Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat can not be blamed for the BJP’s defeat in the Bihar assembly elections, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday, dismissing the view that the party had become arrogant.
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Modi had sidelined the four leaders – Lal Krishna Advani, Yashwant Sinha, Murli Manohar Joshi and Shanta Kumar – after becoming prime minister in May previous year. The brief but strongly-worded statement says that the party has been “emasculated” in the last one year and was being “forced to kowtow to a handful”.
“People went to Modi looking for a Prime Minister but they found a Lalu in him”, the Begusarai MP said, in a first direct attack on Modi by a BJP leader after the party crashed to a humiliating defeat.
The loss – the second major setback for the BJP after the Delhi state election early this year – triggered rumblings against party leaders, especially BJP president Amit Shah, who crafted the election strategy in Bihar and whose presidency is up for review in two months. “So, we were expecting this someday”, he said.
Though the BJP president expressed confidence in oust Congress effort, it is no more a secret that the party is facing huge criticism for its unfulfilled promises and communal stand in Assam.
“In the past, the BJP lost elections under Advani’s leadership too”, said Gadkari.
One central message that emerges after Sunday’s outcome is that the Indian people reject the politics of divisiveness that the ruling party has been promoting ever since it came to power.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, the party’s star campaigners, failed to work their magic on the voters in Bihar. But Congress is certain to have reservations in accepting Nitish Kumar as even an informal leader of any future anti-BJP political platform.
The NY Times reported Bihar’s “overwhelming rejection” of BJP and detailed the backdrop, a “raging national debate over whether Mr Modi’s India is becoming increasingly intolerant of se-cularists, Muslims and political dissent in general”.
Mr Shourie, a minister in the Vajpayee government, who is no longer with the party, accused Mr Shah and Mr Jaitley of “fomenting” a coalition against Mr Modi by forcing the other opposition parties, commanding over 69 per cent of vote, to get into an alliance.
Modi had mounted a no-holds-barred campaign in Bihar, addressing about 30 rallies and promising voters billions of rupees for development in a state with a few of India’s highest malnutrition and illiteracy levels. Without naming Modi, it called for a review of the electoral defeat.
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The Congress was set to grab 15 seats, followed by BJP allies Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) with five, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) three and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) also with three seats.
