Wild Swing

The BJP is seen today as a corporate-friendly political party, and this is the view held by both the party’s votaries and its opponents. Supporters say this is necessary to industrialise India and that the government has no business to be in business. Opponents of course complain that this is a sellout to crony capitalism.

- Aakar Patel

But the party did not start off this way and indeed, there is no doctrine which tells us why the BJP is doing today what it opposed yesterday. A political party has every right to shift its position, of course, but it would not be out of place to ask why it has done this. The Congress moved towards liberalisation after a fierce debate inside the party, and on the pages of organs like the Economic and Political Weekly. Narasimha Rao had trouble getting his reforms passed and had to justify them to his own MPs and the public.