How BJP leaders, voters and cadres are all sending SOS messages in their own ways

The BJP leadership would have us believe that the 2024 Lok Sabha election outcome has given them no reason to change their ways and all is well. But results of 13 Assembly bypolls spread over seven states say otherwise.

PM Modi with Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, and Nitin Gadkari during oath ceremony | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

How long does it take the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to arrive at important decisions—say, choosing the next party president? Ten minutes. That’s all it takes. A top BJP functionary suggested it in as many words in an informal interaction with a group of journalists Friday. Asked why the party was unable to pick the new president even after JP Nadda’s extended tenure ended last month, the functionary quipped, “Hamaare yahan decisions 10 minutes mein le liye jaate hain (we take decisions in 10 minutes).”

Well, that has been the hallmark of the BJP’s ‘strong and decisive’ leadership. In 10 minutes, the party’s parliamentary board decides chief ministers’ replacements. In lesser time, the Union Cabinet clears policy decisions. Treasury Benches do even better in steamrolling crucial laws in Parliament. The party’s central election committee reportedly took 20 minutes to clear names of 50 Lok Sabha candidates in Uttar Pradesh—an average of five in two minutes. That is, of course, because the candidates had already been finalised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

Even the decision to drop and induct Cabinet ministers hardly takes any time. PM Modi does it the day he feels the need—jis din sochoonga, usi din kar doonga.

It’s his decisiveness that endeared him to the people in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, especially when they compared him with then-PM Manmohan Singh, who was seen as “weak”. Modi built on that image in his first term with demonetisation, surgical strikes, and Balakot air strike. Sending senior party leaders to the Margdarshak Mandal and opposition leaders to jail for their alleged acts of commission and omission were all seen and touted as traits of a strong and decisive leadership. It paid off in many Assembly elections and then in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The BJP leadership would have us believe that the 2024 Lok Sabha poll outcome has given them no reason to change their ways and all is well. Of course, it’s not as bad as Opposition leaders think. As of now, Modi 3.0 looks more stable than the Narasimha Rao or the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was. But BJP leaders, cadres and voters seem to be sending SOS for course correction. The latest came in the form of the results of 13 Assembly by-elections spread over seven states. The BJP won only two.

Message on the wall

It’s easier and also convenient to dismiss them as inconsequential as Assembly bypolls are supposed to reflect localised sentiments and favour the ruling parties in states. The BJP needs to study the results closely. The message from party cadres and voters goes beyond their geographical boundaries.

The first is that the people are no more inclined to reward defectors because they are serving the cause of Modi’s BJP. Defections by non-NDA MLAs were a routine affair for a decade. It was driven by both rewards and immunity as voters re-elected them for Modi’s sake. The BJP brought down governments in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh with the help of defectors. Most of them gained legitimacy and rewards by winning bypolls on BJP tickets. But now, there is a change in the way people are looking at defectors.

Out of six Congress MLAs in Himachal Pradesh who defected and contested the bypolls on BJP tickets, four lost. That was last month. In the latest bypolls, two out of three Independent MLAs who contested on the BJP ticket lost. The sole winner, Ashish Sharma, took the Hamirpur seat by a slender margin of 1,571 votes. The Congress has 40 MLAs in the 68-member Himachal assembly again. The BJP’s attempt to bring down the Sukhvinder Sukhu-led government has come to naught. The Congress defector who contested on the BJP ticket in Badrinath lost. Returning to the Assembly through bypolls has become a risky gambit. In the Lok Sabha election, 21 out of 26 BJP candidates, who had defected to the party in 2024, lost. The BJP’s candidate list had 110 leaders who defected to the party since 2014; 69 of them—or 62 per cent—lost.

The Assembly bypolls only reinforce this message from the people.

There is another, more serious message to the BJP: even its loyal cadres and voters have started to rebel against its decision to reward defectors. In the 2022 Assembly election in Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh, Independent candidate Ashish Sharma won with a vote share of 47 per cent. The BJP and the Congress candidates secured a little over 23 per cent each. In the latest bypoll, Sharma, now a BJP candidate, won but could get only 51 per cent, just four percentage points more than what he got on his own as an Independent candidate. Where did the BJP cadres and voters go then? Well, the Congress candidate, the same who contested in 2022 polls, doubled the vote share in 2024 to 48.25 per cent.

In Himachal’s Dehra constituency, Independent candidate Hoshyar Singh had secured 38 per cent votes in 2022 polls and won. These voters were obviously his loyalists, not any party’s. They could be counted on to stay with him in 2024, too. But, as a BJP candidate in the latest bypoll, Singh lost, securing 41 per cent vote share—only 3 percentage points more than his 2022 tally. The BJP candidate in 2022 had secured over 27 per cent votes. Evidently, most of the BJP voters of 2022 did not vote for its candidate in 2024 bypoll. Worse for the BJP, its core voters may have switched its loyalty to the Congress as its candidate almost doubled the vote share—58 per cent in 2024 bypolls from 31 per cent in 2022 poll.

In Uttarakhand’s Badrinath constituency, Congress’ Rajendra Singh Bhandari had won the 2022 polls with 48 per cent votes. The Congress retained the seat in the latest bypoll with 52 per cent votes. Only that Bhandari was not the Congress candidate this time. He had defected to the BJP and lost in the bypoll, securing 42 per cent votes. The BJP candidate in 2022 had got 45 per cent votes.

One can counter these examples by pointing toward Amarwara, in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara, where BJP candidate Kamlesh Pratap Shah—the former Congress MLA whose defection necessitated the bypoll—won. His vote share, though, fell from 48.35 per cent in 2023 to 40.84 per cent.

Several SOS messages

If Modi-Shah were to look closely at these Assembly bypolls, they would hear the message from the people, especially BJP cadres and voters. What may alarm them is the way senior BJP leaders have started sending similar messages of disapproval—some in a veiled way, others directly. Addressing the Goa BJP executive meeting on Friday, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari cited how LK Advani used to call it “a party with a difference” and said that the people elected the BJP because of the Congress’ mistakes. “If we commit the same mistakes, then there is no use in their exit and our entry,” said Gadkari.

Former Himachal CM and veteran BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal didn’t mince words as he questioned the party’s strategy in the state. “I was not aware that the BJP was going to induct the six rebels. I was also not aware of the party’s decision of inducting the three Independent MLAs. With time, parties change, leadership changes, and the working style of leaders also changes…. This Congress government led by Sukhvinder Sukhu could have collapsed on its own after the Rajya Sabha elections in February. I think our party acted hastily,” Dhumal said in an interview with The Indian Express.

Rajasthan minister Kirorilal Meena has resigned after writing many letters to CM Bhajan Lal Sharma about scams and lapses in governance. Former West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh has criticised the party’s strategy of shifting established leaders from winning to challenging constituencies. Asking the central leadership to take “major decisions” in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP’s Badlapur MLA Ramesh Chandra Mishra has said that the party’s situation in UP is “very bad” and it’s not in a position to form the government in 2027.

There are many, many other desperate, discordant voices rising in the BJP from across the country. BJP voters, leaders, and cadres are all sending SOS messages in their own ways: All Is Not Well. But the party high command is not convinced yet.

DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.

(Edited by Prashant)