EDITORIAL

BJP Sinks To A Deeper Crisis

THE BJP is, indeed, in a serious crisis. As we go to press, Uma Bharti has been suspended from the primary membership of the party for a second time in a span of one year. Even before the “feel good” euphoria of the Bihar  election results could settle, a deep cleavage developed in the BJP’s ranks in Madhya Pradesh.  Angered at not been reinstated as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, (she was forced to step down following being chargesheeted for her forcible entry into the Idgah Maidan in Hubli. Even when her name was cleared, the central leadership of the party refused to allow her back to the post) Uma Bharti along with her supporters indulged in “militant protest” at the party headquarters in Bhopal. 

This incident comes while the uncertainty over the continuation of L K Advani as the BJP president continues.  Ticked off by the RSS for not maintaining “ideological  purity” Advani has announced that he will quit in December. Only time will tell whether this will happen. 

While all these may appear to be factional fights surrounding personalities in a party that has not been able to come to terms with its electoral defeat, these developments, in effect, are a veil that masks a deeper  crisis. Since their electoral debacle in the 2004 general elections, the RSS/BJP has been completely at a loss to identify issues on the basis of which they can mobilise mass support.  Their communal agenda, mercifully, did not find a resonance amongst the people, the way they had expected.  Following their victories earlier in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which focussed on the issues of  bijli, sadak and paani (BSP), they sought to appropriate the development agenda and coined the bombastic  slogans of `India shining’ and `feel good’ factor.  Such was the vast disconnect between these slogans and the actual deteriorating living conditions of the mass of the people that these boomeranged with a vengeance in the general elections.  Even in Madhya Pradesh, having won the elections on BSP, within two years, the BJP had to install the third chief minister!  This is a new record of sorts.

All these clearly point to a serious internal crisis within the RSS/BJP.  Uma Bharti declares that she is the “original BJP” who is being ousted by impostors!  The RSS considers the present central leadership of the BJP as one that is diluting its ideology. The BJP rank and file in the meanwhile,  feeling vacuous with the loss of perks of office, are in a disarray, to say the least. 

In  a sense these developments auger well for the maturation of Indian polity.  The BJP’s ideological persuasions of a fascistic rabidly intolerant “Hindu Rashtra” is totally antithetical  to modern Indian secular democratic constitutional republic. Given this, the current turmoil within the RSS/BJP is a reflection of the mass of the Indian peoples’ desire to jettison the pernicious communal ideology and agenda.  This can only be better for India, i.e., Bharat.