IT’S amusing how the success of the BJP in West Bengal and Assam has reverberated in Meghalaya where state assembly elections are 20 months away. Senior BJP leaders and MLAs AL Hek and Sanbor Shullai have already declared that the next government will have the BJP in the driving seat. What the duo have stopped short of doing is to state upfront if the BJP would get an absolute majority in 2028. The Congress a national party has been part of coalition governments since the 1970s until 2018 when the National Peoples’ Party won with a decisive mandate and joined hands with the BJP which was already ruling at the Centre then. This has been the modus operandi of every regional party. The only difference being that it was the Congress that was the higher scorer in the first past the post system with regional parties agreeing to form coalition governments after bargaining for lucrative ministries. Even today the BJP with just two MLAs has one MLA as a minister because the NPP is aligned with the BJP.
Many rational aspirants to politics would argue that instead of being part of a coalition and playing second fiddle to regional parties it would make better sense to join the BJP which is now on a winning spree and which by 2028 might have been able to attract credible candidates to contest the state assembly elections. According to AL Hek, quite a few sitting and a some failed MLAs have been sending overtures to him, indicating they want to join the Party. There was a time when the tribes viewed the BJP as a right wing majoritarian Hindutva party, that was antagonistic towards Christians and whose agenda is to turn India or Bharat into a Hindu majoritarian nation, the way that Pakistan and Bangladesh are Islamic nations. But that apprehension seemed to have given way to raw ambition and the quest for power. Hek’s body language suggests that he is confident of maneuvering a crossover sooner than later. Naturally this gives the party confidence to publicly project momentum even before formal defections happen closer to 2028.
The BJP is clearly looking ahead to 2028 where it wants to move from a marginal player with just 2 MLAs to becoming a serious contender. Confidently announcing that “many will join” the BJP is also a tactical move as it sends a message that there are many who are ready to join the BJP bandwagon. Perhaps Hek is hinting especially at fence-sitters biding their time. The success of the BJP especially in dislodging Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal is being demonstrated that noting is impossible for the Party if it sets its sights on any state. In Meghalaya politicians are not known to have deep ideological moorings. They are all opportunists whose sole desire is to win elections without really fathoming what their real calling is – which is to serve the public cause. Winning an election means being upwardly mobile and serving one’s personal needs first. Hence there is not a single poor MLA in Meghalaya. That should tell us something about the quest for power in the guise of public service. Politicians are and have been self-serving. It’s the public that is misled again and again to elect the same old faces. Before the elections, people have this vain hope that they will deliver but realise soon enough that they are handing over power to a group of people who abuse that power for personal gains.
