Back To Forward: Nervous BJP

In another three days the voters of the national capital, now in the throes of arguably the bitterest battle over a 70-member state Assembly, would have cast their votes. Since all electioneering must end at 5 pm on Thursday, the political warriors have only 48 hours to do whatever they can. Another three days later the votes would have been counted and the game would be up. So why write about what would be fait accompli so soon? My reply is that I haven’t the slightest interest in speculating on who would win or lose.

In any case, the bookies are betting on the Bharatiya Janata Party. But whoever you talk to in Delhi, they say that the Aam Aadmi Party would prevail. However, it is impossible not to draw attention to an extraordinary phenomenon. To put it bluntly, the BJP, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi even more than it, made history in the parliamentary elections in May last year and went on winning the subsequent state Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand.

To cap it all, they captured enough seats in the legislature of Jammu and Kashmir to be able to claim partnership in the government of this sensitive state for the first time. Indeed, a coalition government of the Valley-based People’s Democratic Party and the Jammu-based BJP is likely to be sworn in around mid-February. Against this dazzling backdrop, the saffron party should have had a walkover in the national capital because in the Lok Sabha polls it had won all of Delhi’s seven parliamentary seats, and had led in no fewer than 60 Assembly sectors.

Yet, instead of being totally confident, the ruling party at the Centre is nervous, as every newspaper has reported. Party president Amit Shah, a well-recognised electoral strategist, continues to assert that his party will win two-thirds majority, but it is visible to the naked eye how great is the uncertainty and gnawing doubt about its prospects within the BJP itself.

By an exquisite quirk of irony, the authors of the party’s misfortune are the BJP’s top leaders themselves. Whether because of overconfidence or some other reason, they decided to ignore the well-entrenched party leadership of the Union Territory of Delhi, which in the past had enjoyed some autonomy. In the Delhi Assembly polls in December 2013, Harsh Vardhan was the BJP’s chief ministerial nominee, and though the party emerged as the largest, it could not form the government because of the AAP’s spectacular debut.

The Congress, having enjoyed a comfortable majority three times running, was reduced to just eight seats and chose to support the AAP government of Arvind Kejriwal “from outside”. He, however, sprang a surprise on friends and foes alike and opted to resign in a mere 49 days. It was generally assumed that Dr Vardhan, who became health minister in Mr Modi’s government at the time of its formation, would be the BJP’s chief ministerial face whenever Assembly elections in Delhi were held next. When he was moved to a less important ministry, this impression was inevitably strengthened.

No wonder, therefore, that there was consternation and resentment among Delhi’s BJP ranks when they discovered to their dismay that not only Dr Vardhan, but most other old-timers had also been sidelined. Quite a few “new favourites”, several of them “outsiders”, had been brought in. Yet, no one in the party could dare publicly to object to the standard strategy of winning Delhi, like so many other places, through the “Modi magic”. The AAP was prompt to lampoon this by asking: “If the BJP wins the election, will Mr Modi resign as Prime Minister and take over as chief minister of Delhi?”

This did not bother the top BJP leaders in the least. At the same time they were not unaware of the ground reality that dissatisfaction and dissent was widespread and acute, not only among the BJP’s Delhi’s cadres but also state-level leaders. Election time was, of course, no time for disciplinary action. That was bound to be counter-productive. But a painful question was stalking them: “What if, by any chance, the BJP loses or the AAP is ahead of it in a hung Assembly?” That is when a sudden decision was taken that hit all concerned with the force of a bombshell.

Obviously to avoid any unacceptable embarrassment Kiran Bedi a retired police officer widely admired in Delhi for her efficient and fair service though she did have some critic even then, as also a former colleague of Mr Kejriwal in Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption movement was admitted into the BJP one late afternoon and immediately declared its chief ministerial nominee. There was a glimpse of the Congress’ modus operandi if things went right, the credit must go to the Gandhis; but if they went wrong, someone else must be in place to take the blame. Within the Delhi unit of the party there was rage.

A “rank outsider”, party members said, had been projected as the future chief minister. An unnamed “senior BJP leader” is quoted as having said: “She will last only a few months because she is not one of us.” It is nobody’s case that the BJP has always been free from dissensions or factional in-fights. In fact, in Indian politics, the basic unit is faction, not party. Just recollect what L.K. Advani did when it became clear that Mr Modi was the party’s choice as its prime ministerial nominee. But what has happened this time around is astonishing beyond words.

The BJP’s soldiers revolted and held an angry demonstration at their party’s headquarters. They also stayed away from the election campaign, with the result that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and party volunteers were mobilised from neighbouring states at the rate of about 3,000 per constituency. Is the ruling party becoming “a party with a difference” at long last?