The cursed Lotus

The way things are happening in the BJP, it seems like its heading towards doomsday. Two election debacles have had a catastrophic effect on the party.

The cursed Lotus

The way things are happening in the BJP, it seems like its heading towards doomsday. Two election debacles have had a catastrophic effect on the party. The unexpected defeat in the 2004 and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls have taken a heavy toll on the party. Lord Ram before killing the demon king Ravana worshipped Durga with 108 blue lotuses. It seems that the BJP has tried to use the name of Lord Ram and his symbol the lotus for cheap political gains. Ramji seems to have cursed the party's lotus. The problem with the party is that it's controlled not by one centre, but by many centres. The party's national presidentu00a0 has no control. Every day, we find leaders within the party making controversial remarks to the media, thereby creating moreu00a0 problems for the party and its extended parivar.

Since the day Rajnath Singh became the BJP's national president, the party has lost its direction. Singh's appointment may be the biggest mistake the RSS has ever made. As a leader, Singh doesn't have a pan Indian identity nor a pan Indian vision. His biggest problem is his north Indian Thakur tag, which has made his tenure controversial.

Today, the BJP has two main power centres L K Advani and Rajnath Singh who are at loggerheads. This has had a cascading effect on the BJP and weakened the NDA. If the Sangh Parivar and the NDA leadership doesn't take immediate corrective measures the BJP and the NDA might crumble. This would be detrimental to Indian politics and Indian democracy in the long run, as it is very important to have a strong opposition in a democracy. Advani should have gracefully retired from national politics the moment the Indian masses rejected him after the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. But perhaps no one except Advani would know why he didn't do so.

The Jaswant Singh episode also proves thatu00a0 there is no place for liberal thoughts in the Sangh Parivar. If the Sangh and the BJP are passionate about the preservation of their hardcore ideology, then why was no action taken against Advaniu00a0 when heu00a0 portrayed Jinnah as a secular man during his last visit to Pakistan? Why wasn't Advani expelled from the party? Two sets of laws for two individuals for the same kind ofu00a0 offence no longer works in Indian politics. The biggest political duplicity and hypocrisy by the party since it came to power in 1998 has been its dual behaviour when it comes to its core ideologyu00a0talking about the Ram mandir to gain votes before the elections but forgetting it later, has taken a toll on the party.

Its time for the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to understand its basic flaws and ratify the loopholes. One cannot expect positive contribution from the Indian left, and so the role of the BJP becomes more vital. If it does not realise this soon, then what has befallen the BJP would befall the Sangh tomorrow.