BJP focuses on bolstering local units after poll losses

BJP IS ALSO CLOSELY SCRUTINISING THE REASONS FOR ITS LOSSES IN STATES SUCH AS MADHYA PRADESH AND CHHATTISGARH

NEWDELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set to get a new president by next week and that would not be the only organisational change within the ruling party. According to party functionaries, preparations are also underway to strengthen the party units at the state and district levels to overcome the “structural deficiencies” that led to the electoral reverses the BJP has faced, including most recently in the Jharkhand assembly polls last month.

Elections to pick new state office bearers are underway and are expected to be completed in 50% of the states by the end of the week. As per the party’s rules, the announcement of a new party chief can be made with a new organisational set up in at least 50% of the states.

The party is alsoscrutinising the reasons for its losses in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where it had been in power for three terms, in late 2018.

The BJP, which returned to power at the Centre with a bigger mandate in 2019, has begun reviewing the performance of its functionaries, the process of finalising candidates and the issues on which it will go to the polls, said a party functionary on condition of anonymity.

“A quick review of the Jharkhand poll was that the party did not act decisively to address concerns of anti-incumbency, of internal feuds that came out in the open and was relying too much on the national narrative to retain the state, which has a sizeable tribal population,” said the functionary quoted above.

The functionary said there is a view that the party relied more on national issues and the central leadership to retain power instead of addressing local issues like the perception among the tribals that their rights were not being protected or the fear among Christians that their faith will be targeted. The issue of “weakness at the state level” was raised at a meeting of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP, in December. The Sangh is also concerned by the growing clout of the regional leaders that pose a challenge to the BJP.

“Most of the regional parties are driven by narrow political considerations. There is a need to counter the polarising narrative these parties build. Take, for example, the ruling TMC in West Bengal, which has created a falsehood about the CAA and turned it into a campaign,” said a functionary of the RSS.

The Sangh is concerned that the absence of strong local level leadership at the state levels will lead to ceding ground to the regional parties, which will be exacerbated by the absence of allies.

“After the oldest ally, the Shiv Sena, broke away from the BJP [last year], there have been minor issues with other allies too. So it is imperative for the party to keep its friends close and consolidate its cadre strength. In each state, the party has a substantial number of supporters, which should translate into electoral gains,” the Sangh functionary said.

After losses in assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Rajasthan, the new party president will have the challenging task of leading the party in the assembly elections in Delhi in February and Bihar later in the year.

The party is currently campaigning on a war footing to drum up support for its policies like fast-tracking of citizenship for non-muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that has triggered protests.

A second BJP leader said the losses the party faced in the states cannot be seen as an outright rejection of the party. “Look at the vote share. In MP [Madhya Pradesh], it came down from 44.9% to 41%; in Jharkhand from 33.37% to 31.26%; in Maharashtra, too, the dip was from 27.8% to 25.6%...which indicates support for the party, its ideology, and its policies,” the second BJP functionary said.

On why the party won elections in states like Assam, where its presence was limited, but failed to retain power in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the second functionary said the party is aware there were “problems” in candidate selection.

Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies said the process of assessment should include over reliance on the central leadership as well as concentration of power at the Centre. “There is far more reliance on the central leadership or, more precisely, the PM and party president Amit Shah instead of the local leadership doing what it should,” he said.