With its political health further deteriorating during the coalition’s second tenure in Punjab, the BJP finds itself in ICU. Ironically, drug and corruption issues it had used as its main weapons to target its ruling ally have become its own bane. On both issues, the state party chief Kamal Sharma has been pushed into the dock with the police registering FIRs against four of his aides for allegedly accepting Rs.35 lakh as bribe in cases of drug smuggling, counterfeit currency and fake arms licenses. Among those booked are Sharma’s personal assistant Jaspal Singh Sandhu, BJP district president and District Planning Board chairman Jugraj Singh Katora, party’s circle president (rural) Gurcharan Singh and Lakhwinder Singh Lakha. Though Sharma has defended himself saying he cannot be held responsible for others actions with whom he has now dissociated, he cannot escape moral responsibility for having associates of doubtful integrity.

Given the opposition not only by many party leaders but also by some influential Akali leaders, Sharma’s re-election as Punjab party chief during its forthcoming organizational elections, looks doubtful.

The BJP and its coalition partner Akali Dal have also been playing snakes and ladders on drug and corruption issues. Not long ago when a top drug peddler named Punjab revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia in the drug racket and later the Enforcement Directorate called Majithia for interrogation, the BJP leaders made loudest noises about the involvement of Akali leaders in the drug racket. (Twenty days after Majithia was summoned, the investigation officer Niranjan Singh was transferred to Kolkata which was, however, later stayed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court). Playing snakes, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a sister of Majhitia and wife of Sukhbir Badal later demanded the resignation of Kamal Sharma as state BJP chief.

Power makes politicians vulnerable. Tensions between the ruling Akali Dal and BJP leaders have been escalating. Some senior BJP ministers including Madan Mohan Mittal have protested that Akali leaders and bureaucrats are ignoring them. BJP’s Chief parliamentary secretary Dr. Mavjot Kaur Sidhu even threatened to go on fast as, despite her repeated, requests Rs.10 crore earmarked for development works in her Amritsar East Assembly segment was not being released. Chief Minister Badal whom Sidhu later met and complained about the non-release of the amount, described her as his daughter and ordered the release of Rs. 10 crore. Not only in the BJP’ reports of protests by some district Akali leaders have also started appearing in the media.

The above factors coupled with the growing anti-incumbency sentiment contributed by the government’s acute financial problems and the wave of protests blowing against governance failures on multi-dimensional fronts are going to play a negative role in deciding the coalition government’s fate in 2017 Assembly polls. Whether Mr. Badal who has earned popular respect by practicing his forte, “the time-tested maxim that humility begets love and respect”, will evoke positive response of the voters, is too early to predict.

The state of the BJP in Himachal Pradesh is worse than that in Punjab. The infighting in the party escalated a week after the Congress alleged Rs.100 crore scam involving Dharamshala cricket stadium headed by the former chief minister’s MP son Anurag Dhumal when Dhumal was chief minister. Facing the onslaught, Dhumal wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking CBI probe into his own assets and those of former BJP chief minister and party MP Shanta Kumar and chief minister Virbhadra Singh.

Dhumal sent the missive less than two weeks after Shanta Kumar sent an open letter to party president Amit Shah, demanding an ethics committee to inquire into Vyapam scam and favours allegedly extended to former IPL boss Lalit Modi by Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. In his letter Kumar said that the Vyapam scam had dented the NDA government image and “made all of us bow our heads in shame”.

The issue triggered a war of words between Kumar’s opponents and supporters. The party’s Jalandhar MLA Manoranjan Kalia charged Shanta Kumar with misusing Punjab BJP’s party funds when he was state unit in-charge. Punjab BJP chief Kamal Sharma hit back terming Kalia’s allegations of misuse of party funds by Shanta for personal use as baseless. Shanta Kumar without naming anybody had also opposed the trend of “dynastic politics and feudalism as it weakens democracy.”

The dogfights in the Punjab and Himachal Pradesh BJP are going to have an adverse impact on the saffron party and the Akali Dal’s electoral prospects in the two state assembly polls due before March and December 2017 respectively.

Although the BJP rules Haryana on its own strength, dissenting voices started surfacing after some of the senior party leaders whose aspiration to occupy CM’s chair was spoiled by the PM by nominating the first time MLA Manohar Lal Khattar as party’s chief minister. Among such voices were of Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma and Health Minister Anil Vij.

It was for the first time in Haryana’s history that the BJP formed its government by gaining its own majority thanks to the Modi wave. After assuming office ten months ago the Khattar-led Haryana government has now started showing signs of governance by taking decisions on important policy matters. It is too early to pass a judgement on the merits of these decisions some of which have raised controversies.

Though local bodies elections are usually not fought on party symbols, the forthcoming elections of Panchayat Raj Institutions will indicate the legitimacy of the saffron party’s popularity graph now when the Modi wave has waned and anti-incumbency signs have started emerging.

It will be hazardous for those BJP optimists who believe in what a wise man had said “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”. (IPA Service)