By Taha Amin Mazumder, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 20 Nov 2015: As Nitish Kumar took oath as the Bihar Chief Minister for the fifth time today, the anatomy of BJP’s poll debacle also took a new turn with one of its key ally Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party alleging BJP and its key mentor RSS’s rhetoric of cow politics and quota remark responsible for the doom of the NDA in the state polls. Although Paswan’s argument is not new in the array of anatomy, but surely this shows a positive trend in Indian politics, which the people of Bihar had already proved. Paswan now makes it clear that all is not well with BJP’s communal politics and that the National Democraic Alliance (NDA) partners might not have wanted this strategy at all.
While alliances have become the talk of the turf now after the Grand Alliance’s whopping victory in Bihar and almost all smaller parties are joining hands for the coming polls in at least three states — Assam, West Bengal and the key Uttar Pradesh — the anatomy of the recently held polls also make a promising show of the virtues of secular politics in India.
Right from the day-one since the Bihar debacle, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) senior leaders, including the once-hardliner L.K. Advani, have been offering their arguments over the poor show of the party in the state polls. Key allies, however, were yet to express their disgust over the BJP-dominated NDA’s poll strategy in Bihar. Now as Paswan has taken the lead in Bihar, with some others like the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) that had already snubbed the BJP’s “rotor mouths” for their communal stands, it was high time the BJP reviewed whether politics of polarization and exclusivity was the key, or it is inclusive development that holds the key. Paswan has proved this logic once again with the bubble-bursting comment on the Bihar verdict.
After the gradual and timely waning of the Babri-type politics, it was already time for BJP to shift focus on the politics of development, but owing to its lack of better economic policies to offer on the platter, it again took a plunge into the politics of polarization. When the Modi wave worked in the same Bihar during the Lok Sabha polls with the party winning the maximum seats in the state in 2014, it should have understood that the people’s mandate was actually in favor of a development regime against then Congress government in the center mired in allegations of corruption, and not the Nitish government in the state. Now as Modi failed utterly to fulfil his promises of “good days,” BJP took up its old card of communalism again, which was sure to fail in the face of the rainbow secular fabric of Bihar where people identify themselves as a singular entity ironicaly hurled at them often — Bihari, and not Hindu or Muslims. Another major factor that BJP failed to understand is that by offering the cow and communal politics on the platter, it was actually denying its allies their due shares of secular politics, which is prominently evident now with one after another ally shooting back exactly in proportion of its communal barbs hurled during the Bihar poll campaign with the Dadri issue backing it up.
With alliance politics gradually taking over the Indian politics, the time is for the national parties to rethink their strategies, and BJP is surely in a dire need of retrospection — right now. It can not afford ignoring the ally sentiments any more, and no party is omnipowerful in Indian politics, which the Indians have proved times one after another by rejecting any forces that tried to dictate their ways. What all BJP needs is to think democratic, as well as inclusive, and Paswan has proved the premise once again.
