Why BJP was not shocked when Dhankhar quit

On July 20, a day before Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned, his official residence in Lutyens Delhi — the plush Vice-President’s Enclave — was brimming with hopeful energy.

Sudesh Dhankhar, his wife, had turned 69 and was hosting the vice-presidential and Rajya Sabha secretariat staff for lunch. It just took the next few hours for mirth to morph into strain.

By 9.29 pm on July 21, Dhankhar, also Rajya Sabha chairman, had resigned from the position of India’s 14th Vice-President, stunning the world of politics and the media alike.

Only one entity was not shocked – the ruling BJP. Its leaders wore a quiet calm and appeared in control, almost as if the shock resignation was an expected outcome of political maneuvers the party had made in the hours preceding the result. That the V-P had been forced into quitting was clear, his exit looking imminent after the acceptance in Rajya Sabha of a solely opposition-backed motion to remove Justice Yashwant Varma, embroiled in the cash discovery row.

In no mood to let the Opposition take the lead in questioning corruption in higher judiciary, an embarrassed government, which was hoping to pilot its bipartisan motion on the issue in the Lok Sabha, created a situation wherein Dhankhar’s continuation in office became untenable. There was a strong buzz of BJP MPs signing an unnamed motion which some interpreted as a motion of no confidence against the V-P, who had in December last faced a similar move from the Opposition side (the only Vice-President to face a no confidence move).

Now gone, Dhankhar leaves in his wake a string of unanswered questions. Grapevine is – this was long coming. In retrospect, the loudest first hit of the gradual souring of government-Dhankhar ties came in April when the ex-V-P did not get a meeting with his visiting American counterpart JD Vance. Call ons at VP Enclave had long been curtailed, as also Dhankhar’s foreign visits. Sources say the ex-V-P was extremely demanding of protocols and even made it known.

In May he had publicly described himself as a “sufferer of protocol lapses”, irking the government by open signalling of tensions. During a recent visit to Himachal, he is learnt to have publicly flagged the presence of President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pictures on the walls of the venue and absence of his own.

His several public statements against the higher judiciary made matters worse and were seen as clear breaches of the remit of a high ceremonial office. Sources say he was warned about his utterances but did not take the point. Of late, Dhankhar’s serial questioning of a missing FIR in the Justice Varma matter – a query directed at the Delhi Police which comes under the powerful Amit Shah-led Home Ministry – followed by his July 21 of accepting an Opposition motion against the judge — was the evident last straw.

The distrust around the ex-V-P’s perceived unilateral ways far outweighed his strong and open support for multiple government positions — from NJAC to One Nation One Election and more. His past as someone who switched camps easily also weighed in.

Originally the acolyte of late deputy PM Devi Lal (Dhankhar won the Jhunjhunu Lok Sabha seat in 1989 on a Janata Dal ticket), he went on to support Chandra Shekhar after the VP Singh government fell. Then he joined the Congress and in 2003 the BJP.

Political prominence, however, eluded the Supreme Court lawyer for years until 2019 when he was sent as a Governor to West Bengal, where he picked up frequent cudgels with CM Mamata Banerjee. Dhankhar’s governorship continues to be attributed to the backing of the BJP’s mothership, the RSS. Some insiders even link his rise to the country’s second highest constitutional position to the Sangh’s support and recall Dhankhar’s generous praise of the RSS in Rajya Sabha last July.

“RSS has unimpeachable credentials and it is unconstitutional to suggest that its members did not participate in India’s growth story,” the former RS chairman had said much to the Opposition’s chagrin.

Be that as it may, Dhankhar’s exit has lessons for all players in the act. The BJP will now think twice before trusting a rank outsider with a position of power.

The former V-P will spend time grasping the impermanence of fame and dangers of ambition. And many of us will continue to wonder whether his unceremonious exit diminished the institution of the Vice-President and what really caused him to go. Surely not “poor health” as cited. The 74 year old, until 9.25 pm on Monday, looked in fine fettle.

Delhi