Kolkata opposition rally: Why BJP leadership is paranoid

Ever since the Kolkata rally by opposition parties on January 19, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s top brass are busy complaining that opposition parties are ganging up with the sole purpose of ousting Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister himself spoke on the issue and ailing finance minister Arun Jaitley wrote a blog from a distant land––the United States of America. Amit Shah, the party president, and other central ministers took up the refrain.

The question is what is preventing the BJP from bringing together 23 political parties and hold a similar show of strength?

In 2014, the BJP too had ganged up with almost a similar number of parties against the United Progressive Alliance and subsequently won the election. In some cases, the top leadership turned a deaf ear to pleas of the party’s state-level leaders against aligning with certain parties.

In Bihar, to cite one example, Giriraj Singh, now a Union minister, and former Union minister Dr C P Thakur had openly and vehemently criticised the party’s decision to have Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party as an ally.

They publicly accused Paswan of being corrupt, casteist and one who promoted criminalisation in society. Giriraj Singh, Thakur and several other Bihar BJP leaders boycotted the Muzaffarpur rally of Narendra Modi as Paswan was to share the dais with the former.

It is another thing that after BJP’s electoral victory both Giriraj and Paswan are in the same cabinet. Moreover, when the LJP leader showed some signs of restlessness after the December 11, 2018 defeat of the BJP in three states, the entire BJP leadership worked overtime to please him and assure a Rajya Sabha berth.

LJP at least is a democratic party which had been in the National Democratic Alliance during the rule of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Paswan himself was in the cabinet then. But post-2014, the BJP joined hands with several parties in the North East which it had openly called anti-national in the past.

In Jammu and Kashmir it joined hands and shared power with Peoples Democratic Party. But after sharing power, eight months ago BJP realised that PDP had no faith in the Indian Constitution and therefore pulled out of the Mehbooba Mufti government and paved the way for Governor’s rule.

So it is not that BJP has not formed alliances with other parties.

In fact, barring a couple of parties like Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, almost all parties which had gathered in Kolkata, at one point of time or the other, had some sort of alliance with the BJP in the past.

Three of the top leaders of the BJP––Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Shatrughan Sinha––who were present on the occasion continue to be honourable members of the party and had been holding important portfolios in the Vajpayee government.

The point to ponder for the BJP is as to why it has been losing allies so regularly. Some more partners are also on the way out.

Trusted allies like Telugu Desam Party pulled out of the NDA last year. Shiv Sena, which is still in the NDA, has of late been extremely critical of the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. This is so notwithstanding the party’s ideological affinity with the Sena. The latter, along with the Shrimoni Akali Dal, have been the oldest allies of the BJP.

And yet, despite losing so many friends the BJP is not going to contest the coming election alone. It too has been ganging up against the Congress.

However, the problem with the BJP is that it cannot trust the allies who are presently with it. The BJP has reasons to fear as leaders of Janata Dal United, LJP, Apna Dal and others have been in touch with the opposition as well. That might explain BJP’s paranoia.