An evaluation after BJP's defeat in the elections
Mumbai (AsiaNews) - The stage is today set for a stormy Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting. Arun Shourie, ex minister and member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament, wrote a letter to the leaders of the party demanding an open discussion on the party's Lok Sabha poll debacle that has turned the party into a badly divided house. Yesterday’s meeting for the office bearers to finalise the agenda for the national executive, witnessed high drama as senior leader of the BJP Jaswant Singh tried to circulate Shourie's letter but was stopped from doing so by his other senior party colleagues.
The other two leaders of the Hindu nationalist party, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha who on their part had already resigned their executive posts circulated letters of dissent requesting a full debate to ascertain the responsibilities for the defeat in the elections. But Rajnath Singh, party chief ignored their request and tried to avoid the circulation of the letters to the press.
Shourie, in his letter to Rajnath Singh, asks why the party was shying away from an open assessment of the electoral debacle and demanded transparency in the functioning of the party. Shourie, also a member of the Rajya Sabha, has raised questions about accountability in the party and the decision-making structure and expressed the view that "conspirators" have taken over the party.
The Times of India, one of India’s leading newspaper, whilst speaking of a “volcanic situation” and civil war in the BJP writes “Shourie fuels big fire raging in the BJP”.
The main bone of contention is the appointment of LK Advani (in the picture) as the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, of Sushma Swaraj as deputy leader in the Lok Sabha and of Arun Jaitley as opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha. All three had been the strategists of the election campaign that brought the defeat. The rank-and-file of the party wants a sincere assessment of the causes of the defeat. Arun Shourie argued how the party had swept away a series of defeats and the reasons for them without pointing out the responsibilities. He wants an open discussion in today’s national executive party meeting.
Some commentators say that another topic of discussion could be the party’s ideology and its strong link with the Sangh Parivar, the association that gathers various Hindu movements that support the party. The leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the main group of the Sangh Parivar, had already given a warning that if the ideal of Hindutva will be put aside it will mark the end of the BJP as national party. But most probably there will be no time and chance to discuss the ideology of the party since personal grudges and ambitions are the main topics of the day.
Amongst the many controversies that preceded today’s meeting there are also the few Muslim members of the BJP who castigated the leaders for not distancing themselves from the hate speech of Varun Gandhi against the Muslims and they consider this the main reason for the poor performance in Uttar Pradesh.
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