Sunil Gatade | Double trouble for BJP as state assembly elections approach

Instead of coming to the fore, Modi has become virtually inactive in the campaign, unlike the star campaigner who believed the world revolved around him and portrayed himself as the only leader who could show the way to the light.

Despite being experts in election campaigning, the BJP and Mr. Modi are in the dark about how to handle the elections, given the scale of the uprising witnessed so far in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir. People like Ghulam Nabi Azad, who has been drafted from the Congress, are proving to be a dead duck. Without any valuable support, Mr. Azad, who led the G-23 uprising against Rahul Gandhi, has almost closed down his business. Worse for Mr. Azad, there is no one to cry over the plight of the “Ghulam”.

It is unlikely to be any different in Maharashtra, where the policies of Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have caused much unrest in the middle-roader state. It is not that they do not work late into the night. But it is they who have created such a mess in the state, especially in the past five years, that they have lost their way.

The delay in announcing the election schedule for the prime ministerial state itself smacks of the BJP’s lack of confidence. A political observer noted with a wink that “it is just a delay of a fait accompli”. Unless a miracle happens in Maharashtra, the BJP and its allies do not have a strong position in the state. Pre-poll surveys speak of anti-incumbency that is hurting the BJP the most. The Ladki Bahin Yojana has certainly made the ruling Mahayuti a talking point. But one swallow does not make a summer.
Even the BJP’s diehard supporters in Haryana feel that the decade-long anti-incumbency and an aggressive Congress campaign are making matters more difficult by the day. People like the controversial Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has now been banned from speaking, have clouded the situation.

Vinesh Phogat, who won the hearts of 140 crore Indians at the Olympics despite being denied a medal, has become a brand ambassador for the Congress in Haryana. Unfortunately, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the alleged perpetrator of the atrocities against the women wrestlers at the Olympics, seems to be the champion of the BJP, which needs no enemies.

The BJP lost Haryana six months ago, on the day it abruptly replaced Manohar Lal Khattar as Chief Minister with Nayab Singh Saini. They replaced one ordinary leader with another. Nothing to write home about. The replacement was virtually a rooftop announcement that something is rotten in the land of Kurukshetra.

Much-publicized ED raids on people allegedly close to Bhupinder Singh Hooda have not dented his prospects of becoming the frontrunner in the CM game if the Congress returns to power. Reports say that the ED has attached assets worth Rs 834 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a case involving Mr Hooda and a developer. The Congress leader has claimed that he has nothing to do with the case.

The tragedy for the BJP is that it doesn’t need an outsider to capsize its boat. Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah have roped in scores of Congress leaders in their bold move for a “Congressionalstupid Bharat” and provided for a “Congress-Bah” BJP The saffron party has changed beyond recognition and those who came from outside are now calling the shots, complains BJP veterans.

Loyalists in the BJP, whether in Haryana or Jammu and Kashmir, do not believe that the panacea for the world’s largest party is to hand it over to former Congressmen. The voices of dissent are growing, loosening Mr. Modi’s tight grip on the organization.

The fact is that the central control by the Modi-Shah duo is killing all initiatives at the local level and creating a crisis at the central level, with the BJP falling to 240 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. This is throwing the organisation into a vortex. Mohan Bhagwat of the RSS was brought out of virtual retirement due to the poor performance of the BJP.

The absence of a full-time party president is an added concern, along with the fight for the top post. Whoever becomes the next BJP president will indicate whether the RSS is enjoying its newfound power or whether the party is still in the hands of Mr Modi. At present, Mr Bhagwat is making occasional pronouncements, but it seems that he is afraid of striking. Unless Mr Modi is told to mend his ways in the changed scenario and is forced to do the same, the slowdown will not stop.

One mitigating factor, however, seems to be Jharkhand. With the defection of former chief minister Champai Soren, the BJP is positioning itself as a formidable challenger to the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance that currently rules the state. The party already has an alliance with the AJSU.

The BJP is experiencing turbulence in key states, grappling with internal discontent and a strong opposition. The party’s future success will depend on its ability to address these issues, recalibrate its strategies and rebuild trust among its base and allies.

Mr. Modi’s cup of misery is full to the brim. No attack on Rahul Gandhi, including his speeches in the United States, seems to make a dent at the ground level. The leader of the opposition is trying to tell the world that the “Vishwa Guru” has feet of clay.

What Modi fears most is that if the BJP does poorly in the upcoming state assembly elections, the dissent will snowball into key party-ruled states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where he has installed his ‘yes-men’ who are not real leaders and have delivered little.

The twin problems facing the BJP are the result of the huge influx into the party to make it the world’s largest and the appointment of worthless cronies to crucial positions. Troubled Manipur is day in and day out showing the advantages or disadvantages of the BJP’s much-vaunted “double engine” model of governance. There can be no worse advertisement than this.