Dhankar's Exit Leaves a Chequered Legacy Behind, Signals Trouble for BJP Ahead

The irony is, Dhankhar seems to have been eased out by the very dispensation he often broke convention to please.

He has a contentious record as Vice President. In three years, he repeatedly broke with convention to make political statements and speeches not expected of a constitutional authority.

(Photo: Vibhishita Singh/The Quint)

Former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar will be remembered as much for the controversial manner of his exit from the second-highest post of the country as for his tumultuous three years as ex-officio chairperson of the Rajya Sabha.

His truncated five-year tenure was marred by frequent clashes with the Opposition in the Upper House of Parliament, and a penchant for setting off political storms by wading into issues beyond the domain of a constitutional authority.

The irony is that Dhankhar seems to have been eased out by the very dispensation he frequently broke convention to please—first as governor of West Bengal and then as Vice President of India, responsible for steering the Rajya Sabha.

From Political Foe to Political Ally

It is doubly ironic that after his resignation, the Opposition suddenly found merit in the former Vice President after three years of deriding him for being partisan and pushing the Modi government’s agenda.

The Congress, which had led an unsuccessful move to impeach him last December (the first-ever such motion against a Vice President), even requested Dhankhar to reconsider his resignation, with party media chief Jairam Ramesh praising him on X for trying to "accommodate" the Opposition to the extent possible under what he termed "the current G2 ruling regime." Truly a case of the enemy’s enemy is a friend.

Speculation has been swirling about the reasons for Dhankhar’s unexpected exit. However, the events that preceded the 9 pm announcement of resignation suggest that something was amiss even before the monsoon session began on 21 July. Indeed, the signs had been in the offing.

The first hint of tension between the VP and the Modi government came when union health minister JP Nadda, who is also BJP president and leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, surprised everyone by seemingly assuming functions that are supposed to be the prerogative of the chairperson. Although Dhankhar was the sitting Chair, it was Nadda who instructed the RS staff to only record what he said, not the Opposition’s interruptions.

Unusual Concessions to the Opposition

In another telling indication of simmering discord, Dhankhar showed unusual generosity to the Opposition by allowing Congress president Mallikarjuna Kharge to speak at length on Operation Sindoor.

Rajya Sabha MPs now admit that they failed to read the signs, although it was a significant departure from past practice for a Chairperson who had made a habit of silencing the Opposition at every juncture. 

Later that afternoon, Nadda and Union Parliamentary Affairs minister Kiren Rijiju absented themselves, apparently without prior intimation, from a business advisory committee meeting. Dhankhar and Opposition leaders waited for over an hour, but there was no word from the ministers.

It was a crucial meeting as Dhankhar was expected to make an announcement on the sensitive issue of pending impeachment motions against two High Court judges—Justice Yashwant Verma (accused in a corruption scandal) and Justice Shekhar Yadav (accused of delivering a hate speech at a function in Uttar Pradesh).

A Late-Night Resignation That Shocked Delhi

Despite the obvious snub, Dhankhar did not seem fazed. He postponed the BAC meeting to the next day and, after an amiable cup of tea, everyone dispersed.

Consequently, the 9 pm announcement of resignation, supposedly on health grounds, was nothing short of a bombshell and sent shockwaves through the political class. Only two Vice Presidents have resigned before completing their term in the past 75 years—VV Giri and the other was RV Venkatraman. The difference is that both quit to contest and win a presidential election.

Perhaps Dhankhar himself will clear the mystery surrounding his abrupt departure, much like another controversial constitutional figure, former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Satya Pal Malik.

In a series of post-resignation interviews that got more and more candid as his frustration grew, Malik proved to be a huge embarrassment for the Modi government. He talked of corruption scams in J&K and blamed the 2019 Pulwama terror attack on intelligence failures, claiming he was instructed to stay silent.

Will Dhankhar Follow the Malik Playbook? 

It remains to be seen whether Dhankhar will go the Malik way. There is some commonality between the two. Both are not from RSS or BJP stock and therefore, not entirely trusted within the Sangh parivar.

They were part of the JP anti-Emergency movement and then wound their way to the Janata Dal. They moved to the BJP only after 2014, when Narendra Modi swept to power to form the first saffron government at the Centre. At it happens, both also belong to the Jat community and see themselves as kisan leaders.

While Malik was unable to damage Modi despite the serious nature of his charges, the Dhankhar drama unfolds at a particularly sensitive time for the government. It is on the backfoot on Operation Sindoor and its disruptive fallout on India’s global standing.

With US President Donald Trump regularly embarrassing the Modi government about forcing an India-Pakistan ceasefire after Operation Sindoor amid reports of mounting US pressure for a favourable trade deal, challenges on the domestic, security, and foreign policy front are mounting. Loquacious revelations from Dhankhar will only hurt the government further. 

A Career Marked by Confrontation and Controversy

The question now is: how does Dhankhar want history to remember him?

He has a contentious record as Vice President. In three years, he repeatedly broke with convention to make political statements and speeches not expected of a constitutional authority. He had several run-ins with the judiciary which he accused of acting as a "super Parliament."

He strongly backed the BJP push for a National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, which the Supreme Court had nullified in 2015. He waded into the RSS-stoked controversy to delete the words "secular" and "socialist’’ from the preamble, saying the words violate the principles of sanatan. He shocked the political class by heaping praises on the RSS at a public function. This is just a short list, because Dhankhar seemed to court controversy rather regularly.

However, it was the manner in which he conducted the Rajya Sabha that drew the sharpest criticism, with Opposition leaders accusing him of blatantly partisan behaviour. One of his most unseemly clashes was with Samajwadi Party leader Jaya Bachchan, who bluntly told him that his tone was "unacceptable’’ and demanded an apology from him there and then. Of course, he didn’t oblige.

The biggest flashpoint occurred in 2013, when he suspended as many as 146 Opposition MPs of the RajyaSabha. No chairperson has ever ordered mass suspension on this scale.

Dhankhar leaves behind a chequered legacy. But more than the man, it is the institution he represented as Vice President that has taken a severe blow. His exit, seemingly at the behest of the ruling dispensation, has made a constitutional post almost an extension of the ruling party, giving a political hue it should not have.   

(Arati R Jerath is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @AratiJ. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)