It seems as if the wheel of time has started turning back. The BJP, with its complete and strict discipline, is returning to the era of 10 years ago. Although even then it was a party controlled by two or three leaders, there were many panchayats then. Leaders would get angry and rebel over small things. Half a dozen former chief ministers had rebelled and formed a separate party. But after Narendra Modi and Amit Shah took over the reins of BJP’s national politics, all panchayats were stopped. Forget about leaders rebelling, even their anger had become history. No leader would get angry. Whatever decision the party high command took, they would accept it with their heads bowed. Forget about BJP, it was even said jokingly that most opposition leaders also accept the BJP high command’s decision with their heads bowed. The sword of action by central agencies was hanging over everyone’s head.
But suddenly everything has changed. The courage of opposition leaders has increased so much that they have started saying that even though the government is of Narendra Modi, the system is working for them. They are saying that the government is taking decisions according to them. The government has also started backing down from its decisions or has started sending it to the parliamentary committee to ‘respect’ the opposition’s demands. The courts have started giving advice on everything from bulldozer justice to bail rules. News against the government has started appearing in the media. It is being told that Rs 8300 crore has been collected as toll tax on the road built at the cost of Rs 1900 crore and toll tax is still being collected. The BJP’s allies have started challenging the government on policy issues. Not only this, rebellion has started within the BJP as well. The kind of rebellion that took place in Jammu Kashmir and Haryana over ticket distribution and the party’s MLAs, ministers and other officials announcing to go to another party or contest as independents is a big question mark on the credibility of the BJP leadership.
The question is why did this happen? Has this happened only because of the BJP losing seats in the Lok Sabha elections and falling below the majority mark or are there some other reasons? Certainly the results of the Lok Sabha elections are decisive. Narendra Modi has been forced to run a coalition government for the first time in his life. This is the first time after becoming the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001 that the BJP under his leadership has not been able to secure a majority. This has had a psychological effect on him as well as on the opposition parties, constitutional institutions and BJP leaders. The central government is now being called the NDA government, which is dependent on the support of more than a dozen parties including Nitish Kumar’s party Janata Dal U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP. It is true that the BJP is only 32 seats short of the majority and it is not difficult for it to gather the numbers. With allies, it has 293 seats, that is, 21 more than the majority. This means that even if some parties leave, the majority will not be affected. Still, due to psychological reasons, the BJP and its leadership are on the backfoot. But apart from this reason, there are some other reasons also due to which the morale of the parties, leaders and constitutional institutions has increased.
One of the reasons is the revival of Congress. If the strength of BJP was reduced only because of regional parties, it would not have had so much impact. But Congress, which was losing elections badly for two times, has been revived in this Lok Sabha election. Congress party, which failed to achieve the status of the main opposition party twice, got 99 seats this time. The alliance it fought in got 204 seats. This became the turning point of Indian politics. For the last 10 years, defection was happening one-sidedly. People were leaving all parties including Congress and joining BJP. Now the tide has turned and the reason for this is that people have found an alternative to Congress. The strengthening of Congress as a political alternative has proved to be very important. Even those who opposed BJP’s politics used to say helplessly that where to go, the opposition is very weak or there is no alternative. Now the opposition is strong and there is an alternative too. That is why the exodus from Congress and other opposition parties has stopped and people have started leaving BJP and joining Congress.
The second reason is that the fear of excessive use of central agencies has ended. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has played the biggest role in this. He has created the notion that central agencies have become a political tool and are only taking action against the leaders of anti-BJP parties. Statistics also testify to this, but Kejriwal has the biggest contribution in creating this notion at the political level. He has shown the way to the opposition parties that even after being arrested by ED and CBI, they can remain the Chief Minister while being in jail. Leaders had two kinds of fears due to the action of central agencies. First, of defamation and second, of losing power. Kejriwal has ended both fears. Now there is no defamation, but sympathy and the common man also believes that opposition leaders are being harassed deliberately. Along with this, the fear of losing power has also ended because even while being in jail, you can remain a minister or Chief Minister and run the government from there. Until a law is made to stop this, no leader needs to worry about it.
If we talk in the specific context of Jammu Kashmir and Haryana, the reason for so much rebellion in BJP in these two states is political possibilities and availability of options. The perception about the electoral prospects of BJP in both the states is not good. It is believed that it is lagging behind in both the states. The second reason is that in both the states, there is a perception that the opposition, especially Congress, will perform well. So, the rebel leaders have a good option of joining Congress. They feel that if they get a ticket from Congress, it is fine, otherwise some good arrangement will be made after the formation of the government. As far as Jammu Kashmir is concerned, there are political options there and after Engineer Rashid won the Lok Sabha election as an independent, there is also a good option of contesting the election as an independent. Getting better options in the electoral states has made it easier for BJP leaders to rebel.