Disquiet in BJP as infighting rears up in many states

Rumblings in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura show that all is not well with the saffron party

The BJP showcasing its massive Gujarat Assembly win has pushed into the background troubling questions on dissent and infighting in the party's state units in Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Delhi and Kerala.

In Himachal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charisma couldn't overcome the damage the infighting between its rival camps wrought on its Assembly election prospects, contributing to its defeat. An analysis in Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, blamed the loss on the infighting.

Camps within the party underlined that the BJP lost nearly all seats in Hamirpur, a pocket borough of former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal and son Union minister Anurag Thakur, while winning in former CM Jai Ram Thakur's home district of Mandi.

In the poll run-up, BJP state vice president Kirpal Parmar was one of over 20 rebels who contested as Independents, accusing the party leadership, including BJP national president J P Nadda, a native of Himachal, of poor ticket distribution.

But even before the Himachal results were announced, Nadda was busy firefighting in Rajasthan.

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On December 1, he was in Jaipur to launch the party's 'Jan Aakrosh Yatra' to corner the ruling Congress in Rajasthan. More importantly, Nadda visited to mollify an upset Vasundhara Raje and effect a rapprochement between her and state unit chief Satish Pooniya.

In Rajasthan, the BJP has half a dozen chief ministerial aspirants, including Raje, Pooniya, Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Arjun Ram Meghwal. According to sources, Nadda intervened to have Raje's pictures on the vehicles traversing across the state to tell people about the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government's "misgovernance".

Even the BJP's Gujarat unit was saddled with a trust deficit between senior leaders which its spectacular win eventually nipped. While addressing the party's MPs in Parliament on Tuesday, the PM praised BJP Gujarat unit chief C R Paatil for the triumph. In the run-up to the Gujarat elections, Paatil's frenemies in the state BJP hoped an underwhelming win could result in his ouster.

Dissenting voices can be heard in Madhya Pradesh, another state that goes to polls along with Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in December 2023. BJP MLA from Maihar in MP, Narayan Tripathi, wrote to Nadda last week suggesting a complete revamp of the party's government and its state unit to beat anti-incumbency.

In his letter, Tripathi pointed to the BJP's emphatic Gujarat win and requested that Nadda replicate the same template of fighting elections in MP.

The 'Gujarat template', focused on perpetuating the Modi mystique, has unsettled the party's old guard. In Gujarat, the BJP refused tickets to over 40 sitting MLAs, including front-ranking ones, such as former chief minister Vijay Rupani and his deputy Nitin Patel. At 66, the two are younger than the party's unwritten 75 years cut-off for contesting elections.

The BJP experimented with fielding younger, fresher faces, committed to "kamal", the BJP's lotus election symbol, and Modi's leadership, rather than to the RSS or Jan Sangh.

The saffron party also imported combative Opposition MLAs and MPs wherever it was not confident of winning. Congress' 10-term MLA from Gujarat's Chhota Udepur seat, 78-year-old Mohansinh Rathwa, joined the BJP weeks before the election. His son, Rajendrasingh Rathwa, won the seat on a BJP ticket by nearly 30,000 votes.

Upset party leaders are a problem for the BJP in the Northeast, where four states will have elections in 2023.

In Tripura, the BJP sacked Biplab Deb as the CM in May, 10 months before the Assembly elections, after a section of the party MLAs rebelled. But attrition in the party has continued despite state unit chief Rajib Bhattacharya's efforts and visits by its Northeast coordinator Sambit Patra and state prabhari, Mahesh Sharma.

The BJP is nervous about going into the election as a divided house against possible CPM-led Left parties and Congress alliance.

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On Tuesday, BJP's Sikkim president DB Chauhan resigned. "I had personally taken up with Nadda ji the demand of the 12 BJP MLAs joining the government in Sikkim, but he apparently did not take up the matter with the Sikkim chief minister," Chauhan claimed.

Chauhan served as the state BJP president for six years. During his tenure, the BJP won two seats in bypolls and engineered the defection of 10 MLAs from the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) in 2019 to emerge as a political force in the state with 12 legislators.

But the foremost of the BJP's concerns is Karnataka, its gateway to the south. Elections are due in April 2023 in the state where a resurgent Congress is making the BJP nervous. The party's top leadership is trying to keep B S Yediyurappa in good humour.

Still, the former CM has indicated that a seat on the party's Parliamentary Board or being dispatched as an observer to Gujarat will not suffice. "No one can finish me politically. I have my strength and have toiled to bring the BJP to power," Yediyurappa said in a veiled warning last week during Nadda's visit to the state.

Interestingly, Nadda has completed his three-year term as the party's national president and is currently on an extension with elections likely early next year.