The fault lines in the Bharatiya Janata Party are deepening rapidly, but are they ever going to rumble and create a fissure in the party? In recent months the number of MLAs being critical of the party leadership has increased, but last week it was not just some disgruntled MLAs or party members who were challenging the leadership. If in the past months the party has had to contend with MLAs being publicly critical of the party, and at one point even a minister, now it is the deputy chief minister who has joined the chorus.
As the Zilla Panchayat poll results came in, it was Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza who had not too complimentary statements to make about the party and the leadership. The Mapusa MLA, who had staked claim for the top job in the State in November last when Manohar Parrikar quit as chief minister and went to Delhi, appears to be still smarting from the blow of being overlooked as CM material, or that is how his statements will be labeled.
D’Souza said that had Parrikar been in Goa the BJP would not have fared as badly as it did in the just concluded Zilla Parishad polls. What he meant was not the physical presence of the former chief minister in the State, but Parrikar holding the reins of power in the State and this is nothing less than a vote of no confidence against Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar. The war is now out and in the open, and it’s between the party’s two top leaders as the beating the party took in the ZP polls has spilled over to the legislative wing.
While that may be D’Souza’s opinion, there was more he said and the BJP perhaps needs to listen to the deputy chief minister. The deputy chief minister was clear in stating that if the ZP polls were a mid-term appraisal of the BJP then the party does not qualify. He also said the party needs to introspect.
The BJP came to power promising a lot. They promised a change, a parivartan that is yet to come. After three years in power the change should have already been there or at least the beginnings of a change should have been visible. These beginnings are nowhere to be seen. And that is perhaps what the electorate found lacking when they went to the polling booth last week to vote for their representatives to the Zilla Panchayats. Can that promised change be brought about now?
One has to go back to what D’Souza said – introspection. Introspection, as suggested by the deputy chief minister, is what the party needs to fall back on.
He may sound disgruntled when he says all this, but the number of BJP MLAs that have been sounding so is increasing. Just a few weeks back Environment Minister Alina Saldanha left a party meeting in tears and she too had spoken about how her husband had been in the BJP because of Parrikar. Now D’Souza has openly showed his unhappiness with the leadership and made references to the former chief minister.
Is the BJP really finding itself lost without Parrikar? Are the fissures because of Parrikar’s absence from the scene? Was he the glue that kept the party together in Goa? If so where is the ideology that the party speaks about? Introspection time for the BJP should focus on this. The former chief minister has bigger challenges and now little time for Goa. The party has to grow out of this dependence on one person.
All this is not a good sign for a party that prides itself on its discipline. If the party does not step up the process of revamping, then the fissures will grow only deeper. But the party is unlikely to crumble, at least not before the 2017 polls. Its strength and unity lies in the current numbers it has in the Legislative Assembly that are overwhelmingly stacked on its side. But the fickle loyalty of politicians can change at the first shadow of doubt. As the State inches towards the 2017 elections, the politicians testing the waters will increase, and many may be from the BJP itself.
