Will sidelined leaders upset BJP’s electoral applecart?

The BJP’s ‘iron curtain’ is slowly but surely showing cracks with party workers across different states getting increasingly concerned over the absence of any dialogue and the growing diktats of the high command.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is like Arjuna from the Mahabharata. Like the legendary archer, Modi always keeps his target in sight, unwaveringly. With assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan declared, those on his radar — or rather off it — are none but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s satraps: Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan), and Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh).

‘Dump the regional satraps’ seems to be the war cry ahead of the polls as Modi seeks to strengthen his already powerful hold over the world’s largest political party to promote his people in the states after subjugating other senior and powerful BJP leaders since 2014.

Contesting the assembly polls without projecting a face is a sure way to make it appear to be a ‘faceless’ exercise, but it is promoting the ‘face’ of the Prime Minister as the only BJP leader that matters. Modi might say that the ‘kamal’ (lotus, the BJP’s symbol) is what matters, but in reality, he is projected as being synonymous with the party.

Barring Nitin Gadkari, there is hardly a BJP leader in the Union Cabinet who speaks out of line with the Prime Minister. Almost everybody in the Cabinet and the party’s central leadership appears to be more than content in not just following Modi on social media but in also forwarding his message in whatever manner possible to project themselves as loyal.

Call it Modi’s magic or his iron hold over the BJP, the presence of party chief J P Nadda appears to be more ceremonial. The moral is that everyone else is immaterial as Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah call the shots, surely, squarely, wholly. Read in this context, the slogan ‘Modi hai to mumkin hai’ assumes an ominous tone.

The philosophy behind this consolidation of power is unambiguous. When a leader emerges on the national scene, they are bound to spread their reach and influence far and wide to have their people in every key post, not only at the central level but in the states too. If Modi’s ‘double engine’ theme must get a boost, then those managing the affairs in the states should be his trusted men and women.

The timing of this campaign to sideline the regional satraps raises several questions, especially because only six months back this tactic by the Modi-Shah combine in Karnataka boomeranged — badly. Interestingly, neither Modi nor Shah have spoken about the Karnataka loss; it’s as if to project that the fiasco has never happened.

Modi, it would appear, is not comfortable in dealing with equals or near equals, and would prefer to deal with subordinates. In the current scenario, this is bound to go against the interests of Chouhan, Raje, and Singh. 

On their home turf of Gujarat, Modi-Shah ‘retired’ the entire senior leadership of the BJP sometime back by bringing in first-time MLAs as ministers, even in appointing the Chief Minister, in what was seen as an audacious attempt to show their continuing hold in Gujarat. Now, this Gujarat model is replicated elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see how this strategy of sidelining regional satraps in three poll-going states will play out in Uttar Pradesh where Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has emerged as the poster boy for hardline Hindutva. Is he next on the radar? If Adityanath further grows in strength and stature, will he be seen as a threat to Modi?

In Rajasthan, many leaders considered close to Raje are conspicuously absent from BJP’s first list, generating resentment among leaders. Being Chief Minister of the desert state twice, Raje is the tallest of the women leaders in the BJP at the national level and there is no leader to match her in the state. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has many potential chief ministerial candidates who have sought to marginalise Chouhan.

The BJP’s ‘iron curtain’ is slowly but surely showing cracks with party workers in various states are getting increasingly concerned over the absence of any dialogue and the growing diktats of the high command. Just last week, former Union Minister M V Sadananda Gowda came out saying that the local leadership was kept in the dark as far as the BJP-JDS alliance was concerned. The timing of Gowda’s statement cannot be overlooked.

Displeasure within the BJP, over the functioning of the BJP under the Modi-Shah combine, has been heard for some time now, albeit in soft murmurs. Displeasure could turn into discontent and murmurs into outbursts. The central leadership would have factored these developments; what needs to be seen is how it will tackle such a situation.

(Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are senior journalists.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.