Now, the seniors are speaking on matters facing the party. The same was true of his approach in Bihar where many in the party were completely ignored, and even humiliated. Such decisions should be acceptable to all, the sources said. Advani is too senior.
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In an apparent bid to pacify party veterans, who have attacked the leadership of PM Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, Union Finance Minister and BJP leader Arun Jaitley met senior BJP leader MM Joshi.
Ruling out the possibility of Mr Shah quitting his post, he said: “I have told the party chief to initiate stringent action against those making irresponsible statements and causing damage to the party’s image”. As BJP grappled with the situation in the wake of Bihar verdict, Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu felt that the veterans should have raised their views at a party forum rather than going public.
As once famously said by Yashwant Sinha, one of the four signatories to the angry letter on the BJP loss of Bihar, the Bharatiya Janata Party firmly under the grip of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and his comrade Amit Shah, the party president, regards all party members who are above 75 years as “brain dead”.
They have publicly denounced the manner in which the party is “being forced to kow-tow to a handful [read Modi and Shah], and how its consensual character has been destroyed”. We will discuss with all concerned. “That has been the practice”, Naidu said. The Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad Yadav combine along with the Congress, which needed a makeover after continuous drubbing since 2014 general elections, quietly marched ahead in what was a landslide victory – a vote for social welfare and economic development over all forms of divisive politics of the RSS and the BJP. He did not even learn from his party’s complete rout in Delhi assembly polls nine months ago where he had campaigned extensively and the BJP managed to win just three out of 70 seats. He reportedly said the veterans’ view should be heeded to and their guidance respected.
“Yes there were feelers to the effect”, a source close to Modi said. Nearly till the last stages of the poll campaign, it looked more like a contest between the prime minister and the chief minister; the faces of the local BJP leaders in Bihar were conspicuously absent from the campaign. In 2009 also, we lost to UPA-2 when Advaniji was the leader. The first of five phases of voting in the state assembly elections in Bihar, one of India’s largest and poorest states, begins on October 12. “To say that everyone is responsible for the defeat is to ensure that no one is held responsible”. “It is unfair to blame any individual for the defeat”, he added. Few world leaders can match Modi for these raw displays of soft power. “We are proud of it. There is no second word about it”.
Prashant Kishore with a team of youths trained in management and IT skills contributed immensely towards creating “Brand Modi” in the last Lok Sabha elections. “We should work to strengthen his hands and through his rule strengthen this nation”.
“The BJP needs to rethink its (Hindu) strategy, but I doubt they will undertake a course correction”.
“The leaders have not said anything against Modi”. And at the end of the day, Bihar people opted for the leader who does not have any marketing strategies. “But, god is thinking other wise”. “The problem is Modi has been governing this way for so long, he probably can’t, and won’t change that style”.
It is yet to be seen how the Rashtriya Swayemsewak Sangh, the mother party of Sangh Parivar, reacts, though the rift within the BJP may help it again emerge as an arbiter. “That is what has been taught to us all these years”. “That is the initial reading”.
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Unfortunately, BJP and Mr Modi deliberately gave Bihar elections a national context.
