The Rise & Fall of my Favourite Political Party

Welcome 2006.

Top story at the start of the new year. BJP chief L K Advani steps down. Vajpayee calls Advani as Ram and Mahajan as Lakshman. It was really disheartening to see my favourite Bharatiya Janta Party crumble on its own weight.

BJP started from Jan Sangh on the ideology of the Sangh Parivar. Within a period of around 10-15 years, they rose from 2 to 200 members in the Lok Sabha and ruled the government for more than five years. That was a phenomenal performance. However, with power comes Responsibility. And that's where BJP failed. As is clear from the latest revelations of bribery and corruption in the party, it has lost its Different image. This is its biggest blow.

For me, the Vajpayee government did quite well when in the office. Except one blunder. Gujarat riots. More than the inability of the government to control the situation, it was the involvement of everyone in the system from the police to the CM to the Home Minister in the riots that was shocking. It was I think a prime factor behind BJP loosing the next general election although they were able to win the Gujarat assembly. However, it must be noted that BJP handled their coalition partners much better than what the UPA govt. is doing now (Please refer LEFT) :-)

More important than loosing the elections, it was the later events that did the party in. Uma Bharati sulked. And again, And yet again! Advani's Jinnah remarks were used by Sangh to re-establish their stronghold on the party organisation. Though NDA won a few assembly elections, their public image kept going down.

The biggest problem was they were not accepting their mistakes. Advani did not agree with the expulsion of the corrupt parliamentarians but instead took their side. Instead of doing some introspection, the party kept critisizing the UPA govt. during its national executive in Mumbai. They were unable to break the RSS shackles and could not install a dynamic president like Jetley or Mahajan. The party did numerous unnecessary and exaggerated dharnas in the Parliament and blocked its workingfor too long in the sessions. That is an unforgivable sin.

Overall I think the popularity of the party has suffered a big blow and Cong would win all hands down if a general elections were to happen right now. However, time makes people forget things and it will be interesting to see what happens in the Rajnath Singh-era. I am sure L K Advani is not finished. He will come back, and so will Pramod Mahajan who I think will become a good leader of the party and the nation.

Talking about Cricket, the Ind-Pak series is setup perfectly well. The excitement has reached a peak. In Australia, SA have hit hard on the 2nd day of the 3rd test. Aus will need to fight very hard to save the match from now on. It makes for a thrilling three days of attack and defense. If SA is able to beat Aus, then they will become the 2nd team after India last year to hold Aus in their home ground. And that will be some achievement. Earlier I was sure that Aus will run over SA. But now the recent form from SA makes me believe that they have it in them to come out better from this match. Lets see what result is in store.

Till then, wish you all a very happy new year.