New Delhi: Rattled by defeats in assembly by-elections, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has started introspection to find out why it has suddenly fallen out of favour with the voters.
One of the findings of the party is that its policy of denying nominations to relatives of leaders may be the cause for its undoing in several states. The party has concluded that some of its local level leaders behaved indifferently and did not campaign for the party, leading to embarrassing defeats in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Interestingly, while the BJP is opposed to promoting families in politics, one of its three nominees who emerged victorious in Uttar Pradesh was Ashutosh Tandon from Lucknow East constituency where he was fielded to as replacement for Kalraj Mishra who vacated the seat following his election to the Lok Sabha and induction as a minister in the central government.
Ashutosh Tandon is son of former Lucknow MP Lalji Tandon who was forced to make room for the then BJP president and now federal home minister Rajnath Singh to contest the Lucknow parliamentary seat.
BJP’s no promotion of families in politics became a rule when Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate targeted the Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi repeatedly calling him a shahzada (prince). Rahul is the fifth generation leader from the elite Nehru-Gandhi family and is the son of the Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi.
While Ashutosh Tandon was offered Lucknow East seat, relatives of other nine state lawmakers of Uttar Pradesh who had resigned their assembly seats upon their election to the Lok Sabha were overlooked. “They became indifferent and did not campaign in their own constituencies, leading to the defeat. Their roles would be probed in the due course,” said a central office-bearer of the party.
The same reason is being attributed in Rajasthan as well, where the party could retain just one of its four seats.
Yet another reason being attributed is the snub the party has given to seniors, especially its founders Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. The snub is said to have demoralised party workers leading to their lack of enthusiasm during the recent round of assembly bye-elections.
“As a mature political party we will introspect. The leadership will take care of the problems at ground level,” BJP spokesman Sambit Patra said.
Blame for the defeat
BJP’s biggest worry at this stage is to insulate prime minister Modi and the party chief Amit Shah from blames of the defeat. The logic being given is that Modi did not campaign in bye-elections and the situation would be different when he goes all out to woo voters of Maharashtra and Haryana where polling to elect new state assemblies would take place on October 15.
For the time being, chiefs of the state units are being asked to take moral responsibilities for the defeats.
“We respect the public mandate. It is the responsibility of UP (Uttar Pradesh) BJP unit and not the central leadership. The entire team will introspect and further plan strategy for the forthcoming polls,” Uttar Pradesh BJP unit president Laxmikant Bajpai said.
Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel had already termed bye-elections in her stage as a mandate for her four-month old government and not of the Modi-led central government. BJP lost three seats to rival Congress party in Gujarat while managing to retain just six seats.
