Bjp’s new challenges

 

EVEN as Mr. Nitin Nabin takes over as President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at a crucial point, multiple new challenges also confront the world’s biggest political party. These challenges pertain less to ideology and more to the massive expansion of the organisation in the past one decade. There are reasons to believe that the BJP’s think-tank must have engaged itself with these issues to find effective solutions. Yet, there also are reasons to suspect whether the party is truly serious about tackling those organisational issues. It is clear, though, that if the BJP fails to tackle those issues and come up with effective solutions, it will have to tackle an internal monster in the next few years -- of the party’s inability to fulfill the aspirations of its vast membership. Mr. Nitin Nabin, thus, may find himself staring at massive numbers of disgruntled workers almost at all levels.

 

The phenomenon of disgruntled workers comes to fore at the time of every election -- from Panchayat to Parliament. The BJP often witnesses a massive influx of leaders and workers from other parties. These people join the BJP mostly because of the promises the BJP’s leaders -- though mostly at local and regional levels -- make to those new people. The invariable subsequent experience is that the BJP cannot fulfill its own promises to vast numbers of the new-comers. This creates a trust deficit among large numbers of workers -- and the organisation becomes that much weaker in those points. Today, in the euphoria of continuous electoral and governance victories, the BJP may not think of this issue as something truly big and seriously. But time may not be far for the party to start thinking serious how to fulfill its membership’s aspirations. For, if an organisation stops honouring its own word to its population, then it starts losing ground in the cadres’ minds. This has happened elsewhere in India and abroad, and it may threaten the country’s most important political party in the time to come.

 

The party has seen this problem in most elections in the last few years -- in Delhi, in Madhya Pradesh, in Maharashtra, in Bihar, and in most other States. The party’s leadership paints a promising picture of the organisation in the minds of members of other political parties, attract them to its folds, and then finds itself unable to fulfill the promises made. This creates serious credibility gaps within the party. In the long term, this may affect the party’s prospects in elections and beyond elections. Though the BJP is connected with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), it has little do with the RSS operational ideology based on personal sacrifices. For, in politics, such sacrifices -- as seen in the RSS -- do not operate at all. In politics, people make moves with specific gains in mind. The new-comers into the BJP, too, belong to this category. They expect fulfillment of the promises made to them -- and become unhappy when the given word is not respected. Another issue the BJP will have to tackle is that of old members getting neglected in the influx of new-comers. Lakhs of old members of the BJP find themselves getting side-lined in favour of new members -- whose commitment to ideology is always suspect.

 

The common voters also feel confused when they see in the BJP people who have nothing to do with the BJP’s ideology and tradition of sacrifice. They then wonder if the BJP is making compromises with its own ideological commitment for cheap political gains. The party’s think-tank must be aware of these issues. Yet, at least on the surface, that awareness does not become visible to the general public and the vast party membership. With the party having acquired a new President in Mr. Nitin Nabin, these challenges may start surfacing afresh. If these issues are not tackled in right time and manner, then the BJP may find itself losing ground slowly politically and electorally. It is time now to start looking at those issues in all seriousness.