Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be on top of the world after the successful G20 summit. And they deserve it too. Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are equally happy. However, they should be a little judicious. Whatever the PM had to do for the country, he did it very well. But he did not do what he should have done for the party. Although Modi will be a little disappointed. This is not just about the recent results of the by-elections held on seven assembly seats in six states, which were a bit disappointing except Tripura. The results of the by-elections were not a reflection of his governance. The by-elections, in themselves, were insignificant in terms of the existing power equations on the ground. What will bother PM Modi is that these results were the latest among many indicators of his party lagging in many states.
The Prime Minister will be concerned that reports coming from various states – allegations of corruption and infighting and incidents of moral decay within the BJP – are tarnishing the party’s image.
In June 2021, I wrote an article titled Breakdown in command and control of UP, MP, Goa, Uttarakhand-BJP. This was about the rapid division in BJP in many states. A lot has happened in Indian politics since then. However, for the BJP, despite victories in key states like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, not much has changed – there is still excessive dependence on PM Modi and the opposition has not offered any alternative. However, a lot has changed or is changing within the BJP. Factionalism and infighting have become more intense. Allegations of corruption and moral turpitude are becoming a regular feature. The crab mentality is becoming more evident. We will discuss the how and why of this later.
By-elections give a strong message to BJP
Let us look at the results of the assembly by-elections. There was a major achievement for the BJP in Tripura where it retained one seat and snatched one seat from the Left and won the Muslim-dominated Boxanagar seat for the first time. BJP’s rivals can offer several excuses: large-scale rigging, indifference on the part of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its candidate, and, 12 days before the by-election, by Bilal Mian, a former Congress minister and two-time MLA from Boxanagar. Rebellion. His move to BJP ahead of the by-elections and support for its candidate Tafazzal Hussain, another ex-Congress leader. However, the truth is also that the BJP got 88 percent votes in the constituency, which has an estimated 66 percent Muslim population. This is a big thing for BJP, although it did not celebrate it enough.
BJP national president JP Nadda immediately congratulated Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha and other party leaders. Nadda has Tweet “This result shows the acceptance of the people towards the developmental work done by our double engine government under the guidance of Honorable PM Shri @narendramodi ji”
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However, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will not be happy with his party president’s message. If the Tripura results reflected “people’s acceptance of double-engine governance”, did the defeat in UP’s Ghosi bypoll reflect the opposite? And even the victory margin reduced in Bageshwar, Uttarakhand?
Undoubtedly this is a shocking defeat in Ghosi. But can you blame Adityanath for this? BJP insiders say that he was against the return of Dara Singh Chauhan to the party. Chauhan had resigned from the ministerial post before the assembly elections in 2022, accusing the Yogi government of being anti-Dalit and Other Backward Class (OBC) and left the BJP. After this, Chauhan won from Ghosi on Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket. He again wanted to return to BJP and Yogi cabinet. Although Yogi did not want that as his deputy, Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak and state BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary – who is close to the Union Home Minister – worked to bring Chouhan back into the party fold. Chauhan’s BSP-SP-BSP-BJP-SP-BJP journey has been remarkable in terms of changing allegiance. Therefore, people were not surprised when he lost the by-election after returning to the BJP. While CM Adityanath was against Chauhan’s return, he still campaigned for him. Couldn’t have done anything more wow than this. This was not the first time that the high command’s attempt to rein in Yogi or impose politicians and bureaucrats on him had the opposite effect. If one starts quoting examples, there would be thousands of words to say. This story will be told some other day.
The results of Ghosi by-election have raised some worrying questions on BJP’s strategy. BJP was expected to benefit from the declining relevance of former CM Mayawati. In 2022, the BSP fielded a Muslim in Ghosi, who got over 54,000 votes and 21 percent voteshare. In this by-election, BSP asked its supporters to vote for NOTA. NOTA got 1,725 votes. In 2022, NOTA got 1,249 votes. This means that BSP could add only 476 votes. So, where did the party’s votes – mainly Muslims and Dalits – go? BJP’s voteshare in Ghosi increased by 4 per cent – from 33 per cent in 2022 to 37 per cent this year – while SP’s voteshare increased by 15 per cent during the period. It seems that Mayawati’s voters have completely shifted to Akhilesh Yadav’s party. The slight increase in BJP’s voteshare can be attributed to the fact that Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), which was with SP in 2022, has now become BJP’s partner.
There is a sizeable population of Rajbhars in Ghosi, which is influenced by SBSP. SP had fielded Rajput leader Sudhakar Singh. If this dents the BJP’s hold on the ‘upper’ caste votebank, then the ruling party needs to worry more. Yogi’s opposition to Chauhan’s return to BJP turned out to be correct.
The BJP retained the Bageshwar seat in neighboring Uttarakhand, but its victory margin dropped from over 12,000 votes in 2022 to 2,405 votes in 2023. The BJP suffered the biggest loss in Dhupguri, which is the party’s eighth consecutive by-election defeat in West Bengal since the 2021 assembly elections.
In the Puthuppalli Assembly by-election in Kerala, the BJP tried to electorally test its Christian outreach initiative. Ultimately, it faced defeat and got only 6,558 votes – more than 5,000 votes less than the votes it got in the 2021 assembly elections. Ahead of the elections, the BJP made Congress leader AK Antony’s son, Anil, its national spokesperson and fielded Union ministers Rajeev Chandrashekhar and V Muraleedharan for massive campaigning. Despite allegations of corruption and misgovernance against the Hemant Soren government, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha increased its voteshare by 14 percentage points, while the voteshare of BJP ally All Jharkhand Students Union declined by 23 percentage points after the 2019 assembly elections.
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PM Modi’s concern about BJP
These by-elections in themselves will not worry PM Modi because the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be a different ball game altogether. Then people will vote for him. But embroiling the wavering party organization and state leaders in various controversies will not help Modi in his cause. Take his home state Gujarat, for example. PM Modi has been single-handedly making the party win. And see what his party colleagues are doing. A ‘Parcha’ scam has come to light in CM Bhupendra Patel’s office, resulting in the transfer of Joint Secretary, Parimal Shah.
He is the fifth CMO officer to be transferred for dubious reasons in recent months. The other four officers included Patel’s personal assistant, an officer on special duty and an additional public relations officer (PRO). Gujarat BJP general secretary and close aide of state BJP president CR Patil, Pradeep Singh Vaghela, resigned earlier this month. He was one of the named characters in the so-called pamphlet scam involving dubious land deals. Of course, he has denied any involvement.
The shadow of suicide and scam is looming over BJP in Assam. 44-year-old BJP Kisan Morcha general secretary Indrani Tehbildar was suspected to have died by suicide last month. This has allegedly been linked to the cash-for-job scam.
Days before his death, intimate photographs of the tehsildar had surfaced on social media, along with audio clips of his conversation with a BJP functionary. A BJP leader from Jorhat was suspected of circulating those pictures. Five people associated with the BJP have been arrested in connection with his alleged suicide and the cash-for-job scam.
The situation has become worse for CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, voices of discontent are emerging against him. Ashok Sarma, a former BJP MLA, recently said publicly that the party was “being harmed by a newcomer” who came in 2015 and is driving away the old-timers – Himanta Sarma joined the BJP the same year. Were. Former Union Minister Rajen Gohain resigned from the post of Chairman of Assam Food and Civil Supplies Corporation in August 2023 and attacked CM Sarma over delimitation in his Nagaon constituency. He also accused a minister of the Sarma government of targeting him.
In Meghalaya, former MLA HM Shangpliang resigned from the BJP, accusing state unit chief Ernest Mowry of promoting nepotism. Alexander Lalu Hek, the only BJP minister in the Conrad Sangma government, has also accused Mowry of taking unilateral decisions.
Former Maharashtra BJP MP Kirit Somaiya came under attack from the opposition in July 2023 when a controversial video clip surfaced, although the matter is still under investigation.
And there is still curiosity in Maharashtra about the attempt to blackmail Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis’s wife Amrita by her fashion designer friend, Aniksha Jaisinghani, daughter of a bookie. Aniksha is now out on bail.
Many secrets are coming out from the BJP cabinet in one state after another. This is when no one is even talking about the hot cold war of the BJP high command with public leaders in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. Many BJP leaders are also displaying unusual arrogance – Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar recently made fun of a woman in public. The woman had requested him to open a factory in his area so that people could get employment. CM told him in his public dialogue program, “Next time when Chandrayaan-4 will go to the moon, [मैं] Will send you there.”
PM Modi’s popularity rating has always been high. This may increase even more now that the G20 summit has been so successful. But when he is on top of the world, this is something to celebrate. But the condition of BJP is spoiling this celebration. Congress or INDIA is not troubling PM Modi. Their problem is BJP.
(Translation: Pooja Mehrotra)
DK Singh is political editor at ThePrint. Opinions are personal.
(Click here to read this article in English)
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