BJP’s plans

The results of the recent elections to the five state assemblies of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry emboldened BJP president Amit Shah to declare that the party is close to accomplishing its goal of a Congress-free India. Its ouster of the Congress from power in Assam is the only significant gain. In Tamil Nadu as in West Bengal, victory belonged to their powerful chief ministers alone. Kerala has always seen coalitions dominated by the Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist. This time the CPI-M led the Left Democratic Front to win 91 seats against the Congress-led United Democratic Front’s 47 in a house of 140. The Congress won in Puduchery alone winning 17 seats in a coalition.

It is the results in Assam on which attention has been focused. The BJP-led alliance won 86 seats out of 126 gaining 59 seats. The Congress won only 26, losing 52 which spelt its ouster from power after 15 years. No less humiliating were the results for billionaire Badruddin Ajmal who aspired to be a king-maker with his outfit the All-India United Democratic Front.It is doubtful if the Congress is equal to the challenge.Since the BJP came to power at the centre, the Congress was rejected by the electorate in six states. The only major state in which it is in power now is Karnataka. The other six which it governs are the two hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, three small states in the northeast — Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram — and Puducherry. Manipur has a Hindu majority; Meghalaya and Mizoram a Christian majority.

Assembly elections are due next year in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand. Gujarat will follow in 2018. In Assam, the anti-incumbency factor played its role. The Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi had become arrogant, costing him the services of his close associate Himanta Biswa Sarma, an election-strategist and crowd-puller. He left the Congress to join BJP last year, but not before knocking on the doors of the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi; only to be rebuffed.

It is unlikely that party president Sonia Gandhi was unaware of her son’s arrogant rebuff to a party stalwart in a state as important as Assam. The Congress leadership was complicit also in Tarun Gogoi’s nepotism. Party tickets were given to the progeny or relatives of as many as 34 sitting MLAs. Nearly all lost. Ostensibly the BJP’s plank was ‘development’; sotto voce it was Hindutva under the cry of ‘illegal migrants’ from Bangladesh. Assam is 34pc Muslim. Chief minister-designate, Sarbananda Sonowal, a union minister, became a hero because it was on his petition that the Supreme Court struck down the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has exploi­ted this ambiguous result. The Economist’s correspondent reported: “Bangladesh, Mr Modi has also claimed, sounding like an Indian Donald Trump, was sending intruders over the border; his government, given power in the state, would round them up and kick them out. Bengali-speaking Muslims feel threatened, even though may live in communities that have been in Assam for generations, if not centuries.”

Two correspondents of The Indian Express reported that “if there is one factor which overshadows all other in explaining the BJP’s victory in Assam, it is that of religion … the aspect of Hindu consolidation”. Amit Shah declared: “The objective is to consolidate the party’s dominance and extend it from parliament to panchayats across the country.” He added: “I am confident that by time 2019 comes [the year when Lok Sabha polls are due] we will convert our support into seats.” As for the BJP’s links with the Rashtriya Sway­amsevak Sangh, “Anyone who tries to make this an issue should know that the BJP has been tied to the RSS since its inception…. I am an RSS swayamsevak [member]”.

It is doubtful if the Congress is equal to this challenge. Its entire set-up is an anachronism. A senior leader, Digvijay Singh, former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, spoke of ‘surgery’. He asked “How long will the party introspect?” His words were echoed by others. The Congress is in a difficult situation. To no one’s surprise Rahul Gandhi has failed miserably. But mother Sonia Gandhi will not remove him. Next year, it faces a big ideological challenge in Uttar Pradesh in which the BJP is certain to play the religious card though it cannot win power there. The space is occupied by two regional parties; the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. A bigger challenge lies ahead in Punjab where its leader Amarinder Singh has every chance of dislodging the decrepit Akali-BJP coalition from power — provided he is supported fully by the party leadership

The BJP’s objective is total power. Its aim is to capture the president’s office when elections are next held.