WHAT IS THE NEW BJP?

Sushma Swaraj has taken over from LK Advani as the leader of the opposition, putting curtains on an exciting political journey stretching over 5 decades. Advani will be heading the BJP parliamentary board (a newly created post) & the NDA, none of them will have any significant bearing on the BJP political strategy. No matter how much the BJP shouts that Advani is still very much the main driver of the party, the reality remains that the Vajpayee-Advani era has finally come to an end.

But the big question remains- Is the new BJP leadership competent enough to resurrect the fortunes of the party that has been hammered comprehensively in the last 6 years. There are multiple challenges that the party still faces.


Who is the real leader?- Even though Sushma Swaraj is going to lead the party in the Lok Sabha & Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha, there is still confusion as to who is the undisputed leader of the BJP. With the low profile Nitin Gadkari taking over as the BJP president; party workers are a bit disillusioned about the real leadership. The RSS handpicked Gadkari faces even more difficulties. He has been handpicked to implement the RSS agenda within the party, but with the Swaraj- Jaitley combine trying to adopt the moderate line of thought, infighting is bound to continue. The past 6 years have clearly shown that BJP has failed to work as a collective unit. The success they tasted in the 90’s was because they were led by a strong and commanding leader- A.B.Vajpayee. Vajpayee was the undisputed leader of the party. Of course he was never authoritative in his conduct and always took decisions after consulting Advani and other senior leaders. But the hierarchy was very clearly laid out, eliminating any sort of differences within the party. But with the current crop, there are no signs of any unity or cohesiveness.

The ideology issue- After suffering two back to back defeats in Lok Sabha elections, the very basic dilemma the party faces is the ideology issue. The party rode to power in the 90’s on the back of right wing Hindutva issue. But due to a huge coalition, the party was never able to deliver on that agenda. The Hindutva story was embraced to an extent in the 90’s. But the new millennium had changed the mind set of the Indian citizen. The staunch urban voter that supported the party in the 90’s now wanted development & infrastructure instead of Mandir & uniform civil code. The party failed to understand the pulse of the middle class voters which had transformed over the years. The new Indian voter was more secular & moderate in its thinking. And even now the party is confused which route to adopt-the more inclusive approach, one based on the development plank cutting across religious lines or to go back to the 90’s hindutva plank, which the voter has already rejected. They cannot afford to hang in between. They will have to choose a more forward looking ideology which is more inclusive in nature.

RSS: Liability or the Guiding force- The party will have to emphatically decide the role of the RSS in the new BJP. Will the RSS continue to set the agenda and have a say on all the major issues or is the party now ready to break those shackles and act on its own given that the party now has firm roots. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has made his intention clears that he wants the RSS to be the guiding force of the party. He wants the party to go back to the hard core Hindutva ideology to make a come back.

The new leadership’s immediate task is to come out with a clear ideology. The top leadership will have to be on the same page if they are serious about reviving the party. The party needs a complete revamp both on the organizational & ideological front. A clear hierarchy should be formed and it should be made sure that it is followed by all. The RSS has to be told that the party wants to work as an autonomous unit. If it fails to distance itself from the RSS at least on the political front, it would be really difficult for them to bounce back. BJP will have to clearly spell out the role of the RSS in the new BJP. These are some tough questions that the leaders will have to answer; otherwise the party will fade away in the same fashion as the Janta Dal party did in the 90’s. Time for the new BJP to take some tough decision… It’s now or never…