As Cracks Begin to Show, Can Amit Shah Salvage the NDA Before the 2019 Polls?

New Delhi: With the news of the Bharatiya Janata Party reaching out to its allies grabbing headlines in the first week of June, the National Democratic Alliance government has assumed centre stage again. Over the last four years, the BJP, the NDA’s biggest partner with a simple majority of its own, was so predominant that its 47-odd allies and their priorities were hardly discussed.

But with multiple losses in recent by-polls, the allies have begun to assert their weight, forcing the Hindu nationalist party to realise the significance of its allies. Political observers have frequently been criticising the BJP’s high-handedness against its allies as a breach of the coalition principle. But the BJP let such complaints go unheard. Now with less than a year left for the 2019 general elections, it appears that the cracks in the NDA, which are there for everyone to see now, were simply waiting to happen.  

With many predicting that the saffron party may lose anywhere between 100 to 150 seats, it is but necessary for the BJP’s high command to mollify the NDA constituents to stem its falling fortunes.

Backdrop

The turn of events that have led the BJP to reach out to its allies speak volumes. The BJP came down from its original 282 to 271 in the Lok Sabha over the last two years, making it entirely reliant on its allies. The party, bruised by the negative impact of demonetisation, poorly-implemented Goods and Services Tax, rural distress, surging unemployment rate and an insecure social environment, had to face reverses in Gujarat and Karnataka.

At the same time, the BJP is battling huge anti-incumbency in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh – all three states are going for polls later this year. One may remember, that in Rajasthan, the BJP had won all the seats in the 2014 parliamentary polls. In the other two, it won more than 90% of the constituencies.

The party clearly realises that it would be difficult to replicate its 2014 performance in 2019. Hence, while it may try to employ some damage-control exercises in the Northeast and eastern parts of India, it will largely be the combined strength of the NDA that will help it cross the majority line.

On top of such factors, the party’s own ranks have shown signs of rebellion. Senior MPs Shatrughan Sinha and Kirti Azad have openly been taking on the Narendra Modi government while L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi have sent out enough signals of resentment by merely remaining silent about government’s achievements at a time when the party’s PR machinery and Modi’s cabinet misses no chance to blow its own trumpet.

Party old-timers like Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie have already quit the party, but not before being vocal about the issues at hand. Then its own Dalit MPs from Uttar Pradesh made their displeasure evident against Yogi Adityanath’s leadership in the state and the Union government’s ambiguous stance on the Supreme Court order that sought to dilute certain provision of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.  

Possibility of big allies deserting the BJP worries Modi-Shah

Even as the BJP was tackling discontent, its allies rose up in defiance. One of the biggest constituents of NDA, the Telugu Desam Party, has already made an unceremonious exit from the NDA. Chandrababu Naidu, the TDP supremo and Andhra Pradesh chief minister, in his party conclave recently at Vijayawada, has already sounded the poll bugle by declaring the BJP as its “main political enemy”.

Similarly, a formidable ally like the Shiv Sena has already declared that it would contest the next elections on its own and has even fielded a candidate against the BJP’s candidate in the recent by-poll at Palghar, Maharashtra. The extreme right-wing party has, in fact, snubbed the invitations of the BJP in the recent past and has been asking the opposition to unite. The discontent among allies, in fact, started in Maharashtra when Raju Shetti of  Swabhimani Paksha, a small but significant party in pockets, bitterly parted ways with the NDA, claiming that BJP has “cheated” the farmers.

At the same time, the BJP’s partner in Punjab, Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), has left no chance to attack the Modi government after it lost the assembly elections to Congress last year. Its leaders have come on record to say that the BJP should treat its allies better.

Of late, the Janata Dal (United), which under the leadership of Nitish Kumar had broken up with the Rashtriya Janata Dal to form government with the BJP again, too has been trying to get itself into a good bargaining position before 2019 general elections. Following JD(U)’s face loss after its recent by-poll defeat in the Jokihat assembly constituency, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has been giving mixed signals to the BJP.

According to some reports, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress had sent its “emissaries” to all the three BJP allies in the state – JD(U), Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). It is also being said that RLSP and LJP have given positive signs to the split ranks with the BJP while JD(U) has remained strategically silent.

However, in the last few days, Nitish Kumar, an ardent supporter of demonetisation until now, has found fault in it. He has also, while announcing ‘Bihar Rajya Fasal Sahayata Yojna’ (a farmer welfare scheme) on 6 June criticised the Modi government for failing to address agrarian distress. He also hinted at amending the prohibition law he himself implemented but blamed a section of government machinery for taking undue advantage of the law to harass people. Many say that he has indirectly taken a dig at his ally, BJP, for the chaos prohibition has ushered in the state.

Meanwhile, JD(U) spokesperson K.C. Tyagi has already said, apparently without consulting the BJP, that Nitish would be face of NDA in the state for 2019 elections. This goes against the BJP’s plan to project Modi as the single leader for the parliamentary polls. There are reports which claim that the Congress and RJD emissaries advised their JD(U) friends to rake up the issue of Special Category Status for Bihar, a demand which also became the pretext for the TDP to leave NDA a few months ago.   

A senior RJD leader told The Wire that Nitish could be flexing his muscles ahead of June 7 NDA meeting which was urgently called by the BJP in Bihar so that he could bargain for a greater number of seats which the BJP was reluctant to grant initially. However, yet another party leader said that this could be a sign of more political turmoil in the state as Nitish usually does not state his opinions overtly if he does not have a plan in mind.

For instance, the leader said that the realisation that Muslims have deserted him after he abruptly cut short his alliance with the RJD, as was reflected in the recent by-polls, forced the chief minister to suddenly term Sangh parivar’s communal campaign “unacceptable”. Whatever be the case, equations between the BJP and JD(U) are far from being cordial in Bihar.  

Trouble in the ranks

Interestingly, while the BJP is going all out now to woo its allies, Modi and Amit Shah have also sent feelers to Advani and Joshi urging them to contest next year’s polls again. The invitation to its disgruntled leaders, who were discourteously shunted out to the defunct margdarshak mandal, goes against Modi-Shah own rule that leaders above 75 years of age should retire from active politics.

Clearly, the BJP feels it can be left high and dry in the face of twin problems of dissent within its own ranks and an united opposition – which looks far more real now ever since the Karnataka assembly elections. In fact, the BJP seems to be gheraoed by its own supporters at the moment.

One such case in point is Baba Ramdev, who commands a huge following, and who has been an ardent supporter of BJP, was said to have recommended multiple candidates to the party for elections including union minister Babul Supriyo in 2014, too seems to be sensing that winds may change. He, too, threatened the BJP to move his Rs 6,000 crore food park out of Greater Noida while accusing the Adityanath government of poorly handling business in the state.  

BJP’s latest outreach to Shiv Sena, SAD (Badal) and the JD(U) is, therefore, throwing significant straws in the wind. At least three different NDA meetings have been planned in Maharashtra, Bihar, and Punjab this week. The objective is simple: the BJP wants the NDA united.

But the allies have already sensed that the moment at hand is a rare opportunity to put the BJP under greater pressure. Whether the Modi-Shah duo manages to placate the NDA allies will be clear in the days to come.

However, it appears that the BJP, which was on an upswing until now, may be headed for a downward spiral of its own making.