BJP: Diminishing Party

In last decade, one political party which has always been marred by leadership vacuum, internal squabbles and vociferous clamours by its top leaders, is yet to see the dawn where harmony among them prevails.

Gone were the days when BJP was shining under leadership of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Staunch supporters of the Bhartiya Janta Party are becoming nostalgic recalling those days when the party emerged as the largest political party during the General elections of 1999. After the exit of Vajpayee, the situation has changed dramatically. Since then certain events followed which shattered the prestige of the party very drastically. Their credibility being at the lowest ebb gave the UPA ample scope to be recognised as the most favourable and likeable party among Indian electorates for consecutive two years notwithstanding being involved into myriad of scams.

Due to ideological differences and involvement into communal politics, most of the BJP’s allies kept on withdrawing from the national democratic alliance. As the issues such as Ram mandir kept on resolving, the political mileage went on dwindling which was fuelling the electoral vehicle of BJP. Its leaders, due to their frivolous and trivial comments, went on losing confidence among the Indian electorates. Consequently, it is now in dearth of a leader who is widely accepted by all and can be touted as its prime ministerial candidate.

Last week, after a lot of heated discussions among the allies, Narendra Modi was finally nominated as the head of campaign committee for general elections 2014. It was followed by high level drama. LK Advani resigned questioning the ideologies of the party; the 14 years old ally, JD(U) threatened to break the alliance.

Though Mr. Modi’s image is adversely affected due to 2002 Gujrat riots, especially among Muslim fraternity, BJP has hardly any option left except to appoint him the prime ministerial candidate. No doubt, he has set an epitome of development in Gujarat. In last month, Modi had been visiting the colleges and other institutions making beautiful speeches. His speeches promise to transform India into a knowledge economy with more emphasis on e-Governance.

His ideas and intentions are very noble as for now. Soured relations with allies are a matter of concern. How Muslim community will react to his nomination is yet to be seen. But for now, ill-affected and leaderless BJP has shown confidence in him. Seed is shown; let us see how well this seed will fructify.