A party dying slowly…

While I was growing up and just started to understand governance and politics, it was dawn of Mandal era with V. P. Singh coming up with his great brainstorming idea of reservations for backwards. The images of young people setting fire to themselves been shown on TV are something which are here to stay in my (then too young) memory for years to come. I could not understand the whole idea, and even now I am not too sure if this was a good or bad idea but those images have made me hate such politicians. I personally never hated/discriminated/befriended/envied any other human-being just because of his/her caste or religion. Then came the great idea of Babri mosque in Ayodhya by BJP. Yet again I found countrymen being divided on the basis of religion. As a young mind, I failed to understand why we can’t be just Indian? One sole identity bound by the constitution of India? I hated them as well… Now comes the infamous Narsimha Rao’s congress government with Harshad Mehta’s allegations and JMM bribery scandal.  I hated them as well…

So, when it actually came to the time when I was allowed to vote for the first time in my life, I was to decide between third front, congress and BJP (and few others). It was something like picking the best amongst the worse. I chose BJP!! The sole reason was few things in their agenda which I admired to the core, namely removal of article370 and common civil code for all Indians.

Article 370 because this is THE reason why Kashmir was not progressing. That was the time of heightened terrorist attacks in Kashmir valley. Young kashmiri boys were lured to become terrorists! Because they don’t have anything else to do! Because there is no economy or industrial progress in the valley! Because this article hinders any outsider to come and setup industry in Kashmir! Why do we discriminate people of Kashmir with anyone residing elsewhere in Indian Territory? This article was a follow-up of UN resolution to maintain status-quo so as to take a mandate in Kashmir, the resolution which we ourselves have discarded in 1971 Shimla agreement!! I couldn’t comprehend why do we need to maintain this article and let people of the valley suffer? Same goes for common civil code. We all are Indians first and then anything else. Though we are free to follow whichever religion we want to, we should at least have common civil laws. Variable laws for same actions based on ones religion was something again beyond me. Though they had few things in their agenda I didn’t like but yes I was ready to give a chance to someone new to bring fresh ideas into the system. The party was led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee; one of the most admired politicians and was full of intellectuals which were not blood related to each other or not the sons/daughters of senior leaders. And the infamous confidence-vote lost by BJP because Giridhar Gomago was allowed to vote despite being CM of Orissa again made me feel that BJP led government was taken down by manipulation. That too when this government made India proud by Pokharan-II without bowing against all the economic sanctions imposed by UN and other countries.

That was the BJP I loved!! That was the party I admired!! The party which was democratic, who thought about the nation first! Today’s BJP is nowhere near to what it was those days. The downfall I guess had started after Vajpayee left BJP and active politics. His leaving party created a vacuum which Advani tried to fill in but failed terribly. And the last loksabha elections were the last nail in the coffin. Even sitting in the opposition for last five years, they had never looked towards the benchmarks set by Atalji who, while in opposition, praised whole-heartedly Indira Gandhi and called her as “Durga” when she went on with nuclear tests. All Advani did was opposing to everything which government is doing including nuclear deal with US. They might be correct but they had never been able to present their stand in front of common man who was still facing the rise in inflation and still waiting for basic amenities to be given to him. The split between Arun Jaitley and Sudhanshu Mittal during the election had all the desired results. The party is slowly and gradually becoming the next congress party. Expelling Jaswant Singh in first 30 minutes of “Chintan baithak” without giving him a chance to clarify his stand, while Advani doing almost similar thing was spared, shows the kind of democracy is prevailing inside the BJP. Senior leaders like Arun Shourie and Yashvant Sinha writing to president of setting responsibilities to the person(s) responsible for such defeat fell into deaf ears. Lobbying and marksmanship is at peak, and the common-civil-code that BJP had promised for whole India does not exist in party itself. probably Aurn Shourie would be the next one to be shown the way out and Sudhindra Kulkarni has already resigned because of ideological differences with the party.

Its tragic to see the party dying in such a way which I once considered as the future of Indian politics.