After suffering a serious setback in the assembly elections in Bihar in 2015, the BJP and its strategists, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, have ensured they remain several steps ahead of the opposition at the hustings.
A case in point is its spectacular performance in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh where it crossed the 300 mark in the 403-member House. The regional heavyweights, the Samajwadi party and the Bahujan Samajwadi party, were sent packing not knowing what hit them.
Adopting a different and carefully calibrated approach that has stumped the opposition, the Lotus party is actively considering elevating a tribal woman Draupadi Murmu—from backward Odisha—to the highest constitutional office of the President when incumbent Pranab Mukherjee completes his term on July 25.
With a clear image as a politician, Murmu is currently the Governor of Jharkhand, which is the best thing that could have happened to her, according to sources in the BJP.
The BJP has a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha, but is marginally short in the electoral college, which it hopes to make up with support from regional parties, particularly from the south, including Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Tamil Nadu.
There are clear indications of the BJP-led NDA sailing through far in excess of the majority mark. It got a shot in the arm last week when the YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy announced its support for the alliance nominee for the office of the head of state. The Telengana Rashtra Samiti has also decided to vote with the BJP in the presidential elections.
With chances of the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu also voting with the BJP, the saffron brigade's nominee being firmly ensconced in the Rashtrapati Bhawan for the first time is certain.
This is also to rub home the point that despite being in power for more than six decades, the Congress has done precious little for the oppressed and depressed classes who have just been left to their fate.
Modi wants to end the facade of the Congress being the messiah of the poor. With a clean image as a politician, it is believed the best thing that could have happened to Murmu was to pick her for a gubernatorial assignment.
This could send shock waves in the political firmament. Such a choice will make people sit up and take note. There is also no doubt that it is bound to be supported by the tribal elected representatives in Parliament and the legislatures, irrespective of their party affiliations, leaving the opposition leaden footed.
It may be recalled that the BJP's gambit of concentrating on the non-Dalit backward classes in the just concluded assembly elections in UP ensured a huge dividend to the BJP far beyond its own expectations.
Even as efforts are underway to forge a United Front, the Congress and other non-BJP parties have approached former Governor, administrator and diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi to be the joint opposition candidate for the office of the President. These discussions have been of a preliminary nature.
The non-BJP opposition is facing the usual hiccups in getting its act together. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has taken the lead contacting various leaders, including RJD's Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav of the SP.
TMC supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is meeting Sonia Gandhi this week. Odisha's ruling BJD and some others are also being consulted.
Lalu is staring at problems with the Supreme Court ordering him to face trial in all the four fodder scam cases that can cast its shadow in knitting the UF.
Interestingly, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury has already clarified that the Left's antipathy towards the TMC would not be a hurdle in the quest for a larger unity.
At the same time, the body language of these leaders is the least convincing in the prevailing circumstances of a Modi phenomenon.
Mukherjee has been a "copy book" President who has remained steadfast in preserving and protecting the Constitution.
In today's polarised society with extreme positions acquiring prominence and politics mirroring the same, the new President has to play the role of the next conscience keeper. With growing incidents of intolerance from different parts of the country, the new head of state will have to prove the government's commitment to pluralism, inclusiveness and independence of institutions.
