The all important UP results are out and I will try to express my thoughts in a series of articles based upon the party involved. Being a BJP supporter, I will write about them first.We had written on this blog that there was no way that BJP was going to win the elections in UP. What we did not even dream was that they would perform worse than the last time. Even with a tsunami of anti-incumbency against Mayawati and Congress (all the scams at the center), they dropped their total. WOW!! I thought that Rajnath Singh was a terrible leader. But amazingly Gadkari has outdone him in incompetence. However, what I know of the current crop of BJP leaders, I am not holding my breath for a mea culpa or even a regret.
Since Gadkari has no honor, he will not resign. He needs to be thrown out with extreme prejudice. People responsible for his appointment to the post should own up to that blunder. Yes. I mean the RSS elders. They need to accept full responsibility for Gadkari’s buffoonery. Once again, I am not holding my breath.
We all know what went wrong in UP. Muslims voted in droves for SP. OBC’s voted in droves for SP. Dalits voted for BSP. Leftover votes from the aforementioned groups voted for Congress. BJP voters could not be inconvenienced to come out and vote. Either that or there are no BJP supporters left in UP. What can you expect with leaders like Rajnath Singh and Lalji Tandon. These men could not excite and inspire a group of five year olds let alone blatant casteists and selfish voters of UP. The campaign for UP should have begun five years ago. It is a huge state with a divided polity. BJP does not have any grassroots level support. The RSS cadre support is a myth. The sooner the RSS and the BJP realize that the better it will be for all. To win UP elections in 2017, they need to identify a local leader with ability and charisma. Someone who can connect with the voters and can make a social contract (thank you brother Rajeev Srinivasan) with them. Yes. A UP version of Narendra Modi. Someone who uses Hindutva as a guiding light but focuses on development like Narendra Modi. Someone who is honest and can keep babus around him honest. Like Narendra Modi. Need I go on? The reason why BJP is doing well in MP, Gujarat and Chattisgarh is because they have a strong leader around whom the party workers can galvanize. Such a leader was sorely lacking in this elections. Uma Bharati was brought in too late. It was like putting on a band aid on a gaping wound. I would go one step further. I say that we fire all the older leaders in UP whose egos have been a bigger problem that the Muslim votes. We need a new generation of leaders who are as much dedicated to the cause as they are to their careers.
The fifty MLAs of the party should be made to really work for their constituents to lay ground work for the next elections (including the general elections in 20140. BJP should wake up to the realities of regional politics. India has been corrupted with local parties which are here to stay. To counter that, the BJP needs to behave a like business conglomerate and treat the state units as wholly owned but almost independent subsidiaries. The central leadership should only get involved when their help is needed. That way, the local leaders who have a better feel of the electorate get what they want. Local BJP leaders wanted Narendra Modi to campaign in UP. After all, none of them were under the illusions about Muslim votes. Instead of listening to them, Gadkari not only ignored Modi but brought in Sanjay Joshi (whose claim to fame is a porn video) who is an outsider to UP politics. There are credible reports that RSS leadership is actively trying to rein in Bhai Narendra Modi so that he does not get the national prominence because he has the chutzpah to do things his way rather than toe the RSS line. What we are seeing is that Modi’s way works but RSS way is failing- over and over.
Of course none of this is going to happen unless the party’s central leadership makes amends for all the foul ups of the last decade. Men like Gadkari, Advani, Sudheendra Kulkarni or anyone associated with the 2009 general election debacle and now the one in UP, should retire. If they do not retire then the party should fire them. Leaders who have won elections and can win them in future should be the decision makers not the ones who take the Rajysabha route.
A business oriented party like the BJP should adopt the tenet of privately owned enterprise – perform or perish. Ability and merit should be the only guiding force. RSS leadership should realize that they are the nations answer to the evil of foreign owned NGOs but that is it. RSS leaders are true patriots but lousy politicians. They should become Professors Emeriti rather than the chairman of the department. That is the only way we will be able to save our party. Otherwise make room of the likes of Maulana Akhilesh Yadav.
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