The BJP had long ago lost its self-acclaimed title of “the party with a difference”. Its top leaders started embracing corruption culture of the Congress, ‘the mother of corruption’, they once used to condemn. The most infamous examples are: BJP’s former president Bangaru Laxman was caught on the camera accepting cash; in 2006-2007 the party’s Himachal MP Suresh Chandel was among the MPs caught on the video accepting bribe in the infamous cash-for-questions case. He was expelled from the Lok Sabha; the party’s Karnataka Chief Minister B.S.Yeddyurappa allotted valuable properties to his own family members.

The first two leaders were later rehabilitated in the BJP’s mainstream politics. Yeddyurappa was pressurised to cancel the land allotments and allowed to retain his Chief Ministerial gaddi despite strong opposition from within the party. BJP president Nitin Gadkari made the amusing comment that “Yddyurappa’s land deals are not illegal but immoral”. Will he apply this yardstick for corruption cases involving Congress leaders and the party’s allies like Akali Dal? Obviously not.

The party also lost its self-acclaimed claim of shunning opportunism. To capture and retain power it has been allying with heterogeneous political outfits it once used to describe as opportunist, promoters of divisive regionalism and even anti-national. One glaring example is of its role in Punjab. During the Punjabi Suba movement in the fifties the party (then Jan Sangh) used to accuse the Akali Dal of being a communal and separatist party. But later it started forming coalition governments with it.

In Haryana, the BJP formed coalitions with the parties as diverse as the Devi Lal clan’s frequently renamed outfits and Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party.

Once claiming to be one of the most cadre-based disciplined political party, the developments of the past few weeks in its north-western region units have exposed the claim. These have shown that some of its second rung leaders including legislators are violating party discipline more blatantly than its opponents including the Congress. The latest instance is of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly’s seven of the eleven BJP MLAs voting against the party candidate in the Legislative Council’s elections. Four of them voted for the Congress and three for the National Conference which has been advocating for restoration of pre-1953 position in the state. Their support helped the ruling alliance win five of the six Council seats. Incidentally this happened when a BJP parliamentary delegation was visiting the state to conduct a study on the Kashmir problem.

Facing criticism from the party ranks, the embarrassed state and central leaders forced all the eleven MLAs to submit their resignations addressed to the Assembly Speaker to the party president Nitin Gadkari.

Will the resignations be accepted by the central BJP leadership? Perhaps not. Firstly, In view of the secret nature of voting it will not be easy for the party leadership to identify the MLAs who had voted for the Congress and NC candidates. Secondly, as all the eleven MLAs represent Jammu region, the party’s only stronghold in the state, it would not like to see its strength eroded by nearly two-thirds in the Assembly which has completed only three years of its six year term. The central leadership’s decision, either way, would affect the party’s 2014 electoral fortunes.

In Himachal Pradesh the simmering discontent in the BJP against the functioning of the Prem Kumar Dhumal-led government has taken the form of rebellion. Rajan Sushant, the MP representing Kangra which sends largest number of MLAs to the Assembly. has said that rampant corruption is prevailing in the state. He has been criticising the Chief Minister and the functioning of the state government. Hari Narain Saini Nalagarh MLA and a former minister has also been lambasting the government for its ignoring his constituency.

However, notwithstanding the fact that the state BJP is plagued with discontentment among its ranks, Prem Kumar Dhumal presently does not face any challenge from within the party as the central leadership has been backing him. But these developments are bound to cast their shadow over BJP’s electoral prospects in the Assembly elections due in late 2012.

Punjab BJP has also been experiencing open dissensions leading to polemics between even some of its ministers and party MLAs. The functioning style of BJP’s Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla has earned her many enemies in the party and outside. Former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Jagdish Sahni has publicly charged her with indulging in corruption. The party’s image in Punjab has nosedived in the last four years. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it could retain only two of the 19 Assembly segments it had won in the 2007 Assembly elections. The infighting in the party besides the frequently erupting differences with its dominant ruling partner Akali Dal will seriously jeopardize the party’s electoral prospects in the Assembly elections due early 2012.

Adversity leaves little scope for rebellion in an already fractured party. This is the case with the Haryana BJP. The party, once a coalition partner of the Devi Lal clan’s frequently rechristened parties and Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party, is in a bad state having vastly lost ground in the state.

Introspection induces realism. In the backdrop of the above scenario it is time the BJP undertake the exercise. This may help it find the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel in which the party finds itself in the region today. (IPA Service)