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BJP needs new leadership and agenda to reinvent itself |
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BJP’s worst poll debacle in decades has left the party virtually paralyzed, unable to even flap its wings out of the quagmire in which it has got stuck.
There is no doubt that the BJP has suffered a comprehensive defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. Talk by BJP leaders including L K Advani, its prime-ministerial hopeful, now reject, that the reasons for the party’s reverses in certain states have to be analyzed, seeks to gloss over the fact that it is the saffron party’s worst performance in the last quarter century. No doubt the BJP has either improved or maintained its position in three states- Chattisgarh, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh but they are in the nature of exceptions to the rule. The party has lost both in terms of popular vote and seats in most states and the country as a whole.
There has been such a big gap between the BJP’s expectations from the general elections and the actual performance that top leaders of the party have not even now got down to the task of accepting the real reasons for the voters rejecting the party - its failure to function as a constructive opposition party. It was busy during the last five years tarring all actions of the Manmohan Singh government with the same black brush rather than making a distinction between the good deeds of the government and issues on which it failed to deliver.
One of the biggest mistakes of the BJP was its blind opposition to the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Though the deal is not going to affect the lives of the people in the short run, it was rightly or wrongly perceived by them as a serious move by the Congress led UPA government to end India’s isolation in the world nuclear energy sphere. It was also thought of by the people as a move with the potential to establish a strategic partnership with the United States, the only super power in the world. This would in turn open up the prospect of India joining the league of big powers in due course of time.
The BJP’s blind opposition to the nuclear deal became even more indefensible when American interlocutors pointed out repeatedly that the BJP led NDA government was prepared to accept a deal even more demanding on India, when it was in power. Even Brajesh Mishra, National Security Advisor in the Vajpayee government, said that he thought that the deal thrashed out by the UPA government was in the national interest.
Instead of focusing on the UPA government’s programmes and policies, the BJP, through out the last five years, and especially during the Lok Sabha election campaign, sought to bring up, in one way or the other, the issue of the foreign origin of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Dr Manmohan Singh was attacked by the BJP including its top leader L.K. Advani as the ‘weakest’ Prime Minister the country ever had. But the people and voters correctly made out that the real target of the attack was Sonia Gandhi, supposedly the power behind the throne. This was not exactly appreciated by the voters as the foreign origin issue had become a non-starter after Sonia Gandhi gave up the chance to be Prime Minister of India in 2004, and instead, put her trust in Dr. Manmohan Singh.
The BJP tactic misfired and Dr. Manmohan Singh used the opportunity to devastating effect in the election campaign, when he took on Advani, with no holds barred. His remarks on Advani ‘crying in a corner’ when Babri Masjid was being demolished by Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists on Dec. 6, 1992, cut to the bone, as did Congress leaders’ attacks on the NDA government for freeing dreaded terrorists during the Kandahar hijack crisis. Significantly, it was the BJP, which had to call for truce in the battle of personalized attacks.
Can the BJP reinvent itself?
Though Advani wanted to step down as leader of the opposition after the Lok Sabha verdict came out on May 16, he has been ‘persuaded’ to stay on in the position for the time being. This is making the task of the BJP charting out a new course even more difficult. The BJP has a number of younger leaders such as Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh, who should be able to fill the void created by the departure of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishan Advani. The sooner a new leadership takes over, the better it would be for the party.
Differences within the BJP are coming to the fore on the successor to Advani and the future agenda of the party. Senior party leader Jaswant Singh’s calling for fixing accountability for the party’s defeat and tacitly opposing Advani’s continuation as leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha is a case in point.
But the BJP requires not only a new leadership but also a new agenda. Arousing passions in the name of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya has run its course and is no longer a live issue. Introduction of the common civil code and revocation of Article 370 which confers a special status on Kashmir will also not yield electoral dividends.
On the other hand, there is no dearth of issues which are crying to be taken up. Ending corruption in the body politic and in all walks of life is an issue, whose time has come. People are fed up with the system of governance that has made corruption endemic. The judicial system needs urgent reforms so that a litigant can get justice in his lifetime.
Come to think of it, building of an inclusive society brooks no further delay. Instead of focusing on only a segment of society, political parties could try to create a system, where the have-nots also have a voice and a place. The BJP can regain its nationalist agenda if it tries to reach out to all sections, because that is the only way to create a strong and resurgent India.
But will the BJP seize the opportunity. If the party gets a new and dynamic leadership prepared to break fresh ground, there would be hope for it. But if the party continues to be tied to the apron strings of the RSS, and continues to follow the agenda of the Nagpur based parent organization to the dot, the prospects of rejuvenation will not be too bright. Over the years, the RSS has been, on the surface, disassociating itself from the day-to-day functioning of the BJP, but the RSS stranglehold over its political wing is still too direct and too absolute. At the central as well as state levels, an RSS nominee is generally appointed organizing secretary, who has a powerful say in the party functioning.
In recent years, the most striking example of RSS interference in BJP’s functioning came when L.K. Advani was ousted as party president after his remarks on a Pakistan visit on that country’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s secular credentials. And a couple of years later, the RSS accepted Advani as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in the recently held Lok Sabha elections after it became clear that Rajnath Singh, the successor to Advani as party president, did not have the stature and all round support to be projected to the voters as the party’s next face.
Following the party’s poll debacle, both Advani and Rajnath Singh met RSS chief Mohanrao Bhagwat to discuss the situation. Reports emerging from the meetings are not very encouraging. There appears to be a strong section in the RSS, as also in the BJP, in favor of back-tracking to its hard line Hindutva agenda. But such elements do not realize that you cannot play the same card again and again. There would be hope for the BJP if the younger elements put their heads together and devise a new agenda for the party, which reflects what the people are looking for – an organization which can contribute to the building of an inclusive and strong India.
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