Fault lines emerge in BJP

Three events that unfolded this week signalled a gradual emergence of fault lines in an otherwise watertight political body called the BJP.

Needless to say, the developments caught the attention of movers and shakers of the ruling party who drive policy and strategy from the Capital.

On September 23, former Union Minister and senior BJP leader RK Singh publicly asked his colleagues — Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary and state president Dilip Jaiswal to either come clean on allegations of corrpution levelled by Jan Suraaj Party chief Prashant Kishor or step down. In remarks that were closely noted by the BJP high command in Delhi, Singh also attacked Ashok Choudhary, national general secretary of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal United, the ruling NDA ally in the election-bound state. The former Lok Sabha MP from Ara did not stop at this. Rubbing it in, he warned the BJP high command against giving Assembly tickets to two party MLAs from Ara parliamentary constituency who, Singh claimed, worked against him in the 2024 Lok Sabha election which he lost. If they are given the ticket, Singh said, I would campaign against the BJP.

Though sidelined in the party since his 2024 poll loss from Ara, Singh’s open defiance, many BJP leaders in Delhi said, was uncharacteristic of cadres in the saffron outfit where party discipline outweighed all other concerns. But this code did not appear to deter RK Singh.

Then on September 26, veteran BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi, RSS ideologue K Govindacharya and Ashwani Mahajan, chief of RSS’ trade wing Swadeshi Jagran Manch, urged Chief Justice of India BR Gavai to review a 2021 SC order that had cited Centre’s defence needs to allow broadening of roads for the Char Dham project in Uttarakhand.

In their letter to the CJI, Sangh Parivar leaders joined ranks with Congress veteran Karan Singh and others, red flagging a Union Road Transport Ministry circular mandating widening of roads under the project.

Though addressed to the CJI, the appeal was a virtual nudge to the BJP-led Centre to revisit the Char Dham project. The writers cited multiple recent disasters — flash floods in Dharali of Uttarkashi, cloudburst in Chamoli of Rudraprayag, rampant landslides in the Char Dham project segments and growing vulnerability of the Himayalan states — to make their point to the top court.

Sources in the ruling dispensation said the letter’s message was not lost on anyone. The appeal, in effect, challenged the Centre’s circular on Char Dham road widening, said a ruling party source admitting to the political signalling in the letter that was signed among RSS leaders by Joshi, member of the BJP’s Marg Darshak Mandal.

This source said such open questions raised on well-deliberated government policy were rare and “will naturally be taken note of”.

In another development, the central BJP through an office order in Delhi on September 25, appointed Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya as Co In-charge for the upcoming Bihar elections. Maurya was named Co In-charge alongside CR Paatil, Union Jal Shakti Minister and Gujarat BJP chief, considered a close confidante of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

Maurya and Paatil will work with the BJP poll in-charge for Bihar and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Maurya’s appointment may have passed off as routine but for his constant frictions with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. A known Yogi baiter, Maurya’s stature in the BJP has grown of late though sources say his rise is independent of Yogi’s dominance and both are important for the party in UP.

Maurya was recently also selected to lead an international exhibition of Lord Buddha’s sacred relics in Kalmykia, Russia. Discovered at Piprahwa in Kapialvastu, UP, the relics hold tremendous significance for Buddhists. Under the PMO’s instructions, Maurya led a team of officials from the Union Ministry of Culture and the UP Government.

Sources in the BJP see Maurya’s rise as part of the party’s outreach to the OBCs (non-Yadav) in Bihar and UP. But some also note his emergence as a possible tactic to check Yogi’s rise in UP politics and the party.

That said, the BJP, that long prided in the norm of cadre unity, is slowly beginning to show fault-lines. This warrants internal mechanisms for redressal, feels a section within.