By Sagarneel Sinha
After the recent exit of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the alliance led by BJP is left with only a few major regional parties. Last year, it was the Maharashtra based Shiv Sena, ideologically a strong Hindu nationalist party, that left the NDA and decided to form the state government along with NCP and Congress, the two ideologically opposed parties.
A section of political analysts and also Akali Dal plus Shiv Sena, have blamed the BJP, particularly the Narendra Modi – Amit Shah duo, for not giving value to its own allies. They cite that the present NDA is no more the NDA nurtured by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee – Lal Krishna Advani duo.
It is true that with the passage of time coalition politics of NDA has changed — as the political scenario of the country itself has gone a significant change with the election of Narendra Modi as the prime minister in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Agree that BJP under Modi-Shah duo isn’t the same BJP of Vajpayee-Advani duo, which had to depend on its allies too much. Today, BJP is a juggernaut in Indian politics that has successfully replaced the Congress, India’s grand old party, as the centre of politics. Due to this, not only the Congress, BJP’s growth even poses a threat to the other members of NDA, including those who were once part of the grouping.
Take the case of Shiv Sena, which was once considered a natural ally of BJP due to the ideological similarity between the two parties. In Maharashtra, one of the most politically significant states, Shiv Sena was the leader of the NDA and BJP used to be the secondary player. But the ground realities changed over the time which was reflected in 2014 when BJP contesting alone emerged as the largest party in the state assembly polls by securing 122 seats, almost double than that of Shiv Sena, which managed to grab 63 seats.
In 2019 state assembly polls, Shiv Sena willy-nilly had to even agree to contest less number of seats than BJP in the NDA alliance. Shiv Sena, despite getting almost double seats less than BJP, wanted the sharing of the chief minister’s post between the two allies. It was an unrealistic demand that didn’t reflect the political reality of the state. In fact, it was adamant Shiv Sena that refused to accept the changed political scenario of Maharashtra and ultimately quit NDA when it saw that NCP and Congress were willing to accept its dominance, at least on paper.
The case of Shiromani Akali Dal, another old partner of BJP, is also quite similar. Presently, the regional party of Punjab, which had been in power in the state for multiple times, is not even the main opposition party in the state. In the last state assembly polls held in 2017, Akali Dal not only lost the power to Congress, it even came third after the new player, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Although, during the last year’s Lok Sabha elections, AAP performed badly and SAD also improved a little bit of its vote share. But the Akalis failed to gain much, despite AAP’s poor show.
In the present protests led by a section of farmers, particularly in Punjab and also in neighbouring Haryana, against the 3 farm acts brought by the Modi government, the weakened SAD sees a perfect opportunity to regain its lost rural voters and to checkmate both the ruling Congress and the AAP. Also not to forget that BJP had been demanding to increase its limited number of 23 seats allotted by Akalis for the state assembly polls. Given its own weakening base, ally BJP’s demand for more seats and the present farmers’ protests in the state, it was the perfect time for Akalis to leave the NDA to prepare itself for the upcoming 2022 Punjab elections.
Actually, parties like the Shiv Sena, Akali Dal have weakened considerably over the years and have left NDA in search of new political fortunes. Obviously, BJP also has its own mistakes. Nationally NDA isn’t that active as it used to be. So, being the largest partner, it is BJP’s duty to make it active by creating a national level NDA committee and also creating state level NDA committees too. Such a step will help to erase the prevailing dissatisfaction among the allies of being ignored by BJP.
Notably, BJP gave up 5 seats it won last year to accommodate its Bihar based ally JD(U) — which demanded a 50:50 seat share for the Lok Sabha elections. JD(U) earlier used to be the dominant player in Bihar NDA before it quit the alliance in 2013.
While most of its allies, including the past ones, have either witnessed or have been witnessing decline in their political bases, the truth is that BJP’s political base has either increased or has been increasing across the different parts of the country. So, it is completely politically incorrect to put the entire blame on BJP for the reducing members in NDA — as political alliances are built based on ground realities. (IPA Service)