When Uma Bharti called upon Kushabhau Thakre to help the BJP in the Madhya Pradesh campaign, the invite came with the offer of a specially outfitted ambulance and medical personnel. Little did the BJP leader know that the ailing Thakre, who had once built the party in MP with his own hands, would expand her idea of a walk-on role into that of the main protagonist.As the Uma camp now rues in private, Thakre not only seems to be gaining in health but the former BJP national president is also rebuilding his hold on the state party unit.Thakre’s first public appearance, on August 22 in Bhopal, was to unveil the BJP’s chargesheet against the Digvijay Singh government. At the time, Uma was seen to be trying to rein in dissidence in the party. Later on the same day, Thakre sat alone on a stage in Sehore, abandoned even by ordinary party workers, waiting for Uma’s Sankalp Yatra to arrive.But he has come a long way since. From Indore and Gwalior to Bhopal and Jabalpur, Thakre has been addressing meetings of senior members of the BJP’s local units where he is setting guidelines for the role of senior partymen in the run-up to the polls.Even own partymen are amazed at the change Thakre has wrought. A BJP leader who had gone to Delhi to escort him to Bhopal when Uma invited him says: ‘‘I was afraid he would be unable to bear the strain, afraid I would have to escort him back soon. But the whiff of active politics has worked wonders.’’A rejuvenated Thakre today travels by road and train, and is speaking with an authority that no one in the state unit, including Uma, wields. On September 4, at Gwalior, he talked of the circumstances under which the BJP was forced to ally with Mayawati. Six days later, the return of veteran leader Arif Beg to the party fold was attributed, in part, to his influence. And now from Jabalpur he has ruled out any need for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to resign after the Supreme Court rebuke. He has also dismissed the need for alliances in any of the five states going to polls and, more significantly for Uma, said Yashodhara Raje Scindia would work for the party with all enthusiasm.Any other member of the state unit would have left these queries for the Central leadership to answer. But Thakre is not any other member of the state unit. Besides being the former president of the BJP, he has also set up the entire structure of the party in Madhya Pradesh with his own hands.It was in 1942 that he joined the RSS in Neemuch and when the Jan Sangh was set up in the state in 1956, three years before Uma was born, he was designated the secretary (organisation). Ever since he has had complete hold over the state unit and is familiar with party members in each tehsil. It was against this background that Uma invited Thakre to MP, hoping his word would silence party detractors taking potshots at her. Thakre’s presence has already made a difference, with the senior leader able to reprimand leaders and get them to fall in line without arousing the kind of resentment that this would ordinarily provoke. But as his statement on Yashodhara indicates, what he is setting in motion may not be exactly what the Uma camp desires. The antipathy between the Scindia and the sadhvi is no secret and Uma would prefer that Yashodhara doesn’t have a role at all in the state. And as Thakre commands more of the spotlight, there is worry over the influence he may have over distribution of tickets as well. But with the genie well and truly out of the bottle, no one in the BJP or the RSS, including Uma, finds they can tell Thakre what he should or should not do.
