Farce follows defeat

Neither the BJP nor the Left has done real introspection.

Unsympathetic observers might take pleasure in the contortions of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communists as they struggle to come to terms with their defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. The truth is that both continue to do harm to themselves, essentially because of the lack of internal democracy. It is obvious that Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha have made valid points in their missives, though whether that means that these two 71-year-old gentlemen should be at the helm is a different question. It is obvious that the BJP leadership asked for trouble when it “appointed” Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj to positions in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, respectively—without asking the party’s elected MPs whom they might prefer as their Leader(s). If one assumes that the MPs are not sheep and can think for themselves, they could and should have been asked to choose from among the contenders. A straight contest, in which Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha might have pitted themselves against Sushma Swaraj, and Venkaiah Naidu or Arun Shourie against Arun Jaitley, would have prevented the dissension and backbiting that has rocked the party.

It is this “Congressisation” of the BJP, with a penchant for a manufactured “consensus” and a keenness to avoid real debate, that is tearing apart the party. It is futile for the party president to try and put a lid on the debate, and strange for L K Advani to be a silent observer through it all. As Peter Drucker said in a different context, if there are no undertakers, then vultures will do the job.

The Communists are not much better. Although he can claim that all major decisions in the run-up to the elections were taken or endorsed by the CPI(M)’s central committee, the fact is that Prakash Karat was the one who took the key initiatives—to break with the Congress over the nuclear deal and then to try and cobble together a rag-tag Third Front. Given the Stalinist nature of the party, no one openly opposed the general secretary when he took these decisions, and no one dare question him today despite the party having done far worse than in all previous elections.

But Mr Karat is not solely to blame. His colleagues in faction-ridden Kerala are at each other’s throats, while the West Bengal unit of the party has some explaining to do too, since the Left has seen its share of the popular vote collapse from 51 per cent in 2004 to 43 per cent today. That kind of sharp swing in the voting base is rarely seen. Equally significantly, the combined vote of the Trinamool Congress and the Congress has gone up from 35 per cent to 45 per cent (which is marginally more than the Left vote). If the vote percentages stay where they are, it is entirely possible that the Left could lose West Bengal after a third of a century, when state assembly elections come around in a couple of years.