NEW DELHI:A shell-shocked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is dispatching its General Secretaries to all the States where Assembly elections took place recently to make an in-depth post poll assessment of its unsatisfactory performance, They are to submit their reports to the party’s National Executive scheduled to meet for two days in New Delhi on Dec.18. For instance, Govinda charya has been asked to submit a field report from) Uttar Pradesh and Pramod Mahajan from Madhya Pradesh. The names of other General Secretaries who will be visiting Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh are yet to be finalized. According to Govinda charya, the State leaders have already been Sent a hits of parameters to be used in this exercise. Detailed information will be gathered on vote margins, defeats and victories registered by former MLAsand Ministers, region wise pattern of polling, voting pattern depending upon election tours of party leaders, and the performance of the party in seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Senior BJP leaders stress that but for this exercise, there are no rumblings or dissension in the party and no particular leader was being held responsible for the party’s reversal in three States. They scoff at rumors regarding the differences between rival lobbies led by party President L.K.Advani, and his predecessor, Murl Manohar Joshi. As one senior leader puts it: “The BJP does not believe in pinning faults on any one person holding any particular leader responsible. It believes in collective functioning.”
The inner party debate is expected to center around the use of the Hindutva card during the Assembly elections. There are some who maintain that Advani’s downplaying of the issue has contributed to the BJP’s poor performance.
T.N.Chaturvedi, a member of the BJP National Executive, admits that there is some criticism inside the party about the downplaying of the Hindutva plank and that some people had wanted an accentuated emphasis during the election. “However,” he says, “I am not among those. I agree that the Hindutva plank is very important but instead of accentuating its political significance, | feel it is more important for the issue to reach the masses.
In his view, the Assembly elections have exposed a lack of organizational cohesiveness and coordination between the central party and the State Governments, “In Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh andevenin Uttar Pradesh, the feeling that the party workers had as take in the Government and that the State leaders had a stake in the fortunes of the workers was missing. There was a lack of communication and a lot of complacency,” Chaturvedi says.
BJP must broaden base to rule out Center the BJP, says K.Govinda charya, a party general secretary, will have to broaden its social base and project upwardly mobile leaders of OBCs and Dalits to consolidate the gains. He is not much enamored of the idea of looking for electoral understanding with parties ideologically opposed to the BJP and is confident that the party has resilience to overcome reverses and regain buoyancy.
‘The party leaders who held several sessions to review the poll results are of the view that antiestablishment sentiment was quite strong in M.P. and Himachal. Certain unpopular decisions and actions of the Patwa and Shanta Kumar governments, it is pointed out, alienated powers followed and organized sections of the society from the party. No serious efforts were made even after the dismissal of the governments to assuage the hurt feelings of the people. On the other hand, the two former CMS. Went on defending their actions further annoying the people.
“BJP’s arrogance led to reverses’
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Dec.2 said it was BJP’s “arrogance” and refusal to join hands with Shiv Sena in the northern states that Jed to the party’s reverses in the recent Assembly elections.
Thackeray, dealing on the outcome of the election results, at a news conference here, commented that “foolish” behavior of the BJP adversely affected its Hindu vote bank and time had come for it to “mend it ways.”
The BJP should realize that it would never get the Muslim voted and stop repenting the collapse of Babri mosque, he said adding the elections had proved that “Hindutva” could be the only plank to capture power.
The BJP should have played the Hindutva card aggressively, he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 10, 1993
