Politics of internal pull and push : Studying the BJP list
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 31, 2022 -

The politics of pull and push, the politics of one upmanship, probably the politics of personal ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ and internal politics seem to be written in black and white in the list of the BJP candidates that has just been announced, after keeping the people on tenterhooks for days !

The twist and turns, not always palatable, is something that has just been staged for all to see, read between the lines and in between one sees just how deeply wedded are some of the supposedly ‘intending BJP’ candidates to the ideology and beliefs of the saffron party.

One also wonders how the response of the ‘selected’ 60 would have been if anyone of them had been denied the party’s ticket.

Better leave it to the realm of speculation, but the interesting question at the moment is, under what criteria was the candidates list drawn up ?

Was it the winnability factor of the named candidates or their loyalty to the men who presently matter in the power echelons of the State unit of the BJP or was it a choice of choosing someone who can be the pliant type ?

These are all questions at the moment but questions which cannot be swept aside as a serious and sincere look at the candidates list would make anyone with a modicum of thinking capacity to sit down and mull over it.

The State BJP leadership may have talked big about the party looking to win at least 40 seats in the ensuing Assembly election, but a look at its candidates list would compel anyone to take another hard, sincere look at the aspirations of the saffron party.

As noted many times here in earlier commentaries, drawing up the candidates list is the first step towards fighting the election, and this is where the State BJP would need to study whether the list it has drawn up can cough up the stated figure.

As things stand today, the BJP seems to have lost out on at least three Assembly Constituencies where there were serious intending candidates of the saffron party with excellent prospect of adding to its kitty.

Perhaps internal politicking was allowed to ride rough shod over logical deduction of the prevailing ground reality.

And this perhaps underlines the point that the biggest nemesis of the State BJP could well turn out to be its internal politics, which is not pretty at all.

Vote for the BJP, but elect the former X/Y/Z member as the MLA-a line from a cartoon, which went viral on the social media a few days back, seems to clearly define the situation in a number of Assembly Constituencies right now.

A rough calculation shows that at least 23 percent of those named in the candidates list are party hoppers who have jumped onto the bandwagon of the BJP only some time back.

The winnability quotient could well be one reason to explain why the State BJP has deemed it better to name so many former Congress members as its candidates but this takes one back to the earlier question of whether this factor was at all taken into consideration while working out the candidates list.

The answer should be obvious to all. If it was a case of too many lining up for the party’s ticket, then the BJP had that luxury of choosing the one with the best prospect, but unfortunately this seems to have been conveniently overlooked in at least three Assembly Constituencies.

A reflection that the State unit of the party does not have it in them to handle the pressure of too many ?

Already there has been a string of resignation from the party after the candidates’ list was released on January 30, with some ugly scenes witnessed in some Assembly Constituencies and this should say something profound.

All reflection that the BJP faced the ‘unique problem’ of too many on its plate, but this was an opportunity it seems to have missed.

The last word is yet to be said obviously, but the dice has been rolled and one just has to wait and see how it lands.