Dinesh Kamathi's Editorial 'BJP should be careful' that was published in Newsband

BJP should be careful

Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati’s political experiment with the SP has been a striking success. That a Chief Minister and his deputy have lost in their own backyards is hardly a good advertisement for the BJP’s popularity or that of its State government. The fate of the 2019 election may well depend on the answer to this.

The leadership of Akhilesh Yadav helped seal the SP-BSP understanding. What Gorakhpur and Phulpur demonstrate is that the BJP is not invincible in the face of a new social and political electoral regrouping.

The by-elections in Bihar proved that the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad will not be wiped out by the return of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. In Bihar, the RJD and the Congress can hope to gain some political momentum on the back of the BJP’s loss.

Together with the Rajasthan by-election results, these losses have created doubts about the strength of the BJP’s hold in the Hindi heartland

One is reminded of the Janata Party experiment in 1977 in the aftermath of emergency, when hatred for Indira brought together ideologically differing egoistic leaders together. How long the Government lasted? All of three years, that too with internal contradictions throughout. The people suffered even as the government went on hounding Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi and governance suffered. The present lot of leaders, far too many as compared to 1977, are coming together because of their hatred for Modi, which is much greater. They may win, because the ‘arithmetic’ will favour them. Will the people benefit? With greater number of leaders, far greater contradictions and egos, one can assume a far greater lack of governance. Indian people may not be all literates but they have a great political sense.

BJP should be prepared for upcoming election of 2019. Otherwise such kind of alliances will create problems for them. It is high time for BJP to introspect their shortcomings.

The chances of SP-BSP alliance in UP for 2019 general elections look very bright after by-elections results of Gorakhpur and Phulpur constituencies. This in turn would be a cause of serious concern for BJP as UP sends 80 MPs to Lok Sabha and without doing well in this state it would be difficult for BJP to get absolute majority in Lok Sabha.

It is clear that all sorts of casteist and communal forces want to keep the Hindus divided into castes, sub-castes and what not. Sooner rather than later the Hindus, across all castes and sub-castes, will realize that the best electoral bargain is to stay united and vote en-masse just as certain other communities do. And when that happens, even the SP and BSP and other regional parties will have to accept their demands.

It is necessary for BJP to introspect and try to learn a lesson from this mandate as it has lost two very important seats which are vacated by CM and deputy CM. This by-poll result is a strong setback for BJP because it shows that in coming Loksabha election, the coalition of opposition parties may turn game-changer. For that to not happen, the government should focus on pace of development and job creation for jobless youth who have strong vote bank.