BJP meet at Bengaluru: Personality cult or introspection to the fore?

A sentence or a phrase which can be interpreted in more than one way comes under amphibology. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is an expert at it. His comment that “You can’t always succeed all the time” at the BJP’s national executive meeting in Bengaluru sums up the entire political situation in the country in general and that of the BJP in particular. The self-imposed or enforced silence of the BJP veteran LK Advani not to speak at all at the meeting due to the alleged insistence of top honchos to scrutinise his speech may be for reasons of a new kind of political authoritarianism or generational shift. To the outsiders, it speaks volumes of the irrelevance of the old guards in the changed political context.

The meeting also glossed over the inevitability of a PDP-BJP coalition. The BJP didn’t deliberate whether the sharing of power was to consolidate its roots in the valley or to go back on its decades-old demand for the repeal of Article 370 and bury it in the sands of political opportunism. Should power sharing take precedence over ideological commitment? Why were the BJP leaders unable to explain the party’s pathetic eclipse and pitiable performance in the recently held Delhi assembly polls in the face of an incredible victory of a fledgeling party like the AAP? A humble confession to its ineptitude, over-vaulting ambition and illusions of invincibility would have gone a long way with its votaries. Arun Jaitley’s observation should come in handy now.

The common man needs to know BJP’s strategies to maintain its pro-poor and pro-farmer image in the context of the pending land acquisition law and not mere anti-Congress rhetoric. What about its assurances to the minorities when union ministers and MPs themselves create an ambience of insecurity for them? An emphatic warning by the PM Modi to certain fringe limits not to tear apart the secular fabric of India should have been issued. The PM should have reminded his ministers of the collective responsibility of the cabinet.

The BJP should not pride itself on hailing itself as the largest party in the world with 8 million plus membership As Arun Jaitley said prophetically “You can’t succeed all the time.” The voters and votaries of the BJP are now posing such questions and demanding answers. To a common man in the crowd, the heir-apparent of the Congress party Rahul Gandhi‘s protracted leave of absence during the budget session in Parliament is a non-issue It is also a trivial matter for the BJP-led NDA in the face of mounting challenges staring in its face.