BJP’s expansionist ambitions drive away alliance partners: Is BJP growing too big for its own good?

The Narendra Modi govt does not have a single minister of Cabinet rank from the alliance partners, and just one minister of state, Ramdas Athawale

[L] - Prime Minister Narendra Modi being garlanded Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray and former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis. [R] - Prime Minister Narendra Modi with SAD leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Credit: AFP/PTI

Alone, aloof, and sometimes arrogant: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has antagonised ally after ally over the last six years, and seems set to continue on this path as it dreams of national dominance. But could it be setting itself up for problems in the next general elections in 2024?

After the recent death of Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) and the resignation of Harsimrat Kaur Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in September, the Narendra Modi government does not have a single minister of Cabinet rank from the alliance partners, and just one minister of state, Ramdas Athawale.

The BJP has also parted ways, for one reason or the other, with the Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh, the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, and even ideological twin Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Smaller parties that felt slighted and voted with their feet include the Raju Shetty-led Shetkari Swahbimani Sangathana in Maharashtra, Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) in Bihar and Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP).

In Bihar, which goes to the polls in a couple of weeks, two of its allies, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) (JDU) and LJP are locked in a bitter fight and the BJP will have to choose between them at the national level in the medium-term, meaning one more exit is on the cards.

It wasn’t always like this. When Modi came to power in 2014, the BJP had no fewer than 29 allies (14 now); the BJP’s first proper tryst with power, under the well-liked Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was a hydra-headed coalition. Most of the 23 allies from the Vajpayee-Advani era stuck with the party even when it was out of power for a decade starting 2004.

But the party now is all-powerful: It has 302 seats in the Lok Sabha compared with 182 when Vajpayee formed a government in 1999. And the Opposition has been decimated. The BJP clearly knows it is top dog, and allies are expendable.

BJP and its allies

“BJP has now become the Congress of the sixties and seventies in its Parliamentary strength and nationwide reach. With its expansion, the allies who contributed to its growth have become worried,” says political analyst Rasheed Kidwai, noting that the Shiv Sena fights for the same space as the BJP in Maharashtra.

“The party has to choose between expanding further or stagnating at its present strength. The natural choice is its ultimately risking the wrath of allies and charting its own course.”

While the BJP can now stand on its own in Maharashtra, UP and Bihar, it cannot deny that social coalitions with regional parties contributed substantially to its strength and the break-ups will hurt. The party was edged out of power in Maharashtra by its ally; in Punjab, it piggy-backed the Akalis to power, even if it eventually lost due to the SAD’s unpopularity. Now, SAD appears to be inching closer to the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati, a good idea in a state with a 30% Scheduled Caste population.

It’s worth remembering that two years ago, SAD, along with the JDU, had made a pitch for better coordination in the NDA, pointing out bitterly that “regional parties that played a crucial role in the BJP’s victory in 2014 are now being ignored.”

The oldest ally, the Shiv Sena, had, soon after the formation of the first Modi government in 2014, demanded setting up of a NDA Coordination Committee. This never happened.

Indeed, there has been no convenor of the NDA since Modi came to power. The more conciliatory Vajpayee era had convenors from non-BJP parties, but Chandrababu Naidu’s interest in the job was ignored by Modi.

Says Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut: “BJP will lose at least at least 100 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 if it fights minus any alliance with regional parties. Bear in mind that the BJP grew in states piggy-backing on regional parties. There is no NDA left now; JDU has been more like a paying guest.”

Ironically the JDU-type alliance is one that stands the best chance of survival, even if some see a BJP design behind the LJP walking out of the alliance and putting up candidates against the JDU.

Says noted social scientist Shaibal Gupta of the Bihar situation: “Here the alliance is of parties which bring together diverse support bases. They are not competing for the same space. The BJP can afford to be contemptuous (of allies) in places where they stand on their own feet.”

In UP, the saffron party has made substantial inroads among non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Scheduled Castes, a space that NDA allies Apna Dal and Rajbhar’s SBSP had been claiming. And the BJP’s mentor, the RSS, has tried to cosy up to Scheduled Castes, setting alarm bells ringing for Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, which was quick to snap ties and consolidate its own position.

The fact that some dumped allies have fared badly could also reinforce the BJP’s sense that the allies need it more than it needs them: the Telegu Desam was decimated in the Andhra Pradesh assembly polls in 2019, while the RLSP and SBSP bombed in the Lok Sabha polls.

The coming tests are in two states where the party has little presence: Bengal and Tamil Nadu. In Bengal, it can probably polarise its way to a strong showing, but its Hindi-Hindu-Hindutva mantra has little resonance in Tamil country, where it will have to woo the AIADMK. In a sense, the BJP there is like it was in other states before it grew into the monster it now is: a junior partner waiting for its own time in the sun. The regional party lost a chunk of minority votes in civic body elections last year due to its dalliance with the BJP so it has reason to tread carefully.

Under its former president Amit Shah, the BJP showed admirable sagacity in wooing back allies when it mattered, such as the JDU, which had quit the NDA in 2013, and the Asom Gana Parishad, which had walked out briefly just before the 2019 elections. Some smaller parties in Bihar have also come back.

Kidwai calls this tussle of BJP with regional parties a “cyclical phenomenon” of Indian democracy. “The Jana Sangh and many smaller parties came together to defeat Congress when it was a colossus. Now BJP is so big that the same parties which worked shoulder-to-shoulder with it are uncomfortable. So one pretext or the other, they are trying to find their own independent space. We may see some kind of gathering of smaller parties around Congress in 2024.”

Even a behemoth like the BJP will have to realise that it needs friends. A sinking economy and burgeoning Covid case numbers suggest that anti-incumbency could be a big factor in every poll from here, notwithstanding Modi’s personal popularity. In 2019, the party may have struggled much more if the attack on Pulwama hadn’t happened; it would do well to keep its allies, and potential enemies, close.