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| Let not 'India shining' repeat | | | Kg Suresh
The BJP is placed comfortably ahead in the various opinion polls that have been conducted in recent months. Narendra Modi is seen to be powering the party to power. Yet, all the good work can go waste if complacency sets in now.
A retired senior bureaucrat and a vocal supporter of the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, who stays in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi, could not get himself, his family members and personal staff enlisted in the electoral rolls, and, therefore, approached the local party MLA and corporator - who did nothing.
In East Delhi, where relative new- comer Mahesh Giri of the BJP is pitted against sitting MP Sandeep Dikshit of the Congress, volunteers of yoga guru Baba Ramdev and the Art of Living are engaged in a door to door campaign canvassing support for the BJP candidate, but the party cadres are conspicuous by their absence.
In South and North-East Delhi, many party leaders, who are miffed over the ticket allocation, are certainly not working for the victory of the BJP candidates. Some activists of the nominated candidates are apprehending sabotage.
All these instances in the national capital itself raise some fundamental questions. Has Mr Modi been left to fend for himself, deliberately or otherwise? Is author Madhu Kishwar right when she talks about a 160-plus club in Delhi not keen to see Mr Modi in office? Or is it pure and simple over-confidence in the Modi magic which makes the party cadres think that their prime ministerial candidate's name alone will sail them through? Is it that Mr Modi is now beyond the party and that the election on the ground is fought by both cadres of the RSS and its affiliated units and organisations of spiritual gurus who are working overtime to ensure his elevation to the top job? In fact, one finds on the ground a large number of volunteers, both from within the country and those of Indian origin from the West and other countries, who are working on their own for Mr Modi's victory. Groups such as Youth 4 Democracy are using the internet to the hilt to create a wave in favour of the Gujarat Chief Minister, uploading songs, films and what not. It is as if the party is just one of the cogs in the wheel.
The over-confidence on the part of party cadres and leaders reminds one of the 2004 polls post the India-Shining campaign. The BJP workers and leaders had started blindly believing in a hype they had created. They relied on the Vajpayee magic and sat at home.
Long ago, a Congress leader had opined that the BJP is its own worst enemy, and it suffers from a suicidal tendency and really works hard to defeat itself. The saffron party appears to be doing the same today.
As the campaign peaks, the party is hogging the headlines for the wrong reasons. All the momentum it had gained during Mr Modi's initial carpet-bombing campaign across the country seems to have come to a grinding halt, thanks to the internal differences within the party and the NDA, which have become the staple diet for news channels these days.
First it was the turn of party veteran LK Advani. After attending a vigilance committee meeting in his Gandhinagar constituency, he expressed a desire to re-contest the polls from the Gujarat capital amidst rumours of a plan to relocate all the elders in the party to the Rajya Sabha. Subsequently, he made a U-turn, preferring Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh ruled by his protégé Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Instead of choosing a party forum to air his grouse, the octogenarian made a public spectacle - boycotting the CEC meeting and sitting at home. On expected lines, senior leaders made a beeline to his residence to pacify him and bring him around. Very naturally, the opponents of the party too jumped into the fray. The Congress, which had notoriously treated both its former president Sitaram Kesri and former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and had always attacked Mr Advani as the architect of the Ram Temple movement, suddenly became concerned over the status of senior leaders in the BJP. Like a jilted lover always awaiting an opportunity to hit back at a former love, the JD(U) too sprang to Mr Advani's defence. Amidst all this turning into a media circus, the former Deputy Prime Minister quietly agreed to contest from Gandhinagar. Couldn't this have been done behind the curtains if the party's interests were paramount?
Then came the turn of another veteran Jaswant Singh, who insisted on having Barmer as his choice, conveniently forgetting that not long ago he along with his mentor, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, had queered the pitch for incumbent Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje in the Assembly poll. She has just paid back in kind. That's what politics is all about. Suddenly, questions were raised about the 'real' and the 'fake' BJP. The subsequent events led to the expulsion of the stalwart.
It is but natural for the public at large to question the ideological commitment of these veterans, their discipline and credibility itself when they raise fundamental questions only when they are denied any post or party ticket? Isn't it time to move on and let go? Aren't they guilty of raising individual ambitions above party, a charge they often level against Mr Modi.
Another interesting episode was the certificate on oratory from sannyasin-turned-politician Uma Bharti. Undoubtedly, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been one of the best political orators post-independence, but a public comparison between Mr Vajpayee Mr Modi was unwarranted.
Ostracised by his own community and facing threats from extremists, Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has stood by the BJP even during the tumultuous Ram Janambhoomi movement. Yet, when it came to inducting Mr Sabir Ali, who had been a vehement opponent of Mr Modi and the BJP till the other day, it was important that a loyalist such as Mr Naqvi should have been taken into confidence. There was no point blaming Mr Naqvi for the tweet when internal democracy has become like the proverbial elephant's tusk, only meant to be displayed.
Facing flak for projecting personality over issues, the BJP should have been the first to release its poll manifesto to facilitate a healthy debate with its ideological/political rivals ahead of the election. Yet, it has chosen to do so on the day of the first phase of polling, triggering speculations of a wide rift within.Taking advantages of the faultlines, the party's strongest ally, the Shiv Sena, took potshots at the BJP, apparently miffed by Mr Nitin Gadkari's proximity to MNS Chief Raj Thackeray.
The law of physics is very clear. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The BJP cannot blame either its opponents or the media for the present mess it finds itself in. The party is paying for its own acts of omission and commission, and with interest. All of Mr Modi's efforts to restore the BJP's image as a party with a difference can come to a naught. It's still not too late. The elections are just beginning. The party's leaders must overcome the Lemmings syndrome if the BJP intends to win the popular mandate.
(The author is a senior journalist based in Delhi) |
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