No Centre In The BJP

Every day I get calls from people expressing concern about the once mighty Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withering away. Certainly the party has given way at the Centre. It now only survives in various forms in the states where it is in power. This week Sushma Swaraj admitted that “the BJP was going through a very bad phase” but expressed faith that they party would soon come out of it. 

Actually, the national leadership of the BJP is at sixes and sevens and has no clue what the future holds. Some paint a doomsday scenario, others blame the RSS for the paralysis, a few just get on with the day to day affairs of the party and, most disastrously, there is a group that is apparently busy making profitable deals, as long as it can. Perhaps the operators, petty favour seekers, ticket purchasers will be the last men standing in the party that once claimed to be “different”. Their stories are all pretty sordid and unprintable. 

The political reality is that if things continue as they are the brand equity would take a further beating and one should start considering the possibility of strong chief ministers forging regional parties on the ruins of the BJP. After all so many regional parties are off-shoots of the Congress during its years of decline. If the national image of the BJP takes a beating, is it so impossible to think of Narendra Modi running a successful regional outfit in Gujarat?

It certainly made sense for a politician like Modi to see the BJP as a vehicle for his national ambitions. But that moment has passed, and the national party may soon be more a liability than an asset for him. Similarly, Raman Singh in Chattisgarh is a solid politician who survives on his own merit although the base of the party there has been built brick by brick by years of work by Sangh parivar outfits. But politics is about taking things to the next level and Raman Singh has certainly managed that efficiently.

In Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan may be seen as too timid to ever consider a break from the parent organization the RSS or BJP, but given the state of affairs anything is possible. Currently, Jharkhand is the next state where the BJP is in with a good chance when the assembly elections take place in little over a month. But reports from the state suggest that there is a strong lobby in the party that is tempted to hawk and sell tickets in order to extract whatever it can from the golden goose. If that happens, the metaphorical goose will be slaughtered and no golden eggs will remain.

The bad news comes in relentlessly. Electoral disasters in Maharashtra and Haryana polls have starkly underlined the decline in the decision making and election management process in the BJP. Now the BJP government in Karnataka is being held to ransom by the infamous Bellary brothers who operate a huge mining empire spread between Congress ruled Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It’s all one big mess that is certainly not helped by the fact that the BJP is now so diminished at the centre.

Ironically, it is the Congress high command that will decide the fate of the BJP government in the critical southern state. If the Gandhis want to, they can give an indication to the Reddy brothers to pull the plug on the BJP regime in the state. But at the time of writing the Congress national leadership is also handling a tricky situation in Andhra Pradesh after YSR’s sudden death and would not want the Reddy bothers to have unchecked powers in two critical states. The fate of the Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka is therefore delicately poised.

As for the BJP, once the party figures out who the high command is, and where it is located (Delhi or Nagpur) it can perhaps also try to make a few decisions. Till then the party simply withers away.