The much awaited UP election results along with 4 other states have finally come and come in such a conquering way that Saffron has no doubt emerged the most vibrant color this Holi! Amidst a furor of celebratory carnival on social media the BJP’s grand win in UP and Uttarakand is not just historic but very significant too, not just for the people of UP and Uttarakand but for the country at large because much to the citizens relief the largesse of the UP win firstly raises the central government’s discretion powers in the Rajya Sabha to smoothly pass various bills that were being unendingly stalled by the opposition until recently. Secondly the phenomenal seize of vote share in Manipur by the saffron party is not just an indication of the surge of saffron across the nook and corner of the country but a victory of democracy.
The realization of the importance of voicing out was unseen in the past but perhaps it was the belief that they will be heard that saw an 85% voter turnout in the Manipur elections this time! The BJP(21) may be behind the Congress(28) in numbers in Manipur but the steep climb from 0 to 21 is no joke, in fact it is an alarm to the Church dictated Congress which needs to scramble to call it a day as the local parties decide to join hands with the saffron.
Tied up with the Akalis, Punjab always seemed distant for the BJP owing to the fact that Punjab is a land where people take pride in their own people and outsourcing an outsider would never work, with the tight rope of coalition dharma that did not allow a free hand for the BJP and their lethargy on depending on Akali faces alone instead of raising strong vociferous local BJP cadre coupled with the increasing dissent amongst people for non-performance with a dominating SAD coalition, the BJP seemed to be struck between the devil and the deep sea.
Although Navjot Singh Siddu was largely seen by the politically aware as a turncoat for power and even Amritsar had gone berserk sticking his missing pictures when he was spending time in comedy shows when Amritsar was calling while as a BJP MP, the fact that he did win from a Congress seat goes on to tell that either he was still a popular face or that the people were fed up with the SAD style of politics that they were perhaps determined to vote for anything but drugs or drama.
Now that they have voted for Congress, the same Congress whose tall leaders stand with the cause of stone pelters who are directly sponsored by Pakistan, it is ironical that the same Congress has won Punjab promising them stringent actions to curb drug menace which is again directly funded and executed by Pakistan. What remains to be seen is whether Amarinder Singh will really dare to expose all those politicians under whose nose the whole drugs menace was engineered or will it be another lip service but it is surely a lesson for BJP to choose its coalition partners carefully and know when and where to draw a line and exit at the right time with the right strategies from such unceremonious bonhomie, going forward J & K should not be taken lightly! Also a local Punjab BJP face should become visible in the coming days if the BJP has to make a comeback on its own again!
Goa has come as a shocker, being a BJP ruled state where BJP had managed 21 out of 22 seats previously the current declining numbers certainly need attention and the alacrity to contain any differences within the party almost immediately and not wait for elections to settle scores. The BJP’s current dip in numbers seems to be largely because of internal party disputes that we saw recently with the sacking of an RSS worker, also the defeat of current CM Laxmikant Parsekar in the elections means a lot of things have not gone well because a winning face inspires many other wins and eventually stirs the party to a win. Perhaps the vacuum of Manohar Parikkar was still being felt and the party men had not moved on to accept their new CM face. An issue about the Goa government giving grants to church run English institutes was stirred up against Konkani and Marathi medium schools creating a divide between BJP and RSS workers which if I say has eventually resulted in the current numbers then it may not be wrong. Good thing is that BJP will still be able to form the government there as the alliance partners have agreed to join if Parrikar resumes his duty as the state CM. And Parrikar has actually resigned as the Defense Minister to take the reins of Goa in his hands.
The tools of caste, communal and linguistic politics and even creating internal rifts are here to stay and this is what the BJP should be vary of in the upcoming Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajastan elections where every intolerant card will be played at silently without much outrage on the media because by now they must have realized that the more outrage they create the more they lose. The public might as well make an effort to see beyond caste and communal politics and vote for the country but will the party insiders make the same efforts remains to be seen in the Southern Block Busters, especially in Karnataka where B.S Yediyurappa was largely sympathized and given a chance as CM when Kuamaraswamy of JDS had ditched BJP in their coalition politics but the same people had voted otherwise after an overdose of dramatics which tells that winning might be the means while sustaining a win through consistent development and measured performance is the mantra to the end in itself!
And there is no bigger political mantra than visible performance because people are the silent election analysts who will eventually vote their vociferous voices out!