The 2024 parliament polls showed the BJP and even its NDA alliance failing to get the people’s mandate to govern the nation. The previous parliament polls were won by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a gimmick – the surgical strikes followed by the Balakot offensive – and not necessarily by any appreciation of the government’s five-year performance record. The 2029 polls are a long way away, before which there could be dramatic changes to the present dispensation at the Centre. Whether these changes would impact positively or negatively on the party is anybody’s guess. Hints are that the RSS, which crafted the BJP out of the Jan Sangh in 1980, is keen on a course-correction for the saffron party. This is well-advised.
The BJP grabbed power at the Centre and in some states, in the first two decades after its formation. It built its foundations brick by brick. However, unlike in the past, the BJP is increasingly getting identified with Modi and his close chum Amit Shah, who first functioned as party chief and now as the powerful home minister. Put together, the party began losing its ideological identity. The Modi-Shah axis looked insurmountable even as government policies were dictated by the RSS from Nagpur. When Shah stepped out of the party chief’s post, he installed his own man there in the person of JP Nadda. The three seemed to act in unison, but the party’s stock is not rising as was evident in the 2024 LS results. While the PM retains his image, it’s a moot point whether he can uplift the image of the party before the next parliament polls. With Modi attaining the age of 75 soon, his continuation by itself could look odd.
The BJP is crazy about retaining power. The party often waters down its political philosophy to win power in states. It allied with the PDP of the Mufti clan in Jammu and Kashmir to share power, but finally lost out. It is now cohabiting with Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP in government, though Naidu was baying for Modi’s blood and rubbishing the BJP. The party’s links to rival Nitish Kumar in Bihar are to share the spoils of power. Worse, today, the BJP needs TDP and JDU badly for the central government’s survival. The party lacks character. It lacks a reformative zeal. The system is turning hugely corrupt under this dispensation though ministers are not seen to be corrupt. Or, there’s a veil of secrecy. Modi’s investigation agencies are drawing a blank or dragging matters to ludicrous levels. The party draws its sustenance from the theatrics of the prime minister, but for how long? It has not been able to decide on a new party chief due allegedly to some loud thinking among the RSS brass, which might not be inclined to accept names proposed by the threesome in Delhi. For the BJP, there should be life beyond the Modi-Shah combine.
