EDITORIAL

 Internecine Quarrels In The BJP

EVER since its defeat in the 2004 general elections, the BJP has not been able to either understand the implications of the people’s mandate or to accept it. This is naturally leading to a situation where the inner-party wranglings are assuming unsavoury proportions. 

Its behaviour in the recent weeks has clearly revealed that it has absolutely no issues that relate to people’s concerns as its agenda. In its desperation to fall back on the hardcore `Hindutva’ agenda, the BJP has tried to garner people’s support in the run-up to the Maharashtra assembly elections by raking up protests on the Savarkar issue, the tiranga yatra  and the so-called movement for the destruction of the tomb of Afzal Khan in Satara.

All these issues have failed to evoke anything more than a lukewarm response from the people. This, in turn, is contributing to the factional fights and personality clashes within the BJP.

Through these columns in the past, we had stated that the only cohesive factor that kept the BJP-led NDA together was the lust for power and the eagerness to share the spoils of office.  Ideologically and on the basis of principles, the NDA partners had very little to do with the BJP.

This appears to be as true for the BJP itself. Once out of power, the string of second rank leaders who have sprung through the sharing of the spoils of office are vying with each other to assert themselves.  So miffed was Uma Bharati with what she perceived as the BJP high command’s lack of support to her tiranga yatra that she declared to take political sanyas.  This is, probably, the first time one has heard of a sanyasin declaring sanyas!

Fearing that Uma Bharati would  steal the limelight, Sushma Swaraj, who had once thundered that she would  shave her hair if Sonia Gandhi became the prime minister embarked on a dharna at the cellular jail in the Andamans ostensibly to restore Savarkar his rightful place in history.  125 BJP members of Parliament along with a host of MLAs and Ministers from the states  accompanied her.  All these have happened in the midst of Uma Bharati’s tiranga yatra.  Naturally, this struggle for oneupmanship sent the BJP leadership in a tizzy with various leaders ranging themselves on either side.

Through all these, the BJP president Venkaiah Naidu sandwiched, as he always was, between the vikas purush and the loh purush appeared exasperating. 

What shape this struggle will take place, only the time will tell. But in the meanwhile, the people of the country heave a sigh of relief that they are  spared the agony of being ruled by such a set of individuals.  The country has paid a heavy price for the  institutionalisation of communalism that has been done under the BJP-led NDA rule.  The plight of the people worsened by the day, thanks to the economic policies.  Political morality stooped to a new nadir.

While the BJP may continue with its infightings and wranglings, the  time has come to correct these distortions that have crept in during the  BJP’s rule and address the urgent issues facing the people and the country.  That is the agenda that the present UPA government must pursue relentlessly.