Hurdles for BJP's Mission 272 : Infighting, factions, anti-Modi groups

If it’s a Gopinath Munde faction versus a Nitin Gadkari faction in Maharashtra, in Karnataka it’s BS Yeddyurappa versus Ananth Kumar. In Uttar Pradesh, while there’s wrangling between MP Murli Manohar Joshi, one of the most prominent faces of the Ayodhya campaign of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and others in the party for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, there’s also Lalji Tandon, another sitting MP, now making it amply clear that he won’t take too kindly to being asked to make way for party boss Rajnath Singh to contest from the Lucknow seat he has cultivated so carefully. These voices of dissent come close on the heels of the embarrassing protests by the Bihar unit when Ram Vilas Paswan, who had walked out of the NDA to protest Narendra Modi’s apparent role in the Gujarat violence of 2002, was welcomed back as a key ally in Bihar. [caption id=“attachment_1412497” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh. AFP.[/caption] Two months away from the election on which the BJP has expended all its energies over two years, the party’s juggernaut has run into a series of rough patches. Right from the BJP’s booth-level kaaryakarta in Maharashtra who’s upset at the sudden overtures to the Bihari-hating MNS, all the way to the very top echelons of the party where L K Advani is reported to have cautioned party bosses about the slow metamorphosis into a “ one-man party”, suddenly, the brickbats are not coming from Rahul Gandhi and the Aam Aadmi Party alone. For Tandon, vacating his seat was a supreme sacrifice to be made for Modi alone. “As I said, I will readily vacate it for Modi and I have no idea about what anybody else wants. Nobody has spoken to me yet,” he was quoted as saying. The sycophancy is out in the open, and alongside, so is the factionalism, in a party that prides itself on its discipline and organisational structure, supposed to have been starkly different from the Congress, the original home of the backscratchers and puppets. The timing of the appearance of dirty linen couldn’t have been worse – despite the clear verdict against the UPA in almost all opinion polls, the NDA needs every seat it can win and then some. Apart from Tandon and Joshi, for example, it’s well known that L K Advani wants to contest, but the BJP, and the RSS too, has been batting for a fresh, young candidates’ list. RSS Sarakaryavah Bhaiyyaji Joshi, at a press conference in Bengaluru on Sunday, said the Sangh is of the view that “new generation should get an opportunity”. How to portray a fresh face while banking upon the experience and guidance of the seniors would be the challenge in making the right choices, Joshi said. He was speaking on the concluding day of the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha. The bigger challenge, actually, is just how this message is to be conveyed to the seniors, and who will convey it. Modi’s close confidante and former deputy in Gujarat, Amit Shah is known to be spending long hours assuaging seniors’ egos in Uttar Pradesh, but the choice of candidates there will not be without protests, it is now clear. As elections draw closer, indeed, it appears the major parties are experiencing a series of shared problems. If the Congress had egg on its face after its candidate from Bhind Madhya Pradesh) quit the party and joined the BJP a day after his candidature was announced, there will be heartburn everywhere a local party member’s chance at a Lok Sabha ticket is consumed by a party-hopper – former Congress leader Jagdambika Pal, former UPA-2 minister D Purandeswari, former IAS officer Bhagirath Prasad who gave the Congress the snub in Bhind, these are all ticket aspirants, and will likely be obliged. Hardly something local cadres will be rejoicing for. It wasn’t without reason that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was cautioning the BJP’s top leaders in February: Holding power at the Centre means nothing if your own house is not in order and intra-party rivalries continue, he had said. The Indian Express reported that Bhagwat even held a meeting with Uttar Pradesh BJP state president Laxmikant Bajpai and some party MLAs, asking them to “ensure that internal differences among the party leaders do not come out” at least, until the elections. The RSS has now apparently issued the same message to BJP chief Rajnath Singh. The emergence of these minor fires across the country may be easily tackled by the senior leadership. Within sniffing distance of Delhi, Modi could play a unifying factor that mid-level party leaders and MPs are willing to put their individual cnflicts aside for. If the BJP is unable to douse these conflagrations, that would conversely say something about Modi’s power as a unifying factor. Problem is, the minor seat-level spats are not the only challenge for Modi, this close to the election. Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj open voiced her opposition to the welcoming of B Sreemulu of the BSR Congress and rebel Congress MLA Venod Sharma from Haryana into the NDA. “I am opposed to the BSR alliance or merger with BJP in Karnataka,” she tweeted. And, another tweet: “I am strongly opposed to this. I have conveyed my views to Shri Kuldeep Bishnoi. Venod Sharma set to join HJC.” She had expressed her opposition in writing to Rajnath Singh, she added. The party chief has chosen to respond with half realpolitik, half explaining away an unsavoury move. The recent alliances with some parties and some individuals is not a compromise with the BJP’s “neeti” or principled position on issues, he said. It is just part of “ran neeti”, or battle strategy. Singh was reacting to criticism about the alliance with the LJP. “Ye vote uske saath jaate hain jiska palda bhaari hota hai,” he said, according to The Indian Express. Translated, that means the voter supports the front-runner, so the tie-ups were a necessary evil, part of a game of perception. The party would not, however, deviate from its core ideology, he assured. That might have been a convincing argument if Sushma Swaraj was buying it. Her vocal opposition, and that of other senior leaders in the party, is sign that all’s not well in the BJP as it enters its final leg of campaigning for Mission 272.