'Varun's repugnant words did BJP greatest damage'

As the BJP grapples with the growing internal chorus questioning its failed strategy in the general elections, Brajesh Mishra, former National Security Advisor and one of the closest aides of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has come out with the first categorical denunciation of Varun Gandhi's hate speech in Pilibhit saying it caused the "greatest amount of damage" to the party's electoral fortunes.

Speaking to Editor-in-Chief of 'The Indian Express' Shekhar Gupta for NDTV's Walk The Talk — to be broadcast on Saturday — Mishra said the BJP committed a mistake by not censuring Varun Gandhi's "repugnant" statements. The right course for the BJP would have been to "completely dissociate itself from him and not give him a ticket," he said. Asked how Vajpayee would have handled the situation, he said, "He may have called him and advised him. But I am sure he would not have liked it."

Although not formally associated with the BJP, Mishra was considered extremely influential in the NDA government, mainly because of his proximity to Vajpayee which he continues to enjoy to this day. Underlining that the continuance of BJP as a major political party was good for the nation, Mishra put his critique in context.

"I want the BJP to survive and thrive," he said. "This country needs the BJP. It needs two national parties. Otherwise if BJP were to, God forbid, disappear, then within four to five years, regional forces will once come to the fore and we will again be faced with very very unstable situation," he said, adding that not just the BJP but its ideological parent, the RSS, too, needed to reassess its strategies and bring moderation in the ranks.

Mishra said the BJP had come to power, with the help of allies, only by moderating its agenda and people had accepted that. He said the top leadership of the party had not moved away from that moderate agenda but in these elections, however, the impression went out — "through the voices of Varun Gandhi and Narendra Modi" — that the party stood for a very strident form of Hindutva which was exclusivist in nature.

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