The attempt by the BJP leadership to build a campaign against the Election Commission in the run-up to the Gujarat Assembly polls is worrying the NDA allies. Non-BJP members of the Cabinet opposed any move to run down a constitutional body like the Election Commission.
Leaders of several alliance parties were perturbed at the manner in which senior BJP leaders had launched a vilification campaign against Chief Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh on communal lines. A section of leaders was alarmed when Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi described Lyngdoh as a Christian with political motives.
What appears sinister is the attempt by the BJP leadership to build a vitriolic campaign in Gujarat against the commissioner by painting him as having an anti-Gujarat mindset. In the Gujarat election campaign, the BJP's state leadership claimed to have located an anti-Gujarat lecture by Lyngdoh during his stint as director of the IAS academy in Mussoorie. Lyngdoh is believed to have described the Gujarat bureaucracy as the "worst role-model" for young bureaucrats.
That the allies are jittery over the confrontationist posture of BJP hardliners became evident when minister of state for external affairs Digvijay Singh, also criticised the BJP.