The BJP’s losses in the recent Bankipur and Datia bypolls carried several messages, but the most significant warning for the world’s largest and perhaps richest political party was the vulnerability of its famed organisation, widely regarded as its guarantee against electoral defeat. By-elections are not always a harbinger of broader political trends in a state, but their outcomes cannot be brushed aside insouciantly.
The setback in Bihar’s Bankipur, which lies in Patna West, was more galling to the BJP because it retained this seat in good and bad times for over 30 years. It was a family borough of the Sinhas, who are Kayasthas in a constituency dominated by the community. The last election was won by BJP president Nitin Nabin, who vacated Bankipur on being nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Nabin inherited the seat from his father, Kishore Prasad Sinha, in 2010. A reversal of this magnitude could erode Nabin’s authority, if he is allowed to exercise it in the present regime.
The verdicts delivered in Bankipur and Datia, won thrice by the BJP (2008, 2013 and 2018), were the result of a botch-up in candidate selection and, in Datia, the bruised ego of Narottam Mishra, the former legislator, who is said to harbour ambitions of becoming chief minister. Mishra was denied a ticket, triggering uproarious protests from his supporters against the BJP’s central bosses, which is unthinkable in a hermetically sealed organisation intolerant of dissent. He wept publicly, and local lore has it that the tears sealed the BJP’s fate in a sure-fire seat.
In Bankipur, too, a person close to Nabin was first chosen with fanfare, but once the allegation that he was a beneficiary of the ‘fodder scam’ gained ground, the former candidate was dropped for someone picked by the central command. The episode is a telling reflection of the BJP chief’s lack of judgement: he went for someone embroiled in a scam whose central protagonist was former CM Lalu Prasad. The BJP’s political capital in Bihar was primarily based on its campaign on the ‘charaghotala’. It is likely that Nabin, barely known outside Bihar until the other day, will have no say in candidate selection for the impending elections.
However, the perception—mainly created by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, his chief political strategist—of the BJP organisation being foolproof and impermeable is a quasi-myth. Ironically in the nineties, Gujarat was the first to bust the illusion. The BJP split into two factions and the dissenters, led by veteran Shankersinh Vaghela, asked for incumbent CM Keshubhai Patel’s head. Modi organised the street protests against Vaghela, who was branded a “renegade”. In the end, Vaghela lost. In Uttar Pradesh, prized by the BJP for its electoral dominance in the Lok Sabha, the BJP was always torn asunder by caste, leading to conflicts between upper castes and other backward classes for control and supremacy.
Even today, in an era of centralised control, the organisation is subject to stress because, come what may, parallel power centres emerge after a point. Take the states headed for elections. In Punjab, which the BJP once ruled with a bigger ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), an organisational shuffle recently forced a spate of resignations and open dissent. The BJP leadership was accused of ignoring grassroots workers, integral to the party’s governing system. Seniors, who had kept the BJP afloat in Punjab where the party does not have high stakes except in conjunction with the SAD, were cast aside for “imports” from the Congress, SAD and Aam Aadmi Party. The influx of fair-weather friends happened after Shah, euphoric after the West Bengal victory, declared that Punjab was high on the BJP’s agenda and claimed it would form the government in 2027.
West Bengal has coined a phrase to describe the import-versus-original syndrome: “Trinamoolisation of BJP”. Not content with sweeping the Assembly election nearly three months ago, the BJP stamped the seal of its supremacy by coveting a chunk of the elected legislators from the Trinamool Congress. Later, it made off with TMC MPs from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha ostensibly to shore up its numerical and Bench strengths. But the upshot of the audacious move was that allegations of extortion, corruption and attacks were levelled against the defectors, for which the BJP resorted to suspensions and show-cause notices. Old-timers such as Dilip Ghosh, now a minister in Suvendu Adhikari’s cabinet, disapproved of the inductions but were unusually circumspect. “The BJP is a national party, and we will accept our high command’s orders. But they, too, are aware of the situation at the grassroots level,” Ghosh was quoted as saying. Old habits die hard and whether the ‘original’ BJP approves or not, the syndicates and protection rackets patronised by the ‘dadas’ will thrive.
In UP, a BJP-ruled state that it cannot afford to lose, it is an open secret that relations between Delhi’s top bosses and CM Yogi Adityanath are strained. Now and then a flashpoint arises over the induction of ministers and appointment of apparatchiks, but Delhi gets its way.
The latest thorn in Adityanath’s flesh was Governor Anandiben Patel. Addressing a convocation ceremony at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University this week, the governor questioned the quality of infrastructure, catering and hostel arrangements on the campus, triggering speculation about what prompted her to make such remarks in the CM’s home city. Patel even pulled up local officials. Would the stressed Delhi-Lucknow equation impact electoral preparations in a battle that the BJP still believes is a breeze?
Not the least of the BJP’s preoccupations is the challenge from demography, from restless young women and men who are blunt, irreverent, aware and increasingly impatient with the party’s government for allegedly reneging on promises made and unmade over 12 years.
The RSS, though not as vocal and critical as its spearheads were in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s time, is now trying to play the part of a countervailing force. Whether its attempts to fix a moral compass on events, towards which the BJP remains blasé, carry credibility remains to be seen. This week, Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat engaged with young people in Mumbai and validated protests as a legitimate form of democratic dialogue and disapproved of stigmatising protestors as “anti-national”.
It is possible that Bhagwat’s statements were based on inputs garnered from his myriad young swayamsevaks. The BJP, by contrast, paid no heed until the crowds at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar became too humongous and charged for comfort.
Radhika Ramaseshan | Columnist and political commentator
(Views are personal)
