Narendra Modi

The main opposition party of India, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), besides struggling to come out of the shock of defeat in recent general elections, is now facing another problem. The Party called a three days ‘Chintan Baithak’ (brainstorming session) in the hill station of Shimla, to discuss the causes of defeat in the general elections and also plan future strategy. The discussion on the causes of defeat was yet to start, on the very first day of the session; the party President Rajnath Singh announced a decision of the party’s parliamentary board to the media. He declared that the party’s primary membership of former cabinet Minister Jaswant Singh is terminated. This ‘reward’ is for his recently published book, “Jinnah: India-Partition Independence”, in which Jaswant Singh has described the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah as secular, simultaneously he has allegedly tried to held India’s first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel responsible for the partition.

According to the Party, the contents of the book constitute an act of extreme discipline and deviation from the party’s “core beliefs”. BJP is of the view that Jinnah alone was responsible for the partition on communal lines. Whereas Jaswant Singh is seeing his expulsion as an attack on the freedom of expression. Narendra Modi government of Gujarat has banned the sale of book in the state. The BJP feels that Patel was not at all responsible for the partition; in fact he had performed the difficult task of uniting the country post independence. After expulsion, Jaswant Singh has reminded BJP that it was Sardar Patel who first banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in aftermath of Mahatma's assassination. By saying that, Jaswant Singh tried to convey that Patel certainly took many steps to keep the nation united and banning the RSS was one of those steps. But the BJP leaders don’t have the mettle to support such step of Sardar Patel.

Either it is BJP or its patron, the so called social and nationalist organization, RSS or VHP or other sister organizations, they always have refused to read the writing on the wall. In the ‘Chintan Baithak’ in Shimla, the BJP tried to hide or veil the report which was prepared to analyse the reasons behind the party’s poll defeat. The report clearly indicted the party leadership on many fronts, and this is the reason why the report is not acceptable to it. Therefore, notwithstanding the leakage of report to the media, the senior leaders like Lal Krishna Advani, tried to create such situation as if there was no such report, whereas media repeatedly displayed that 41-page report on TV and also debated on the facts mentioned in the report, which the party leadership was hesitant to make public.

One of the reasons of defeat mentioned in the report is the projection of Narendra Modi as PM candidate amidst election. The second reason is said to be the personal attack on the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which people didn’t like. It means that Advani’s rhetoric of “weak PM” didn’t go down well with the public. Third factor is Varun Gandhi’s venomous speech and party’s support for him. According to the report, another important reason was that the BJP failed to corner Congress on 26/11 Mumbai attack. Instead, the Congress fired back with the Kandahar plane hijack issue.

Apart from the above mentioned points, there were other factors mentioned in the report which the party leadership was feeling ashamed to make public. This report has indicted the policy makers of the party- Lal Krishna Advani, Arun Jaitely and Narendra Modi, though without taking names. It is also mentioned that the slogans, plans and promises given by the party were also behind the defeat. But the BJP leadership is still trying to avoid the truth. All this is not done by the leadership involuntarily: in fact there is a long term strategy of the RSS, working behind it.