TRIALS AND METAMORPHOSIS

THE BJP’S TUMULTUOUS JOURNEY FROM VAJPAYEE TO MODI SAW SEVERAL SAFFRON DREAMS COMING TRUE. IT COULD BE THE TURN OF NIGHTMARES NOW

- NAVIN J. ANTONY

THE MORE THINGS change, the more they remain the same. Or do they, really?

In July 2000, THE WEEK reported on how Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the BJP were moving in opposite directions in the popularity stakes. The prime minister’s stock was soaring, but his party was wracked by rebellions in several key states—that, too, barely a year after the Lok Sabha polls, which the BJP-led alliance had won decisively. Regional headaches were plaguing the party, though it remained strong nationally, thanks in part to the Congress, “which, beset with internal problems and inexperienced leadership, has proved a mild and manageable opposition”, wrote THE WEEK’s correspondent Debashish Mukherji.

Two decades on, the story seems the same—a popular prime minister in Narendra Modi, a strong but increasingly unlikeable party led by Amit Shah, and regional headaches. All this, barely a year after the Lok Sabha elections, which the party had won on its own. “The BJP’s aggression to expand its reach has put off some of its allies, as many of them want more space,” wrote THE WEEK’s Special Correspondent Pratul Sharma, a day before the BJP’s oldest ally, the Shiv Sena, joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress to form government in Maharashtra. “At the national level, though, the Modi-Shah duo remains untouched.”