BJP faces defections, desertions ahead of 2024 general elections
From alliance partners to its party leaders and cadre, the Bharatiya Janata Party appears to be losing them all, left, right and centre.
Hyderabad: From alliance partners to its party leaders and cadre, the Bharatiya Janata Party appears to be losing them all, left, right and centre.
After being ignored and backstabbed repeatedly for long, Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party in Andhra Pradesh was the latest to abandon the saffron party. Several senior leaders like K Swamy Goud and Dasoju Sravan too quit the BJP to join the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi) in Telangana.
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All this is happening less than 20 months from the general elections in 2024 when the BJP is keen to retain the power at the Centre by winning more seats in the South Indian States. There is evidently a growing frustration among NDA constituent parties and within the party as well, recent developments show.
Pawan Kalyan was miffed over the BJP’s lack of enthusiasm to work with his party and had already indicated that there was a “gap” between the two parties lately. Though the Andhra Pradesh BJP leaders resorted to some firefighting measures, BJP national executive member Kanna Lakshminarayana admitted that the relationship has not been well for quite some time, as the BJP State leadership failed in coordinating with the JSP chief.
Though both TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and BJP Andhra Pradesh chief Somu Veerraju came to extend their support to him after the Visakhapatnam arrests, Pawan Kalyan chose to address a joint press conference with Naidu rather than Veerraju. Surprisingly, Pawan Kalyan had even extended his best wishes to BJP senior leader in Telangana Dasoju Sravan who quit the party to join TRS (BRS).
Terming Sravan as his dear friend who is also a dynamic and visionary leader, the JSP president hoped that everyone will realise the former’s true potential. Along with Sravan, Telangana State Council former chairman K Swamy Goud too quit the BJP and joined the TRS (BRS).
Alliance partners deserting the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is nothing new. When Narendra Modi formed his first government in 2014, the BJP-led NDA had the support of around two dozen political parties.
But within a few years, at least half of them including major alliance partners like Janata Dal (United), Shiromani Akali Dal, Telugu Desam, Shiv Sena and Jammu Kashmir People Democratic Party among others, deserted him.
In the last few months after Nitish Kumar‘s JD(U) severed ties with the BJP, there appears to be fissures between NDA partners BJP and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) in Haryana.
Trouble is also brewing in Tripura where at least six MLAs from BJP’s alliance parties including Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura have resigned in the last one year. Similar cracks are appearing in the NDA alliance partners in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh as well.
The BJP is struggling to gain ground in most of these States, especially those where the main alliance parties like JD (U), Shiv Sena, TDP and others have a stronghold.
All that the BJP is now left with is splintered groups that it had created by splitting the Opposition parties and also small political parties.
Political analysts opine that the BJP, in its bid to strengthen itself, had eaten into its alliance partners and friendly parties often which was another reason for the alliance partners to leave the NDA.
If the BJP continues with its anti-people policies and authoritarian governance, many wonder whether the saffron party will be left with any alliance partners before the 2024 elections.
