New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hit a series of roadblocks in seat-sharing talks with its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), even as its leaders have attempted to amplify similar hurdles in the opposition camp as a sure sign of Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)’s failure in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
The saffron party’s latest struggle with allies is best reflected in the way the Manohar Lal Khattar-led Haryana government resigned with his cabinet on Tuesday morning, hours after the BJP and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) led by deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala collapsed. It is said that the JJP insisted on contesting two seats, including the prestigious Rohtak, in the Lok Sabha but the BJP didn’t relent. As their alliance headed for a split, the BJP has now tried to checkmate its own ally – with a plan that it would still helm the state government by cobbling up a majority with the help of independents.
With the unpopular chief minister Khattar, too, resigning, the BJP hopes to repeat the Gujarat experiment where Vijay Rupani was replaced with Bhupendra Patel as the chief minister months ahead of the state assembly polls in 2022, giving enough to the party’s media machinery to spin its political crisis as course correction. However, each time the BJP faces such a crisis, it has taken it as a window of opportunity to assert its weight against its own allies, forgetting the principles of alliance dharma that the prime minister Narendra Modi often cites in his speeches.
Between BJP bombast and truth
Whatever ways in which the BJP spins a positive narrative out of its crisis, the very nature of coalition politics of India has always pulled it backwards from its overt propensity to become a hegemonic force. The Haryana episode has once again proven that the BJP, like all other political parties in the opposition, has tricky issues to deal with before it enters the electoral fray – and none of those alone decides the outcome of the elections. The saffron party’s contention that the ups and downs in the INDIA bloc over seat-sharing issues is an admission of defeat, or shows how “unprincipled” the opposition alliance is, smacks of nothing but propaganda.
Had the BJP been in such a great position to secure its “Mission 370” goal in the Lok Sabha polls, it need not have entered into an alliance with rivals like the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha and the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh. For years now, the BJP has critiqued and opposed the Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha, and had in fact carved out a substantive opposition space for itself in the eastern state. But burying all electoral aspirations of its state leaders, the Modi-Shah duo has now decided to form a pre-poll coalition with its arch-rival in the state.
Friends, foes, friends again?
Similarly, ever since TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu exited the NDA following an acrimonious break-up in 2018, the BJP leaders left no opportunity to lash out at the Andhra leader. They called him corrupt, immoral, opportunistic, and even helped the YSR Jagan Mohan Reddy government in the state to get him arrested over corruption charges that at one point the Modi-led Centre was pursuing. However, as things stand today, the BJP has chosen Naidu over Reddy as an ally, and is all set to fight both the assembly and Lok Sabha polls together.
Similarly, the BJP didn’t hesitate for once in joining ranks with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, against whom it had led a toxic campaign in the last two years. Nitish Kumar played the most instrumental role in creating the INDIA bloc. Over the last two years, the BJP attempted to create multiple situations to break his Janata Dal (United) and topple his government that it often accused of promoting “jungleraaj”. But when it came to reuniting with Kumar, the BJP didn’t think twice.
The BJP should be credited for forging new partnerships better than most opposition parties. But when it comes to respecting its allies, it is worse than most. Think of how it treated its smaller OBC allies like Om Prakash Rajbhar or Swami Prasad Maurya soon after the BJP registered a comprehensive victory in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. Now, as yet another round of elections are here, the BJP has already roped in Rajbhar and is looking to collaborate with Maurya.
Similar big-brotherly attitude has cost the BJP all its big allies like the Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), and, at one point, the Janata Dal (United). Yet, the BJP has run roughshod over them by using blunt force, allegedly misusing central investigation agencies against leaders, attempting to split the parties, and believing that its unparalleled money and muscle power can overcome all its political crises.
Small parties BJP’s partners but not allies?
There is nothing ideological and principled about the Modi-led BJP’s operations. The JJP and BJP’s split offers a classic case-study for how the BJP has chosen to conduct business with smaller, but very important players in key states. One also hears that the seat-sharing talks between the BJP and its allies in Maharashtra are stuck. Its Maharashtra allies, the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, are the starkest examples of the Modi-Shah duo’s Machiavellian games. The BJP has reportedly taken a lion’s share of 30-32, while handing around 11-12 seats to Shinde and 4-5 seats to Ajit Pawar. However, the disagreements over six seats has made the equations bitter between the three parties.
The BJP may be adept at enticing partners, possibly because of its huge resources, but have also shown hostility towards their independent demands. This has resulted in bitter breakups, often following episodes where the BJP has tried to sabotage its own ally.
The saffron party may be good at managing news headlines, but it is certainly not free from the pulls and pressures of realpolitik, as much as it would want to project itself as different from others. The run-up to the Lok Sabha polls has shown once again the messy nature of electoral play, which can sometimes be a positive trend for Indian democracy, as it allows a play for diversity in its politics. If the INDIA bloc appears to be struggling to bring opposition forces together, the BJP, too, is wrestling to save the NDA from any further embarrassment, especially after it got a tight rap from the Supreme Court in the electoral bonds case. A tough electoral race ahead is surely in the offing, despite what the BJP would like us to think.
