fits right into the BJP’s scheme of things. Of course, all BJP leaders speak the party’s language, but some like Tejasvi have the gift of taking it a step forward, adding their own garnish of polarising toxicity and communal belligerence, and establishing themselves as useful political tools.
As against someone like Yogi Adityanath, for instance, Tejasvi has the advantage of being a more suave, educated, social media pro and relatable leader for BJP’s young voters. He is saffron enough, without having to don the saffron robe — an ideal combination for a Hindutva party looking to target the youth.
The fact that the Modi-Shah combine is indeed promoting him became clear when they chose him to fight from the prestigious Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat in 2019 over late Ananth Kumar’s wife Tejaswini. Since then, it has only been an upward curve for the 29-year-old leader. Tejasvi is the rare Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha chief from South India.
In the two politically important states — Bihar where elections are on and West Bengal, which votes next year — Tejasvi is actively campaigning for his party, an indication of the projection the BJP has planned for him.
There is a big, gaping hole in the BJP — of a promising, young and fiery leader who can operate at a national level. Tejasvi Surya is controversial, but indulges in just the kind of controversy the BJP revels in. He ticks all the boxes as of now, including having won his maiden Lok Sabha election with an impressive margin. It may be too early to speculate on Tejasvi’s future political course and how the party will groom and push him, but for now, the ‘bigot’ seems all set to be the blue-eyed next-generation BJP leader.
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