With the Telugu Desam Party walking out of the NDA alliance at the Centre, tension among the BJP bigwigs is palpable. The BJP is only two seats above the half-way mark of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha. A few more setbacks, and the party would have to depend on allies like the Akali Dal and the Shiv Sena.
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The BJP won an absolute majority in the 2014 general elections under the leadership of Narendra Modi, but it lost eight byelections in the last four years. In the 15 Lok Sabha byelections held since 2014, the BJP lost five of seven seats it held earlier. And, in around 123 assembly byelections held since 2014, the BJP won only 45 seats.
Some BJP leaders admit in private that overconfidence and arrogance spoiled it for them. “Arrogance is growing in the party, no denying it. There is a feeling that we can defeat any party, anywhere in the country, easily. Yes, we are a very strong party. But the tendency in some of us to give scant regard to other political parties is not good,” said a BJP leader.
An important byelection is due in Kairana in Uttar Pradesh after the BJP MP there—Hukum Singh— passed away. It is said the BJP may not be able to retain the Kairana Lok Sabha seat, if the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and other smaller allies come together to defeat it, like in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. Kairana has 40 per cent minorities. The BJP is planning to field Singh’s daughter Mriganka, with the intention of gaining sympathy votes. If the BJP loses Kairana, its numbers in Lok Sabha will come down to 273—one seat above the half way mark. The notification of the Election Commission for the Kairana bypoll is awaited.
Some in the BJP want PM Narendra Modi to campaign in all byelections, the way he does it in the assembly polls. But the majority in the party think that Modi should not be used in bypolls as they happen every now and then.
Said Union Minister Sadananda Gowda to The Week, “It was our overconfidence that made us lose the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh. We will come back strong.” Gowda said the BJP had lost the assembly elections in Delhi and Bihar soon after the general elections in 2014. “But look at the way we consolidated ourselves after that.”
Gowda said the bypoll results in UP will have no bearing in Karnataka, which goes to polls in a few months. “The fight in Karnataka is between the Congress and the BJP. In the byelections in UP, even independents got more seats than the Congress,” he said.
With the TDP gone and the Shiv Sena fuming and blackmailing, the only major party in the NDA alliance is the Akali Dal. And, it seems, even they are not that happy. Said Naresh Gujral, Akali Dal MP, to The Week, “In politics you change with the changing times. We see where the wind is blowing now.” Gujral said the triumph in 2014 was of the NDA alliance and not the BJP alone. “It is important the BJP brings back all the allies who are disgruntled into the NDA.”
N. Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, which has 16 members in the Lok Sabha, quit the NDA on March 16, after it pulled out two ministers—Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Y.S. Chowdary—from the Union government last week.
Said Pandula Ravindra Babu, TDP MP, to The Week, “Our support to the BJP was conditional. The BJP is now under pressure. I hope wisdom will prevail on them.”
After expanding its base in the northeast, many leaders in the BJP thought there was no stopping for the party. The body blow in UP was least expected. It has now effervesced the opposition parties who are desperate as many of them are facing existential crisis because of the growing presence of the BJP in the country. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee tweeted after the bypoll results that it was the beginning of the end of the BJP.
A few TDP members in Parliament, after their party announced the split with the NDA, shouted ‘talaq, talaq, talaq’ to the BJP members. The Congress, the Left parties, the AIADMK are supporting the no-trust motion against the BJP government in Lok Sabha.
Said BJP leader and former union minister Shahnawaz Hussain to The Week, “I agree we were overconfident. But here we are admitting it! We will be quick to learn from our mistakes and win more than 300 seats on our own in the 2019 general elections.”