Patriotic fervour apart, the aborted 'Tiranga (Tricolour) Yatra' of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet another recall from the nineties when the then party president Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi launched one of his own, as if it were an 'arrival statement' after the more successful 'Ayodya Yatra' of L K Advani in his time. Read with the BJP's revived love for issues of corruption, corrupt practices and probity in public life, pertaining to the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre - and not to the party-ruled Karnataka - it sadly reflects an inability to think and act fresh and differently from the past.
The main Opposition party at the national-level might not have hoped for a political windfall in the form of a series of scams and scandals afflicting the UPA-2, and the tough-nosed stand of the Supreme Court in those matters. It is a political windfall that the party could not but seek to exploit, but then, it was already looking at a long-term strategy at revival. The choice of unknown Nitin Gadkari after two successive electoral failures at the national-level in 2004 and 2009 indicated that the BJP was preparing for the long haul. Events in the second half of 2010 fast-tracked the processes when the party was still unprepared.
Nothing says it better than the inability of the BJP leadership to gauge the constraints that it was placing on the rest of the divided Opposition by reviving the 'Kashmir issue' through the 'Tiranga Yatra'. The Left, which has been on the same patch as the BJP on the corruption front in Parliament, has its views on the 'Kashmir issue' or towards the BJP in such matters. It may not be a coincidence that the BJP did not hold demands pertaining to Article 370 if only to broad-brush the 'Kashmir issue' on the patriotic firmament. However, this is not what it thinks, but what others think about it that matters in the final analysis.
The BJP may think that the Congress rival was losing all round, and more so Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the 'image' front. But it is not as yet ready, either. Despite the high-pitched multi-faceted campaign of the nineties that saw larger and more acceptable calls from a 'party with a difference' being submerged under the larger 'Hindutva' spectrum, the party could do only so much in electoral terms, particularly at the national-level. There is nothing to suggest that it has, or can do better, since.
If anything, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is becoming stronger than before. Karnataka, the south Indian State that has gone the BJP's way. is riddled with inner-party problems and burgeoning issues of anti-incumbency. Narendra Modi remains a strong Chief Minister and party leader, but is confined to Gujarat. There are problems for the BJP, both within and outside -- in promoting him at the national-level. And he is unlikely to step out of Gujarat unless he is sure of leading the party at the national-level, and to a parliamentary poll victory. Other party leaders are apprehensive about their future positions.
It took the BJP three avtars - Jan Sangh, Janata Party and the current identity to reach where it finally did. At the peak of its electoral career, the party could not muster more than a third of the total number of seats in the Lok Sabha. The contribution of regional allies to the party to those numbers cannot be under-estimated. The BJP's inherent inability to 'transfer' its own vote-share to regional allies restricted the choice, seat-share and also its growth and expansion when the party was seemingly and relatively popular in 'non-traditional' areas.
Despite having been in power at the Centre for six years at a stretch, the BJP seems to be still suffering from the 'Opposition' conundrum. It is yet to produce a leader who is independent of the party's past. It is yet to think differently from its old Opposition moorings, and talk about issues of governance that go beyond probity in public life that continues to appeal to the 'already converted' who does not add 'value' in electoral terms. When the nation was reeling under unmitigated price-rise and unprecedented inflationary hike, the BJP was so much immersed with 2-G scam and the CVC appointment. After a point, the vast majority of voters cannot relate to such eclectic issues. And when the BJP sought to move away, they took to the 'tiranga', and not as much to price rise that impacts every citizen.
(The author is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation)
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