Ruthless, Reckless

The BJP’s allies are unimpressed by its top brass’s rash approach to expansion

- Pratul Sharma

During the heady days of 2014, the BJP under its new president Amit Shah gave the party new swagger. The saffron party did the unthinkable as it contested alone in Maharashtra, seeking to break the ‘big brother’ mould of its oldest hindutva ally, the Shiv Sena. The strategy paid off and the BJP emerged as the single largest party in Maharashtra and a few other states. Within the next four years, the BJP captured the entire Hindi heartland. Now, as Shah prepares to vacate the party chief’s post for J.P. Nadda, the party is staring at a shrinking footprint. Ironically, this comes at a time when it improved its tally at the Centre.

There is dismay in the BJP over the bruising the party received in Maharashtra. Despite joining hands with the ‘tainted’ Ajit Pawar to teach the Shiv Sena a lesson, the BJP’s plans came a cropper. Some in the party were also of the view that the new unlikely Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress partnership should have been allowed to collapse like the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance in Karnataka.

The BJP had moved cautiously in Karnataka in 2018 as the Lok Sabha elections were around the corner. But now, the swift, behind-the-scenes operation by the Sharad Pawar-led group has left the BJP embarrassed. “You miss 100 per cent of the shots you do not take,” said BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, considered close to Shah. The attempts to form a government at all costs has been the BJP’s mantra for the last a few years.