Maharashtra polls: BJP, the unity party, is not so united; dissensions are visible

Bharatiya Janata Party is thought to be a monolithic party, apart from claims of being the world’s largest party. It is a party where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bigger than the party, and the party president, JP Nadda is secondary to the home minister Amit Shah.

This hierarchy is visible in every photograph, video, and in the manner in which the BJP functions. The number #2 in the government, Rajnath Singh, too is not high enough. What Modi desires is fashioned into a policy and the execution of it is left to the all-powerful Amit Shah.

The discipline does not allow any wavering from the path set by the top. Many a party man dreads a phone call or a direct snub from Shah. There have been videographs of Shah pushing Nadda out of a frame and nary a whimper of complaint or a grumble thereafter. That means, it is a ‘strict’ and ‘disciplined’ party.

In Maharashtra, it is turning out that this is somewhat loosening up. The fraying is more than discernible. The initial illustrations were how rebels from the BJP stayed on the ballots despite being warned and even reportedly offered inducements to stay within the framework of discipline but to no avail. This is weakening the party.

The latest is the manner two party leaders, Pankaja Munde, daughter of the late Gopinath Munde who is an MLC, and Ashok Chavan have reacted to the slogans that emanated from no less a personage than Yogi Adityanath, both a monk and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. The slogans are batenge toh ketenge.

Chavan called it a slogan that is “not in good taste” and elaborated on it – so contrary to total subservience to the bosses. “There is no relevance.” He feared that people “will not appreciate it. Personally speaking, I am not in favour of such slogans”. Neither has he liked the “vote jihad” and now its modification to “dharma yuddha” – both having a connotation to religion.

Chavan, a former Congress chief minister is a late convert to BJP and had contested the Lok Sabha elections from his home base Nanded and lost. This time, his daughter is trying her luck for a seat in the Maharashtra State Assembly. Is it because the secularism of the Congress has emerged to the surface and he burst out with his indignation?

It is hard to tell. Pankaja Munde, who plays her politics differently compared to the normal BJP aspirant to power, has also disliked it. “I don’t support (the slogan) just because I am of the party. A leader’s job is to make every living person on this land is our own. Therefore, we need not bring any such topic to Maharashtra. Ouch! It must have hurt the top echelons of the party.

It is one thing for an ally to distance oneself and his party from such hot slogans that are divisive, much as the other slogan Ek hai toh safe hai, the modified version of Modi. Ajit Pawar has also taken exception to it and said is not calling Adityanath or Modi to constituencies, particularly Baramati. These slogans are for the north, he pointed out. Not for Maharashtra.

The question is simple. What are senior party functionaries fulminating? Probably it all started with abandon with which the BJP started importing candidates from other parties to contest elections across the country for various Assemblies and recently the Lok Sabha elections. That was when the diehard party workers were upset and left out.

When suddenly one finds that his relevance to the party despite years of hard work is unrecognised and is thrown under the bus, rebellion is a likely course of action. That is what has happened in Maharashtra this time where rebels have remained in the fray and invested their all in tighter contests.

In the 2019 elections to the Lok Sabha, the BJP welcomed people from outside the party as it did in the recent Lok Sabha elections on the simple premise of “winnability” implying that their own aspirants were not good enough. Or, on a stretch, to deny their rival of a candidate who ranks high on the “winnability” scale. That is diluting the party.

The risks are high in this way of working. The party shows that its grip on the party is loosening. That does not help in keeping the bricks and mortar of the structure of BJP strong and in place. Though political parties in our country claim to be democratic, they need a command structure like that of the army which is called the High Command.

The Congress – from where both Chavan and Ajit Pawar come from – was ridiculed for being a party that listens to the top brass and that its workers, from ministers to the guy who pastes posters on walls, listen to a High Command. The BJP too is slipping that way and its ‘Congressisation’ has started.