The era of openness in the BJP is over

The BJP had the strangest national executive meeting last week where it discussed no pressing national issue. It just praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and did not even debate the recent bypoll results wherein the party faced some bad defeats.

The party president, JP Nadda, presided over a meet that did not bother to analyse why the electorate of his home state Himachal Pradesh, where the party is in power, comprehensively defeated the BJP in the bypolls to one Lok Sabha and three Assembly seats. There was no discussion either on why the BJP lost all four seats in the West Bengal bypolls, with candidates losing their deposits on three seats.

There was, in fact, no mention of anything which raised questions about the party’s performance. It was devoted entirely to creating a “feel good” mood and praising the PM.

The nation’s pre-eminent party was having a national executive meeting after nearly three years, with the last meet having taken place in January 2019. The party’s constitution lays down that this important cog in the organisation structure should meet every three months. Perhaps, the delay was due to the pandemic, combined with the realisation that with all authority in the party now centralised, such meetings are meaningless, as indeed, the latest turned out to be.

Either way, it’s a pity as the BJP did have a culture of healthy intra-party debate and dissent, with national executives also becoming platforms for some fireworks and ideological tussles in the past. Since the BJP’s foundation in 1980, national executive meets were important events and once the party came to power under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1998, these meetings were thoroughly covered by the press, with media contingents travelling to whichever city they took place in. There would be entire hotels booked for the media, with regular briefings about the debates and the attendees would mingle with the press and often agree to disagree.

Needless to say, that era of openness is over since 2014.

Traditionally, two resolutions would be adopted at national executives: a political resolution and an economic one. Economic resolutions were a subject of debate, with the original draft often being amended after some discussants made specific points.

What is extraordinary is that even after the terrible hit of Covid lockdowns on the economy and the prevalent hunger and unemployment, the party chose not to adopt an economic resolution at the November 7 meet held in Delhi’s Talkatora Stadium. This lapse is actually a shocking insight into how the inner structure of the BJP has been rendered meaningless since it is now micro-managed from the top.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath moved the political resolution that made a point about political violence in West Bengal, although the party did not mention its electoral performance in the state.

The byelection results actually show a worrying trend for the BJP from the perspective of national politics as the party had swept the entire Hindi belt in the 2019 General Election and won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. Simultaneously, it had won 23 seats from Maharashtra, where it was then in alliance with the Shiv Sena, an arrangement now broken. In total, the BJP had 41 seats from West Bengal and Maharashtra in its national tally of 303 seats and the current circumstances suggest it is unlikely to repeat that.

The party should, therefore, currently worry even about the losses in the tiny state of Himachal Pradesh that has four Lok Sabha seats because the margins of defeat in the byelections were huge.

Since the BJP is an effective electoral machine, one presumes that the leadership is working on multiple counter-strategies. Although the executive did not discuss the electoral losses, it did have presentations on the states where elections will take place next year.

In his address, Nadda said that a party committee should be set up for every polling booth where arrangements would be made for citizens to listen to the PM’s ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio address. Later, the press was told that there are 10.4 lakh polling booths in the country and the BJP estimates it has set up booth committees in 85 per cent of them. So, basically, the message is the PM and the PM is the message.

As it heads to the next round of state polls, it’s clear that Uttar Pradesh remains the backbone of the BJP’s parliamentary numbers. It is here that a curious schism exists in the party that can, at the national level, now be described as a cult around the Leader. For, the nation’s most populous state is led by the BJP’s most autonomous Chief Minister who is controversial, but very much his own man, who does not kowtow to the high command.

While the BJP has in recent months replaced chief ministers in Gujarat and Karnataka with the flick of a high command diktat, it has been unable to even make appointments in Lucknow as CM Yogi did not wish to accommodate a Central nominee.

Yet, the CM and PM have the same goal of retaining power in Uttar Pradesh in the February 2022 polls. The Amit Shah team that originally made the conquest of UP in the 2014 parliamentary polls is no longer there, but Yogi, who was chosen after the BJP’s win in the 2017 Assembly polls, has a point to prove. He has the advantage of being in power, besides the backing of the entire cadre of the RSS and every help from the Centre.

It’s also clear that the PM intends to campaign vigorously in the state and before the election notification kicks in, he will announce more welfare measures. The CM will also do so, even as he will continue to highlight the ideological issues. This has worked for the BJP in UP and the two Hindutva icons, Modi & Yogi, would be giving it their all in the state.

Yet, the national leadership has made an estimate that free rations and welfare measures are also needed to retain support and offset the misery of the last two years. The PM’s popularity in UP in 2019 was, in any case, estimated to have been built not just on muscular nationalism and Hindutva but also on the delivery of specific schemes. The emphasis is, therefore, on last mile delivery in UP.

The PM’s closing speech to the national executive was fundamentally about the party being an instrument of service to the people. He said that the BJP should be “a bridge of faith” between the party and the common man. It was an open-ended statement that can bring us to the conclusion that Hindutva in UP now comes with a generous bag of ration.