BJP Shows Flickers Of Life Beyond Modi-Shah Grip
Now, for the first time in over a decade, the party office has become visibly active. The new party president, Mr Nitin Nabin, who had announced a team of office-bearers, including vice-presidents, general secretaries, secretaries as well as the president of the party's youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), seems to have set up his own team as captain
It is usually the case that when a party is in power, its party offices are empty and silent. The focus is on the government. It has been so with the Congress when it was in power, and it has been so with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2014.
The party remained on the margins even as Mr Narendra Modi, as head of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, remained the face of the party. And the belief took root in the party that Mr Modi is the BJP’s mascot, in whose name the party won elections. Of course, when the BJP lost state elections, for example in Bihar and Delhi in 2015, the party took the hit and not Mr Modi.
Now, for the first time in over a decade, the party office has become visibly active. The new party president, Mr Nitin Nabin, who had announced a team of office-bearers, including vice-presidents, general secretaries, secretaries as well as the president of the party's youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), seems to have set up his own team as captain. Mr Nabin must have taken many of the decisions on the advice of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the invisible hand in BJP affairs akin to economist Adam Smith’s “invisible hand of the market”, along with suggestions and recommendations of Mr Modi and Mr Shah, who must have functioned like the selection committee. But once the team is announced, Mr Nabin is making it sure that it is his team and he would be calling the shots as it were.
His first act was to convene a meeting of select invitees, including ministers in the government, to brainstorm over the youth outreach in the wake of the phenomenal success of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). It was an interesting mix of invitees including Hemang Joshi, president of the BJYM, and the outgoing BJYM president, Mr Tejaswi Surya, both 35, general secretaries Smriti Irani, 50, Vinod Tawde, 62, Anurag Thakur, 51, minister for information technology, electronics, communications, railways, information and broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw, 56, minister for health Mansukh Mandaviya, 54. This is not exactly the Gen Next of the BJP shaped by Mr Modi and Mr Shah, but it is part of the team that will take over the baton from the top duo. Though the speculation as to who after Mr Modi is focused on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Aditya-nath, 54, and Mr Shah, 61, the party needs a new phalanx as it were. The mix of leaders whose ages span from mid-30s to early-60s that Mr Nabin, 46, is leading marks the transition.
For the first time in a decade, there was chatter of many voices in the meeting as to how to respond to the Gen Z challenge, including suggestions that the label Gen Z should be abandoned, and they must not be treated as a single, homogenous group, and that the younger lot should not be given too much attention to the exclusion of people of other age segments. It is refreshingly different to hear the many twitters of the members in place of the unanimous echo of Mr Modi’s pronouncements which became the undeclared diktat for the party members. At the end of the meeting, Mr Nabin said that there would be more sessions on the issue.
There is of course the one-dimensional Modi directive that a member of the party should reach out to a university/college a day. It may not be strictly followed even as his directive of his first term when he wanted a minister of his government to be at the party office and meet with the party members to maintain the live contact between government and party. And in the brainstorming session there was no reference to the ‘reach out to a university/college a day’ mission. The mission mode approach bears the stamp of the Modi signature. It seems that Mr Nabin and his team are trying to grapple with the issue by first trying to identify what it is.
The CJP tide has receded for the moment with the fledgling organisation calling off the September 5 protest march as the Supreme Court had quashed all the FIRs against all the protests, not just in Delhi, but in the states as well. This does not mean that the CJP is sitting back and it is easing pressure on the governments at the Centre and in the states. It is spreading out to examine the state of government-run schools in Rajasthan, which happens to be a BJP-ruled state. The party then has to remain on its feet.
The moot question is whether the BJP is slowly stepping out of the shadow of Mr Modi, who had placed himself as the big leader since 2014. And if that were to happen, then Mr Nabin and his colleagues will have to find their own voice. Of course, it would be unrealistic to expect the new team to abandon the anti-minority, anti-Nehru venom that has fetched the party its electoral dividend. But if the returns on these stale topics are seen to be falling, then Team Nabin would have to look for something different. As of now, Mr Nabin is showing signs of being his own man in the circumscribed space of party programmes, he could remain active in the limited sphere. There is however a perceptible difference between him and his predecessor, J.P. Nadda. Mr Nadda moved in the shadow of Mr Modi and Mr Shah. Mr Nabin seems to be stepping out a bit, if nothing more.
The BJP has been a silent and timid follower of Mr Modi. But there is the wee bit of awareness that it cannot remain so. BJP watchers in the media and elsewhere had despaired of the sense of obedience to Mr Modi that emanated from the party offices. They may now have to sit up and notice the faint sounds and movements behind the walls.
The writer is a Delhi-based commentator and analyst
