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- The party has asserted the principle of ‘democratic centralism’ and this is the way it shall be. Never mind what the party constitution says about electing leaders from bottom up.
- It is a pity that two ‘leaders’, whom LK Advani referred to as “two eminent Muslim colleagues of ours”, were allowed to adopt an abrasive tone and level all kinds of charges while others were disallowed to raise issues that are much more fundamental for the party’s well-being.
- But I guess it is useful to promote the fiction that the BJP lost the election because of what Varun Gandhi said (or did not say) in Pilibhit. That way, the real reasons shall remain swept under the carpet.
- [Sushil Modi in his intervention mentioned that Hindutva upsets the JD(U) and could strain the BJP-JD(U) alliance in Bihar. That’s as unconvincing as Naveen Patnaik’s claim that he parted company with the BJP because of the violence in Kandhamal. If Nitish Kumar is convinced that he can win a majority on his own he will part company with the BJP: Nobody likes to share power. A section of the JD(U) feels that an alliance with the Congress makes better sense because it would fetch political returns at the Centre here and now.]
- The reasons why such a large number of sitting MPs lost are four-fold:
. Poor track record of the individuals;
. Poor organisational back-up;
. Poor campaigning at the constituency level; and,
. Poor selection of candidates. - The Indian people’s “way of life” has nothing to do with politics or political campaigns to secure state power. If Hindutva is only what the Supreme Court thinks it is, then it should not be the political creed of any party, least of all the BJP.
- The political resolution bizarrely equates Hinduism with Hindutva. This was best avoided. Hinduism is about faith, which is by definition narrow and exclusive. Hindutva is about political mobilisation, which has to be inclusive and all-embracing.
- The BJP would have done itself some good had it used this National Executive meeting to also clarify a related point: Core issues of the party are not core elements of Hindutva, they are at best tangentially linked.
- Unfortunately, those who speak about it are also strong votaries of subjugating State units of the party to allies so that local leaders don’t grow in stature and want a place inside the “train compartment”.
- A last point: States representatives at the meeting were unanimous and unambiguous in their praise for Narendra Modi. Every where he visited during the campaign, they said, the cadre were galvanised and supporters enthused. Nothing more need be said.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
