NEW DELHI, 4 June 2004 — The 14th session of the Indian Parliament has begun, with former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee seated in the opposition benches. He is, however, hopeful that Congress party-led coalition would fall any time so he would not have to sit in opposition for too long. But as of now, it seems, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has still not fully comprehended and accepted the causes of its defeat.
BJP’s failure to recognize the “enemy” is one of the causes, according to Vajpayee. This raises the question: Who is the party’s “enemy”?
When Vajpayee made the comment, he also said that because of his party’s “complacency” and “overconfidence” about returning to power, they underestimated rival forces’ strength. In electoral fray, the main contest was between the BJP and the Congress, so it is natural for the two to view each other as their principal foe. But to presume that BJP lost only because the Congress gained over it in winning voters’ appeal is not absolutely correct. Congress won 154 seats against BJP’s 139, placing the latter only 15 seats behind the Congress. However, when allies’ gain is taken note of, the Congress and its allies won 219 seats, while BJP and its allies managed to get 186. The BJP apparently made a wrong choice in selecting its allies in some states. The party dropped its old ally DMK to tie up with AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, forcing the former into the arms of the Congress. And the BJP-AIADMK alliance failed to win a single seat in Tamil Nadu. BJP has not given up hope of attracting DMK back to its camp as is indicated by the party “discontinuing” its alliance with AIADMK.
Nobody forgets the frequency with which BJP, while in power, played up to its allies and showed them its back on others. This was wrong politicking. To win the Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) support in UP, it dumped its own party member Kalyan Singh. And later, the party cut ties with the BSP and invited Kalyan Singh back to its fold. Had Kalyan Singh been respected as a party member throughout, he would have had more time to campaign effectively for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Besides, ties between the BJP and Trinamul Congress (led by Mamata Bannerjee) weren’t cordial throughout the period the party was in power. Bannerjee could only save her seat and skin in West Bengal.
Keeping its own allies together is as important a need for the BJP as targeting its “enemy.” The BJP also needs to adopt a wiser approach in recognizing and accepting the factors that prompted voters to turn to the Congress and its allies. Ironically, Vajpayee still believes that the Gujarat carnage did not contribute to his party’s defeat. The carnage turned secular Hindus and the minority communities against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Their primary concern was to prevent the BJP from returning to power to avoid Gujarat being repeated elsewhere in India.
If the left bloc is with the Congress now, it is not because it has fell to the Congress charm. The primary concern of the left bloc and other secular parties is to keep the BJP confined to the opposition benches.
With due respect to Congress leaders’ political strategy and campaigning skills, the party may not have won the seats it did had the BJP-led coalition played its cards well. Congress has succeeded because its anti-BJP campaigning, focusing on communalism, unemployment, poverty and agricultural problems, resonated with the voters. In other words, anti-incumbency factor pushed the BJP out of power.
Even if BJP had not been “complacent” or “overconfident” it may not have been able confront this anti-incumbency factor. For the BJP, the real enemy is not the Congress but its own political strategy, which needs careful revision and reformulation at all levels — from the way it handled Gujarat riots and its aftermath, choice of allies to deliberation over communal versus secular agenda within its ranks!
