7 deadly sins of BJP that are haunting it today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a really tough cookie but lately looks really weak. The NDA has a whopping 337 Lok Sabha MPs but Parliament can't even function let alone pass bills. The Congress is steadily getting wiped out but still dominates national headlines.
Welcome to La La Land where black has become white and white has become black. But how did this situation come about in the first place?
While the intelligentsia and media generally seems to be against the BJP, the party itself has been committing certain sins due to which it is finding its politics looking like a dead duck.
A look at the 7 deadly sins of the saffron party:
1. The BJP treats Modi like a common salesman: Why was Kiran Bedi parachuted into the New Delhi Assembly elections at the last moment antagonising the state party unit and the RSS? Why did they refuse to announce a chief ministerial candidate in Bihar?
The BJP treats Modi like a 24x7 salesman who is supposed to sell all the company's products right from those costing Re 1 to Rs 1 crore. Till regional leaders start putting their hands up, the party cannot grow further.
They simply have to announce a chief ministerial candidate for Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam and Punjab while Modi has to take a backseat in 2016.
2. The BJP rubbish their very supporters: The Congress treats all their loyalists well and kicks out dissenters. The BJP seems to have taken a contrary strategy. The absolute low was when Rajya Sabha MP Chandan Mitra while discussing BJP supporters on Twitter referred to them as "hyperbolic Twitterati" with "nothing much better to do".
Really? This is how you treat your loyal support base? Twitter was the first to support Modi and virtually declare him prime minister and you rubbish them? Modi also has 15 million followers, second to only US President Barack Obama among world leaders.
Meanwhile BJP leader and former minister Shatrughan Sinha rubbishes the BJP day in and day out and the party has zero guts to sack him.
Even when it comes to Ram Janmabhoomi and Uniform Civil Code even if Modi is doing nothing, he has to reach out to his supporters and at least talk about it.
3. The BJP simply suck up to the intelligentsia and the media: Certain sections of the intelligentsia and the media will never accept the BJP. Fair enough. You cannot change the opinion of everyone who has his or her own biases. But the BJP leaders consistently go to get interviewed by the BJP haters who continue to humiliate them and not listen to their arguments.
This spineless attitude by the BJP leaders humiliates its supporters too.
4. The BJP doesn't have the foggiest clue on know how to sell themselves: Modi's foreign policy has been stunning. Coal reserves are at an all-time high. Nuclear fuel has been secured. Railways is reforming. Infrastructure plans are being rolled out. If the BJP lost Bihar and Delhi in 2015, then you can't forget that they won Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir in 2014.
Instead of bandying their achievements, the BJP is too busy countering Opposition propaganda.
5. The BJP is too deferential to the Dynasty: A vendetta against the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty? Ha ha! On the contrary, you could say that Modi has been totally soft on the Dynasty! He has taken zero action against Sonia and Rahul Gandhi along with Robert and Priyanka Vadra.
The current National Herald imbroglio is the making of Subramanian Swamy who wasn't even a BJP leader when he filed the case. In the past, the BJP leaders have also been extremely pally with Sonia while NDA 1 Prime Minister AB Vajpayee has been accused of letting the Dynasty off the hook on many an occasion.
6. The BJP totally shut out genuine Right-wingers like Swamy and Shourie: The BJP has its work cut out in countering the powerful Left establishment which has been calling the shots from behind from 1947. It is well-entrenched and will need heavy voices from the Right to shut them out.
Whether you like it or not, the biggest intellectual figures in the Right movement are Arun Shourie and Swamy. Both are BJP leaders. Both are Modi supporters. And Modi shut out both of them from his Cabinet. Curious!
7. The BJP cannot even counter disruptions by the likes of Kejri-Pappu: Arvind Kejriwal is a glorified mayor of a municipality. Rahul is a man who has never held a ministry or top government post in his entire life. Forget Modi, their achievements are dwarfed by many BJP ministers.
However, the BJP's absolute inability to counter this duo - they happen to be media coverage magnets - is making them look highly inefficient.
It's all about perception. They say that an ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
The BJP has a pound of performance alright, but not even an ounce of image.