Division within secular parties boosted BJP's prospects at 2014 Lok Sabha polls
New Delhi: Division in the secular parties has weakened the campaign against BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi in the Hindi heartland.
While the Mandalites have not succeeded in expanding their support base and thus check Mr Modi, the Congress managers were confident that UPA-II’ game changer laws and a young face would help the party to retain power for a third time successively.
“Mr Modi can come to power at the Centre because of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as these two states would give him required numbers besides Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh. But it remains to be seen if Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav can stop him,” asked a senior MP.
Mr Modi revived the BJP in UP and Bihar after realising that these four leaders who have been fighting for the cause of backward castes, cannot come together due to their political ambition while the Congress has become irrelevant politically in these states for over two decades.
The BJP’s PM nominee has gained strength in UP and Bihar due the division among Mulayam, Ms Mayawati , the Bihar Chief Minister and Lalu Prasad Yadav and made the BJP active under the leadership his close aide Amit Shah in Uttar Pradesh.
Outside the Hindi belt, Mr Modi is relying on the Telugu Desam, the AIADMK and the BJD for support. If the TD has now become a partner of the NDA, the rest of the two parties may back him after the polls under different pretexts, predicted a Congress leader.
The Congress could not expose the polarisation strategy of the BJP effectively because it has helped the SP, the BSP and the RJD to consolidate their political space
Meanwhile, Lau Prasad Yadav said in Motihari that he would stop Mr Modi just as he had stopped L.K. Advani. The RJD supremo, who was then the Bihar CM, had stopped Mr Advani’s ‘rath yatra’ in 1990 and arrested Mr Advani.
“That time the balloon of the ‘guru’ had been punctured. It is the turn of the ‘chela’ this time,” he said.
