The NDA is critically important to the BJP. Without it, the party cannot hope to come to power outside of a handful of states where it's well entrenched, such as Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and possibly Rajasthan.

The NDA has steadily shrunk since 2004. Parties have quit it to minimise the stigma of association with a rank communal organisation. Particularly embarrassing for many is the irretrievably tarnished image of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who presided over a terrible anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002. Mr Modi is a persona non grata not just for many Indian states and parties, but also for several foreign governments, including the United States and many in the European Union.

While joining the NDA, some allies impose on the BJP the condition that it shouldn't field Mr Modi in election campaigns or public meetings. This was indeed the understanding with Mr Kumar. But the party violated it when it held its national executive committee meeting in Patna on June 12-13. It drafted Mr Modi as the lead speaker at the concluding public rally.

BJP supporters ran a lurid advertising campaign featuring Mr Modi holding hands with Mr Kumar, and making exaggerated claims about the Gujarat government having generously helped Bihar during last year's floods. The advertisements were a crude effort to exploit the aid issue politically. A livid Mr Kumar called off the dinner which he was to host for BJP leaders. He described the claiming of credit for one's charitable deeds as “vulgar”.

Why did the BJP choose to antagonise Mr Kumar, its most valuable ally, especially after Ms Mamata Banerjee walked out of the NDA and Mr Naveen Patnaik decided that he would contest the Orissa Assembly elections on his own? The simple answer is, the Bihar BJP is badly divided. A faction in it, dominated by the Thakurs and Bhumihars, doesn't like the terms of power-sharing with Mr Kumar and feels that BJP Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi is too uncritical of his boss, and has allowed him to overshadow and marginalise the party.

However, the balance of power on the ground is such that the broad-based JD(U) will naturally be more powerful than the BJP, whose base is small, being confined to a few upper castes. If it had real political sense, the BJP's national leadership would have understood this and reined in the recalcitrant faction.

Instead, it caved in, fielded Mr Modi as its topmost speaker in Patna, and built up hype around his visit. Mr Modi spoke at the rally like the unbalanced politician he is, criticising the Right to Education Act—a worthy step if there was one—as a measure intended to “pauperise the BJP's state governments”. This stupidity was compounded by the absence of any reference to Mr Nitish Kumar in his speech.

Mr Kumar is an astute strategist, who has consciously cultivated Mahadalits (the most backward Dalits), Extremely Backward Classes (among the OBCs), and socially, economically and educationally backward Muslims. If he decides to go it alone in the next Assembly elections, due by November, the BJP will face a rout, even a total wipe-out in Bihar, possibly worse than what it suffered in Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Kumar may not go this far. He would have to decide if the JD(U) can win in a likely four-way contest against the BJP, the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (probably allied with Mr Ram Vilas Paswan). This would depend on his assessment of political trends and social group/caste alignments and inclinations, which would determine whether he can build a winning social coalition.

However, it has long been clear that Mr Kumar is a reluctant ally of the BJP and deeply averse to the Hindutva ideology. The BJP has succeeded in alienating Mr Kumar. This could be a costly blunder. Letting loose a megalomaniac and a hardline Hindutva figure like Mr Modi on Bihar is sure to alienate large sections of broadly secular Hindus, as well as Muslims, who form 16.5 percent of the population—without helping the BJP win a sizeable chunk of even upper-caste votes.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari lacks mature political judgment. He is a greenhorn in national politics, who doesn't understand the political complexities of the Hindi heartland. He is proving the biggest flop the BJP ever pulled off. He is easily manipulated by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which appointed him to the party post. He has no independent base.

Many second-generation BJP leaders studiedly ignore Mr Gadkari. The “governance” conference he convened in Mumbai in preparation for the national executive was boycotted by all prominent leaders barring Ms Sushma Swaraj. Mr Rajnath Singh was in Mumbai on the relevant dates but chose not to attend the conference. Sensing the mood, Mr LK Advani too boycotted the meeting, further undermining Mr Gadkari's already low authority.

Mr Gadkari is in a trap. He lacks the resources or ability to contain Mr Advani's overbearing influence. The Prime Minister-forever-in-waiting was stripped by the RSS of the last office he held as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. But he can't overcome his addiction to mess with the party's affairs. He continues to make major organisational-political decisions. His decision to nominate the maverick lawyer Ram Jethmalani for the Rajya Sabha elections from Rajasthan has antagonised many cadres. Mr Jethmalani had quit the BJP calling it communal, and contested a Lok Sabha election against Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. BJP MLAs had to be kept locked up in a resort to ensure that they would vote for Mr Jethmalani.

The BJP's leadership crisis is indeed grave. But that isn't the sole crisis it faces. The party lacks programmes or polices that offer a half-way credible alternative to the United Progressive Alliance. It's altogether too reactive and unconvincing when criticising the UPA even on some of its patently misguided agendas, such as the nuclear liability Bill, public sector divestment, strategy of dealing with the Naxalite/Maoist challenge by crude military means, or its handling of the Bhopal disaster, followed by the terrible June 7 judgment.

Unlike the Left, which opposes the principle of capping liability for nuclear accidents, which have potentially catastrophic consequences, the BJP only wants the Rs 500 crore compensation ceiling doubled. But a Chernobyl-type accident will wreak damage running into lakhs of crores.

The BJP sounds utterly hypocritical on the Bhopal victims' suffering. It was in power in Madhya Pradesh for much of the time after the 1989 settlement. It treated the victims with the utmost callousness. Its own Bhopal rehabilitation minister Babulal Gaur says the BJP gave them no help when in power nationally. The BJP is ambivalent on an issue that's important for the victims: contamination of the Bhopal plant site and water supply. Many surveys—Indian and international—have found chemical poisons, including carcinogens, in both.

As for Dow Chemical, Carbide's successor, Mr Jaitley has certified that it's not liable for cleaning up the site. This places the BJP in the camp of those who side with corporate criminals. On containing Maoism and jehadi terrorism, it is squarely on the UPA's Right. Its policies are a prescription for more disasters.

Equally important, the BJP is gripped by an ideological identity crisis. It has abjectly failed to distance itself from the RSS and define itself as a “normal”, more or less moderate party. It remains stuck in the antiquarian, anti-modernist and sectarian notion of Hindu Rashtra. The BJP has no strategy for political mobilisation, which can shore up its sinking base.

As multiple crises undermine its credibility and appeal, the BJP's influence is shrinking. It's hard to see how it can resist further contraction and marginalisation. Does the BJP then have a long-term future? The honest answer is, the BJP's fate does not lie in its own hands. It can revive itself and become a force only if its opponents commit blunders and hand it readymade issues like Shah Bano, or can recreate the moribund Ram Janambhoomi movement.

Alternatively, the BJP could gain from some extraordinary but unforeseeable events like, say, an Indo-Pakistan war, to end which the Indian government accepts a bad compromise, or totally fails to act if yet another Mumbai-type terrorist attack occurs.

None of this seems likely. In the most plausible scenario, the BJP seems more or less destined to remain a party at one extreme of politics, wedded to a foul exclusionist ideology, with a small committed upper-caste, upper-class elite support base, which is too narrow to become the core of a broad social coalition. (IPA Service)