Maharashtra and Haryana show triumph of BJP's new generation risk taking

The BJP has hammered the Congress yet again. Yet again, delivering a similar degree of disgrace as they did in the Lok Sabha polls, the voters did not consider the party of outgoing chief ministers fit for even the formal leadership of the Opposition. That, this happened even when the Opposition to the Congress was hopelessly divided, makes it worse for the GOP (Geriatric Ossified Party). Such routs of Congress were par for the course, for more than two decades, but only in the large heartland states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Now, its residual strongholds too seem to have warmed up to this scenario. This is a significant highlight of the elections that took place in the preceding 12 months. Last year's Assembly Elections in Delhi and Rajasthan were a precursor of this pattern which accentuated remarkably in the Lok Sabha polls. It continued to manifest again in the just concluded polls too. While this further unravelling of Congress is a huge, and profound phenomenon, there is another equally big one if not bigger.

Of the BJP changing gears to enter a new political orbit.

The BJP's founding generation lived with a coalition mindset. They first tasted power, in the late 60s, as Bharatiya Jana Sangh, in the Samyukt Vidhayak Dal (SVD) governments. Those were the first non-Congress governments, in the states, as coalitions. Though the first non-Congress government at the Centre, by the Janata Party, was ostensibly a single-party government. But, many could argue that this hurriedly put together Janata Party, in essence, was a rickety patchwork coalition masquerading as a party.

Preponderance of Congress across the country and absence of the BJP, or for that matter of any other non-Congress party, from large swathes of India, perpetuated this mindset. After all, those days when elections were virtually a single horse race, coalition-building was a no-brainer survival strategy for non-Congress formations. Unless they were willing to offer a walk-over to the Congress even at a 25 per cent vote-share, thanks to the "first-past-the-post" system concepts like "Index of Opposition Unity" gained currency in decoding the poll results.

Those decades of no-coalition no-power conditioning of the opposition parties brought about a miracle of sorts. In the 90s, in its post-Ayodhya pariah state, the BJP mutated into a flexi-spine coalition junkie. Such was the paranoia of a coalition breaking up that the BJP would trade its very reason for existence in the interest of keeping the alliances going. The smaller allies sensed this addiction to alliance-building. They started extracting disproportionate pounds-of-flesh in the bargain. That was in addition to delivering public humiliation, routinely. The Mamata-Samata-Jayalalithaa circus and the BJP's utter capitulation to their tantrums 15 years ago isn't forgotten.

Nitish Kumar's dictating of terms to the BJP, Naidu's stunting and eroding of the BJP in Andhra followed by his sanctimonious practice of untouchability towards it, Naveen Patnaik's remorseless perfidy at the threshold of 2009 General Elections and Ajit Singh's immediately after, Mayawati's repeated betrayal after using the BJP to become chief minister twice, Deve Gowda's similar betrayal, and many more such examples had turned the BJP into a permanent sucker. All in the interest of keeping the coalitions going. It wasn't rare to see even the individual leaders of the BJP striking personal deals with the coalition partners, at huge cost to their own party.

Not anymore. The same BJP that, owing to its "coalition dharma", often interpreted by its partners as a lack of self-confidence, seldom walked out of an alliance, is now looking savvier. Even while it behaves generously with its smaller allies, with those who are used to playing the big brother in their respective domains, the gloves are coming off. Ask HJC in Haryana. Ask Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Soon, hopefully, you may be able to ask Akali Dal too.

Akalis are the last of the bullies and lately, very expensive ones at that. They cost BJP the humiliation of Amritsar. That BJP is done with becoming a tail-wagging-the-dog kind of spectacle is increasingly evident. This is an unmistakeable consequence of the leadership change at the helm. Not without reasons. The new generation of leadership did not cut its political teeth under the shadows of a seemingly invincible Congress. It has come of age kicking the Congress about, all over the place, and how!

Those allies who still harbour hopes of pushing the BJP around must take note of another change. Just notice how the BJP is dealing with the nonsense within. The factions of the yore have all but disappeared. Open jockeying and tantrum throwing has suddenly acquired huge risks and promise almost no reward. Cosy arrangements in the key decision-making bodies no longer hold. All bets are off. BJP is looking far more focused, resolute, driven and result-oriented. Soon enough, if they shouldn't already, news anchors of a certain persuasion too will have to review the relevance of their hackneyed question that "after all, how much change do you think a single man can bring about?"