By Mumtaz Alam, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 15 Nov 2015: The developments of the last one week in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – which are direct consequences of its humiliating defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections – are a bad omen for the party that registered a historic victory just one and half years ago in the General Elections. The pace with which things are moving inside and outside of the saffron party since the Bihar verdict last Sunday is unprecedented – and that’s why the likelihood of an extreme outcome cannot be rejected.
In Bihar, country’s third largest state in terms of population, BJP fought the high-pitched elections under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah, but received huge drubbing at the hands of their old foes Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar.
In Delhi Assembly elections also early this year, BJP was hugely defeated by the newcomer Aam Aadmi Party which restricted it to just three seats in the 70-member Assembly even though Modi and Shah had aggressively campaigned.
But the defeat in Bihar was so grand – given the importance of the state in the national politics – that the party’s old patriarchs could not remain silent as they had been even after being side-lined after the party came to power in May 2014 and Modi became prime minister.
Just 48 hours after the debacle in Bihar where the BJP was reduced to 53 seats from 91 in the 243-member Assembly, knives were out in the Hindu nationalist party with its four veterans LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar raising a banner of revolt against the leadership of Modi and Shah. They are reported to have been joined by several Members of Parliament.
Arun Shourie, another senior leader and former cabinet minister, has already been speaking against PM Modi and his government.
They have spoken despite the fact that Modi and Shah have strong grip on the party and government. It means Advani and Co. had just been suppressing their inner voice for the last one and half years and spoke up now as they were unable to do it anymore.
As their attack was directly at him, party chief Amit Shah on Saturday tried to counter the attack by indirectly suggesting the veterans to get retired.
Addressing a gathering at the inauguration of the Sadguru Sewa Sangh Trust Hospital in Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh, Amit Shah said Jana Sangh leader Nanaji Deshmukh had set an example in politics by retiring at the age of 60.
“He (Deshmukh) set an example in world politics that one should retire at the age of 60 and dedicate himself to social work,” Shah said.
Shah’s remark is seen as an attack on the party’s old guard L.K. Advani and his team who had jointly issued a statement demanding a thorough review into the BJP’s Bihar assembly poll debacle.
After Shah’s remark went viral on social media, the party came out to protect him saying his remark was “distorted” by a section of the media and he was not talking about any individual other than Nanaji Deshmukh.
However, as his message was very clear and pointed, it is unlikely that the veterans will ignore it or take it lightly.
Meanwhile, adding salt to the wounds of BJP, Bihar’s chief minister-designate Nitish Kumar has reportedly invited Advani and Shatrughan Sinha to his oath-taking ceremony to be held in Patna on 20th Nov.
