BJP to Reboot Their Strategy For 2018

Successive bypoll defeats have triggered murmurs of discontent in the BJP. With state elections and 2019 ahead, the party needs to get its act together.

- Uday Mahurka

The murmurs began soon after the BJP’s bypoll defeats in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar. ‘A timely warning. But will it lead to a course correction in the style of functioning of the party leadership?’ A message on a WhatsApp group of BJP workers read. No names were taken, but then it was easy to guess who the barbs were directed at: party chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The question is being asked across the party after its dismal showing in the bypolls in its Hindi heartland stronghold this year. In January, it lost the Lok Sabha seats of Ajmer and Alwar in Rajasthan and the Mandalgarh assembly seat. On March 1, it lost the assembly seats in Mungaoli and Kolaras in Madhya Pradesh and on March 14, it lost three Lok Sabha seats in UP and Bihar. The losses have seen the party’s Lok Sabha tally shrink to 274 seats from 282 in 2014. And with unlikely allies Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party coming together in Uttar Pradesh, a united opposition could well pose a challenge for the party in 2019.

The mood at the March 23 meeting of the BJP’s parliamentary party at its new headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg was one of caution. Prime Minister Modi, party chief Amit Shah and over 300 party MPs attended the meeting. Addressing the MPs, both the PM and the party president drove home the message of taking to the people the good work done by the government.