The BJP once called itself a party with a difference. That was in the days when A.B. Vajpayee lorded over the party, determined its destiny, claimed to practise politics of principles, disallowed defectors, debated history, holidayed in the hills, read poetry, quoted Rubaiyat, cited the Ramayan, spoke in genteel phrases, ate at iftars, and ruled the land like a merrily caring Old King Cole.
Those differences have since faded away; the BJP is now much like the rest of the parties. No harm. That’s the way things should be. In politics, it isn’t good if one of them acts lofty among the nasty, sports a halo on the head, and goes around with a holier-than-thou tattoo on the forehead. Yet there’s one thing that still marks the BJP different.
Most parties, if they are ruling a land, would strive to make their people happy all the time. They would claim to be giving jobs, building roads, getting the streets policed, supplying power, erecting bridges, distributing rations, offering freebies, and doing more, so that voters would go to the polls with smiles on their lips.
Imaging: Deni Lal
Not so the BJP. They, too, strive to make the people happy when they are ruling the land, and do all the above-listed things to see smiles on people’s faces. But things tend to change when the polls approach—the party would then like to see a scowl on the voter’s face rather than a smile. It wants an angry voter, not a happy voter.
This column had noted the same on the eve of last year’s general election—that the voters were happy and the BJP was worried. The statement proved to be right; the party ended up winning fewer seats in the new Lok Sabha than in the earlier one. Worse had happened to Vajpayee. He had ruled India claiming to be making Indians 'feel good', and went to the polls saying “India [was] shining”. But like Harold Wilson, who went to the polls claiming “we never had it so good” and lost, he too bit the dust.
The memories of the 2004 defeat and the 2024 setback are haunting the BJP now, when Bihar, where the party is a partner in power, is going to the polls. Despite all what Tejashwi Yadav would carp, Bihar under the JD(U)-BJP partnership has been better-ruled than it was under the Lalu family’s goonda raj. Roads are getting built, bridges erected, girls going to schools, homes lit, factories running, and more. The voters are generally happy.
But the BJP is worried. Like the Canadian thinker William B. Munro, the BJP believes that “the average man does not vote for anything, but against something”. He doesn’t vote with his mind; he votes with his heart. So, don’t appeal to his reason; appeal to his emotion.
In short, the BJP wants an anger factor. So it has spotted a bogeyman in Seemanchal, a pop term for the Purnea division which borders Bangladesh (not exactly; a narrow strip of West Bengal territory lies in between). The party launched a campaign that Bangladeshi Muslims had sneaked into the region, and applauded from the sides when the Election Commission started a summary revision of the voter list that would weed out the bad voter.
The anger appears to have been misplaced. The weed-out drive hasn’t caught more than 400 foreigners yet (most of them Nepali Hindus), and the campaign seems to be backfiring. For two reasons. One, if indeed there are foreigners, the blame would be on the JD(U) and the BJP who have been ruling the state for most of the last two decades. Two, the campaign is embarrassing the ally JD(U) which, like other parties, would like the voter to go to the polls with a smile rather than a scowl.
prasannan@theweek.in