Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'To let Modi be PM or not' that was published in Newsband

To let Modi be PM or not

The Bharatiya Janata Party and its principal ally, the Janata Dal (United), have been warring over ‘Narendra Modi’ issue with the general election looming large. A JD (U) spokesperson even went to the extent of taunting Modi on his inability to contain the 2002 anti-Muslim violence. He asked the BJP to name a “secular” candidate to lead the National Democratic Alliance into the coming election. For the moment, the BJP-JD (U) mutual name-calling must be understood for what it is: shadow-boxing between two partners each of whom has a separate electoral constituency to address.

The JD (U) is among the BJP’s oldest allies. It stayed with the party through the 2002 anti-Muslim violence and stuck by it even as ally after worried ally quit the NDA citing the BJP’s ‘communal’ agenda. JD (U) has an electoral base made up of Muslims and Other Backward Classes. The BJP added upper caste votes to the alliance, making it structurally sound.

The reason for the conflict is that BJP wants to assign a larger role to Modi and JD (U) wants to keep him out. The BJP might gamble by depending totally on Modi wave. But the risk is it will lose its secular partners.

BJP's linkage with RSS parivar is its strength as well as weakness. It is this linkage that caused the Babri Masjid demolition and 2002 riots after which the BJP has not won national elections. The 2002 riots prevented BJP's growth as a main National Party. Also one by one, all its allies began deserting BJP. Now allowing JDU to quit NDA would tantamount to political harakiri for BJP. If this happens, it will be left only with Shiv Sena and the Akalis.

Thus BJP has to think thousand times whether to make Modi a candidate for Prime Ministership or not.