New Delhi: In an outspoken interview Uma Bharati, who broke with the BJP in 2004-05 and now leads her own Bhartiya Janshkati Party, has described herself as the most credible politician in India today.
Giving her first interview after a self-imposed nine months silence, Bharati repeatedly said she was more credible than other politicians.
“I am more credible than anybody in Indian politics,” said Bharati.
Uma Bharati: I can say I am more credible than anybody in Indian politics right now.
Karan Thapar: You mean you are the most credible politician in India today?
Uma Bharati: Yes
Karan Thapar: You mean that?
Uma Bharati: Yes
Karan Thapar: That’s not an exaggeration?
Uma Bharati: No
Despite her party had badly lost three bye-elections in her own state Madhya Pradesh last year, Bharati sounds confident and insisted that credibility is not judged by votes but by ideology.
“Credibility cannot be counted by votes. It can (only) be counted by ideology. If you comprise on ideology then you lose your credibility. I’m saying that if in eight months I’ve come even fourth or fifth in Madhya Pradesh, where there is a no third party except BJP or Congress, for that you must appreciate me,” said Bharati.
Referring to her Janshakti Party as “a nine-month-old baby”, Uma Bharati said, at the general elections of 2009 her party would win 50 seats in the Lok Sabha.
“My party is a nine-month-old baby. Give me three years. Talking about the relevance of Janshakti, talking about the credibility of Janshakti is highly unjustified because a nine month old baby cannot be compared to a party of a hundred years or fifty years,” said Bharati.
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Uma Bharati also sounds optimistic about the future of her party and insists that by 2015 it would form a government by itself at the centre and the prime minister would be from the Janshakti party.
She also claimed that at that time (2015), 90 per cent of the BJP would have switched sides to join her party.
On the issue of becoming prime minister, Bharati said, “I can’t say. I don’t know who will be prime minister … (but) Janshakti will be spread to the level that we will be able to make the government at the centre and Janshakti will have its own prime minister in the country.”
However Uma Bharati said that in the meantime she was not worried about the fact that her party might not win many seats in the Punjab and Uttarakhand elections.
When confronted on the issue of her seriousness in politics and questioned whether her eighteen candidates in Punjab and thirty six in Uttarakhand were simply intended as spoilers and therefore her real role in politics was not that of a serious politician but that of a spoiler, she replied, “How do you begin? BJP used to lose its deposit in the Jan Sangh days for thirty years. This is how you begin. Jan Sangh and BJP used to lose their deposit for almost thirty years. So when we’re fighting in Punjab and Uttarakhand I (also) don’t claim we’re going to win all the seats.”
She also added that the BJP would lose in Punjab and Uttarakhand not because of her party’s presence but, as she put it, because of “the sins of the BJP. The ill doings of the BJP are going to defeat it. BJP is not saffron. BJP is green. BJP is totally coloured with Jinnah’s colour.”
Speaking about Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, Uma Bharati on the one hand said “I love them like my father” but then also asserted that they are “in the grip of power brokers”.
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She went on to compare them to widowed aunts whose feet everybody touches but whose advice nobody listens to.
“Everybody touches their feet but nobody listens to them. I love them, I respect them, but this is reality. I love them like my father but they’re in the grip of power brokers and they’ve been in the grip of power brokers since 2002. (Also) I feel so sorry for those ladies who live in their old age as widows in their parents home and everybody touches their feet but nobody listens to them. Right now this is the condition of Atalji and Advaniji. Nobody listens to them,” said Bharati.
When confronted about how “appropriate and fitting” for her to make such personal comments about Advani and Vajpayee, Uma Bharati insisted that her remarks were not personal but factual and political and then went on to take a swipe at the late Pramod Mahajan, a former colleague and former General Secretary of the BJP.
“This is not a personal remark. They (Advani and Vajpayee) are in the grip of power brokers. What’s personal in that? It’s a political remark. Comparing Sonia Gandhi with Monica Lewinsky is a personal remark. That was a personal remark made by our venerable General Secretary. Making fun of Sushma Swaraj is a personal remark,” said Bharati.
On the November 2004 incident, when she stormed out of a BJP General Secretaries meeting, Bharati claimed it was “God’s design” and “divine intervention”.
“It was God’s design that I have to be out from the party. The ideology of Hindutva was badly damaged and bruised, abused and misused by the BJP. Somebody had to protect it. So God designed this. I believe in this. It’s a divine intervention,” she said.
When asked if her behaviour in November 2004, when she stormed out of the meeting, was immature and had damaged her image Bharati instead accused Lal Krishna Advani of immaturity.
“I think the immature behaviour was on the part of Advani. Advani should have taken care of the fact that he was condemning me for speaking against a colleague in media but he was doing the same thing (too). He was speaking against me in the media (as well). So he was not practising what he was preaching,” said Bharati.
When asked if a volatile individual like her, given to extremes of emotion and behaviour, was the right sort of person to be in politics, Uma Bharati replied, “I’m a very nice person, a very soft-hearted person. The only thing is I speak my heart out. I know my faults. I’m not a God, I’m a human being. My drawbacks are I’m emotional, I speak very fast and I don’t pause.”
The Devil’s Advocate interview with Uma Bharati will be broadcasted on Sunday, February 11 at 8:30 pm on CNN-IBN.
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