Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar's resignation on Monday last has caught the nation by surprise. During the day, he presided over the Rajya Sabha on the inaugural day of its monsoon session. His office had issued a Press note listing his schedule for the next few days, including a visit to Jaipur in his home state of Rajasthan.

Later in the evening, he met the President, Droupadi Murmu, and submitted his resignation letter. The letter said, "To prioritise health care and abide by medical advice, I hereby resign as Vice-President of India, effective immediately, in accordance with Article 67(a) of the Constitution."

The resignation was accepted immediately, and he went back to his status as a humble citizen of India. There should have been a flurry of activity, like ministers calling on him to inquire about his health and wish him good health. As is the practice now, the ruling party should have organised prayer meetings and pujas to wish him well.

Nothing of the sort happened. Because they all knew that health was not the issue that forced him to resign, though he had a few days of stay at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences following a cardiac complaint. Nonetheless, he was as fit as a fiddle.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not address a press conference, but he is always quick in using social media to express himself. He even tweets such profound ennobling thoughts as contained in this one: "Art can't have any restrictions or limits." When the Vice-President of India resigned, he waited for nearly a day to respond. And what a response it was!

Modi wrote, "Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar Ji has got many opportunities to serve our country in various capacities, including as the Vice-President of India. Wishing him good health." There was no warmth, no feeling or concern in his words. In fact, it was a reminder to Dhankhar that it was he who gave him "such opportunities."

There was no farewell for Dhankhar, either. In a way, it was good for him that he did not have to undergo further humiliation. Why I say this is because I watched the proceedings on television of the farewell given to Vice-President Hamid Ansari. In his speech, Modi virtually ridiculed him, making oblique references to his tendency to mention words like "Secularism" and "the Constitution."

Modi also said that he would now have all the time in the world to do whatever he was interested in. The ever-decorous, ever-courteous Ansari ignored the barbs and delivered a true thank-you address to the nation.

It is not often that a Vice-President resigns. So far, only two Vice-Presidents have resigned. They are VV Giri and R Venkataraman, but they did not resign on health grounds, but to contest for the post of President. Once, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi included AB Vajpayee in an official delegation to enable him to avail of the best medical services available in the US.

As Vice-President, Dhankhar would have received the best medical care. This proves that the health grounds he mentioned in his resignation letter were just a ruse. Having said all this, few people have sympathy for Dhankhar — which I will explain summarily. There is a popular idiom in the English language: "more loyal than the King."

The idiom means, "someone is overly zealous in their loyalty, often to the point of being excessively eager to please or obey, sometimes even more so than what is appropriate or necessary." This comes to my mind whenever I read about him or see him on television. He is not a dyed-in-the-wool kind of a BJP leader. In fact, he is a party hopper.

Dhankhar started his political career in the Janata Dal, then shifted to the Congress, only to arrive finally in the Bharatiya Janata Party. Ask him about this, and he would tell you that the greatest Briton ever, Sir Winston Churchill, was also a party hopper who donned the hat of a Conservative before shifting to Liberal and returning to Conservative.

He is a Rajasthani, but blue-blooded Rajasthanis do not consider him so, as he was born in a place near the Rajasthan-Haryana border. They say, rightly or wrongly, that he is more Haryanvi than Rajasthani. They also refer to his caste identity in this regard, which is tantamount to hitting below the belt.

Senior journalists covering the Rajasthan Assembly proceedings would remember him breaking down in the House, with copious tears falling from his eyes. They linked the incident to a bereavement he suffered a few days earlier. If anything, it showed that he was an emotional person. He had a similar breakdown when he visited some victims of poll violence in West Bengal.

He was an MLA, MP and minister in the short-lived Chandra Shekhar ministry. Nobody remembers any particular Bill he piloted or an idea he promoted during that period.

Dhankhar caught the attention of the country when he pleaded for film star Salman Khan, who was jailed in Jodhpur in the blackbuck killing case. The charge against him was that while shooting in Rajasthan, he killed a blackbuck, declared an endangered species, and handed it over to the hotel where he stayed to cook and serve it to fellow actors like Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Neelam, and Tabu.

While they were all acquitted, Salman Khan was found guilty. Thanks to Dhankhar's brilliant intervention in the Jodhpur bench of the Rajasthan High Court, he was released on bail. Dhankhar knew how to cash in on his victory. A photograph of him greeting Khan appeared in the press. More than the money he received for the services rendered to his client, it was the political mileage that mattered to him.

In another case related to Salman Khan, it was Harish Salve who successfully pleaded for his bail in Mumbai. Reports at that time said Salve received remuneration worth Rs 15 crore. Those who know Dhankhar say that he is a good lawyer who can prepare excellent briefs.

He played a significant role on the legal front when the Supreme Court decided to hear the case in which Hindus and Muslims staked claim to the land on which Babri Masjid stood till it was destroyed by the Hindu karsevaks in 1992. It is difficult to say that the court was convinced about the Hindu case when the judge who actually wrote the judgment sought divine guidance to write the verdict.

Anyone who reads the verdict will be convinced that the judges demolished the Hindu arguments, though they allowed the Hindus to build a magnificent temple exactly where the masjid once stood. Nonetheless, the legal team behind the victory got the credit. Dhankhar's value went up in the party.

It was no surprise that Modi chose him for the post of Governor of West Bengal. Its Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has proved herself to be a hard nut to crack even for Modi. No one knew this better than Dhankhar, who began needling her from day one. It appeared his sole job was to find fault with her and berate her in public.

Dhankhar did not confine himself to West Bengal. He travelled all over the country and criticised Banerjee. I personally thought he was characterising himself as Modi's cheerleader. This did not affect Banerjee's popularity, but his own popularity among the rank and file of the BJP went up. In the meantime, a vacancy for the post of Vice-President arose.

By then, Modi had a clear idea of Dhankhar's capabilities. He knew that his role as Vice-President was limited. In the US, it is said that it is a breath that keeps the Vice President away from the Presidency. If the President dies, the Vice President automatically becomes the President and remains so for the remainder of the period.

In India, if the President dies, the Vice-President becomes the Acting President. He remains so till a President is elected. BD Jatti was the Vice-President of India. He was twice Acting President, but he never became President. However, the Vice-President has an important role to play. He is the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament.

If Modi thought Dhankhar could be a good Vice-President, he could not be blamed. He could be expected to grasp parliamentary rules and act accordingly. Also, he had become clearly aligned with the Sangh Parivar's political ideology. He placed a safe man in the newly built Vice-President's Enclave, close to the Cathedral Church of the Redemption.

Modi's choice was not wrong. The other day, I saw a video in which Dhankhar is seen not bowing but virtually genuflecting while welcoming Modi. If he had remembered that protocol-wise, the post of Vice-President was above that of the Prime Minister, he would have held his head high while receiving Modi.

But, Modi knows the protocol better than Dhankhar. That is precisely why the Vice-President or, for that matter, the President was not invited to the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Had they accepted the invitation, the Prime Minister could not have been the chief celebrant on the occasion.

Earlier, it was for the same reason that the President and the Vice-President were not invited to the Prana Pratishtha ceremony of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. But as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, he never showed any leniency to the opposition leaders. He behaved more like a BJP leader than the Vice-President and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. One only has to see the video in which he takes on Jaya Bhaduri, a venerated member of the Rajya Sabha, to see how arrogant he was.

She did not like to be called Mrs Amitabh Bachchan, as she had a name of her own. She was there in the House, not as the wife of a film star, but a person who had proved her mettle as an actor and political leader.

It is small wonder that the opposition was compelled to move a resolution expressing a lack of confidence in his leadership. It is a different matter that the motion could not be discussed, let alone passed. There was actually no need for Dhankhar to behave in such a crass manner. The heavens would not have fallen if he had given more importance to the post he held than the need to curry favour with Modi and Company.

What seems to have brought him down is the prestige he associated with the move to impeach a judge of the Allahabad High Court. An accidental fire in his house in Lutyens' Delhi exposed stashes of cash worth several crores of rupees in a burnt and semi-burnt condition.

An inquiry ordered by the Chief Justice of India found that the judge was guilty. The court recommended suitable action against him under the Constitution. The only action possible is impeachment. The government wanted to use the opportunity to show the collegium system in a poor light. It did not want him to accept the resolution moved by the opposition MPs. When he stuck to his decision, the BJP leaders are reported to have threatened him that the party would move a no-confidence motion against him.

He saw the writing on the wall and quickly resigned. By stating health reasons, he has also foreclosed many options. It is a warning to all those aspiring to join the BJP for political benefits — that once they join, their career will be sealed forever. Where is Abdullakutty or KJ Alphons now? Jyotiraditya Scindia was a powerful person in the Congress. Today, he is just a minister who has to praise Modi all the time.

Shashi Tharoor can call himself a world citizen, attack the Congress leadership and claim that he is the best bet for chief ministership. Let him join the BJP, and he will know how he would become a non-entity. The only one who seems to be doing well is the former Congressman, now the chief minister of a Northeastern state. That is because he is now more saffron than saffron.

Dhankhar learnt his lesson. If others haven't, they will — the BJP has a way of turning stars into shadows, and loyalists into liabilities.