JOIN USIt is quite interesting to observe that the Bharatiya Janata Party of late thrives on controversies and basks in the vain glory of all the publicity garnered. The election debacle invited a few rumblings from senior party leaders who were at a loss to understand the silence of the poll-strategists who were not forthcoming in owning up responsibility. The salvo fired by Yashwant Sinha, with even the text of his resignation from all important party posts going public, was the final nail in the coffin. It is an open secret that the BJP today is a collection of individual leaders who have outgrown the party, personal and ego clashes deciding the loyalty factor. Reckoned to be a worthy alternative to the monopolistic rule of the Congress and its allies, the BJP has in the course of time decimated into a spent force.
Having started off its flourishing innings in national politics using the ‘Hindutva’ plank, the architect of the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi movement’ finds itself miserably isolated following the submission of the Liberhan Commission report; none of its NDA allies agreeing to lent support to the BJP on the issue. It appears that as the ‘Mandir Masjid’ row brought the party to the national limelight, so have reports of investigations into the incident sounded the death knell for the party at the centre.
Silenced now as vociferous critics of the Congress regime, the BJP rank and file continue to remain in news with their penchant for raising the most innocuous of issues. Taking a cue from the challenging of the Union Home Minister’s election from Sivaganga, some losing party leaders of BJP in Mumbai attributing their humiliating defeat at the recent hustings to faulty Electronic Voting Machines have filed election petitions in the court. Why man, even machines appear to show apathy for the Lotus emblem!
Pachu Menon
Margao, Goa.