What Next for the BJP? (Part 8)
by Rajesh Jain and Amit Malviya
Opposition Party Role: Credible and Substantive
Finally, the BJP has to accept its role as the leading Opposition Party in India for the next five years. There are three things that the party can do which can help it win back the confidence of voters who were disappointed with some of the party’s antics during the previous five years.
First, the BJP must appoint a Shadow Cabinet by taking up 10 key ministries. It needs to complement the ‘ministers’ by teams of professionals on the outside who can give appropriate inputs. This will help in showcasing the emerging talent within the BJP and also ensure that the party is seen as a credible national alternative to the Congress.
Second, the BJP needs to take up specific issues pertaining to development and governance, and raise awareness about these. For this, the party needs to segment the voter base into 8-10 buckets, and then see what issues strike a chord with people in the various segments. This will also help the party start to re-connect with the grassroots.
Third, the party needs to also consider its own Legislation in Parliament. Just because it is in Opposition doesn’t mean that it cannot do so. It needs to ensure that proper debate takes place - the Bills may not get passed, but at least it can present alternatives to the nation.
In other words, the party needs to play the role of a constructive Opposition party which takes the Indian Parliamentary system seriously. Much of this was missing over the previous five years.
Conclusion
The BJP needs to think differently going ahead. It is going to compete in 2014 with a Congress which will have the wind behind its back, a youthful leadership, a plank of development and perhaps good governance, and no shortage of resources. Playing by the book will not get the BJP to power in 2014. It will need to think hard on what the Achilles Heel of the Congress will be (and there will be). But for it to be in a position to capitalise on that, the BJP first needs to get the basics of Ideology, Leadership, Organisation and Opposition Party role in order. Only on that foundation can it hope to mount a serious challenge to a resurgent Congress. The decisions the BJP makes now will decide whether the BJP remains a two-decade wonder or something more potent and transformational in Independent India’s history.
Comments
11 Responses to “What Next for the BJP? (Part 8)”
Dear Friends,
For these to happen a new leadership has to emerge and the grand old men will have to give way to the younger generation. But unfortunately leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh and Yaswant Sinha are in no mood to do the same.
If leaders like Arun Jaitely , Modi and Sushma are empowered then the BJP will have a future.
Regards,
@swami
You are absolutely right. I do not know on what basis these 3 men are laying claim to top posts.
If age directly means Seniority for them, then they are right.
If you look at it, they are not even consistent in winning their own seats. Yashwant Sinha has made a veiled attack on Sushma by saying “people who have changed constituencies”. If that yardstick is applied then Jaswant and Joshi will be gone too as they have changed constituencies.
BJP should be merciless with these old men who owe all their political status to the great opportunities they were presented with by BJP high command when NDA was in power.
Whats more Jaswant’s son keeps getting ticket for Barmer Seat in Rajasthan inspite of loosing twice in his 3 attempts. Jaswant does not like Young leaders in BJP. He is working against Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and against Jaitley and Sushma at Center. He has caused major embarrassment for the party by accompanying the terrorist released in Kandahar and later now for distributing money for his son’e elections.
He has never been in-charge of elections of any state for BJP and hence does not understand the value of Mr Jaitley.When he talks of “Parinaam” and “Puraskar”, he should realize that people should first have the guts to take on major responsibilties and not keep away from that for fear of failure.
BJP has managed to survive and emerge stronger inspite of the loss of leaders with a mass appeal like Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharathi etc. There is nothing much to loose if Jaswant, Yashwant and Joshi leave.
If they really are keen to see their party back in power and ready to set aside their selfish ambitions, then they should take the role of mentors and idealogues. Jaswant Singh can start off by defining what “Hindutva” means according to him, what are moderate/extreme forms of it and which way the BJP should go to be a party of today/tomorrow instead of attacking people who shouldered responsibilities in a tight situation.
Dear Venugopal,
I agree with you fully on Sinha and Singh but Joshi needs to handled with care as he has really done a lot for Hindutva and has never indulged in anti party activity.
Regards
Congress rules
These Friends of BJP guys will soon join the Congress because they are cowards. We welcome them with open arms.
jaswant ,yashwant and rajnath.
they represent all the vices that have crept in bjp.
i don’t know why are they pampered on what basis they are called “top leaders”. what is their positive contribution to bjp which might be lost if they are let go. rudy,shidhu etc individually have more merit than all 3 of them combined.
@dev
What you say is absolutely true. We should promote a young breed of Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Navjot Singh Siddhu, Dharmendra Pradhan, Kiren Rijiju, Dushyant Singh and Ananth Kumar. These people should become General Secretaries of BJP.
Arun Jaitley, Narendra Modi, Sushma Swaraj, Venkiah Naidu, Gopinath Munde, Ramesh Bais and the sincere Chief Ministers and leaders of Opposition should form the National Exectuive.
Handover AP to G.Kishan Reddy and Orissa to Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo. Target Maha, Assam, Haryana in Alliance, Revival in UP and becoming leading opposition in Orissa and AP apart from retaining all existing states.
Wondering why AP wasn’t handed to G.Kishan Reddy even after the pathetic performance of Dattatreya consecutively for last 8 years. He hasn’t taken the party beyond Secunderabad and that too he failed there. His influence is Hyderabad is almost absent and he can’t do any thing in the rest of A.P . Haven’t seen him doing any thing substantial in the rest of A.P. G.Kishan Reddy looks young seems to have some energy to take the party beyond twin cities. Dattetreya needs to go as state party chief.
Why are Indians not protesting the fraudulent results of the Lok Sabha elections, the way Iranians are?
Learn something atleast from the Iranians, they don’t and won’t have much else to teach anyways.
HI, This is my first post on this forum. Hence, a little tentative as to what is the core of this forum. However, I was instigated into writing this as I believe that all this old versus young theory is almost entirely misplaced. I think content and adaptability has to be criteria, and certainly not age. There is nothing to suggest, even emperically that youth is what will attract the voters. Had that been so easy, my friends all the parties would have been winners. So, lets stop playing being almost stupidly simple. I am not suggesting that some of the old leaders are indispensable. But then who should replace them should bebased on consensus, so that the party can remain together. The first and foremost thing is to hold the party together, only than can we think of surviing, forget fighting.
I see one of the reasons for the victory of Congress, even if partial, is the flexibility in approach and policies. Believe me, partnering with the Left has made them learn compromising on almost everythng, except prob the nuclear issue. This helped them not really antagonise any side.. least resistance path. This is precisely where BJP has to become similar to the Cong.
रोना धोना छोडें ……
दिल्ली की सत्ता न मिलने के कारण दिल्ली के बीजेपी नेता इस तरह प्रतिक्रिया व्यक्त कर रहे हैं जैसे सब कुछ लुट गया अब कुछ बचा ही नहीं .बल्कि मेरी नज़र में अभी कुछ भी नहीं लुटा है ,जो लुटने वाला है उसे बीजेपी विपक्ष में रहकर भी बचा सकती है .बहुत से ऐसे काम हैं जो बीजेपी विपक्ष में रहकर भी बखूबी कर सकती है .बल्कि और भी जयादा गंभीरता से उसपर ध्यान दे सकती है .अभी देश के बहुत से राज्य उसके हाथों में है जहाँ वह जनता और देश के हित में काम कर देश की जनता को अपने कामो से आकर्षित कर सकती है .सिर्फ नजरिया और सोच बदलने की जरुरत है .विपक्ष में रहकर भी बीजेपी को राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर देश हित में कार्यक्रम अपने हाथों में लेकर अभियान चलाना चाहिए और जनता को दिखा देना चाहिए कि वह विपक्ष में रहकर भी बहुत से कामो को पूरा कर सकती है .बीजेपी को अपनी सोच पूरी तरह से बदलनी होगी और सत्ता न मिलने का रोना धोना छोड़कर देश के लिए काम करना होगा .और साथ ही साथ वर्तमान सरकार के कामो पर कड़ी नज़र भी रखनी होगी .