A K Bhattacharya: Forgetting the Opposition dharma

NEW DELHI DIARY

There is a well-established convention that almost all political parties in India observe when they occupy the Opposition benches in Parliament.

For the first six months after a new government is formed, the Opposition parties lie low. They avoid launching any direct attack on the government or ruling party politicians. Even when the government makes a mistake, the Opposition parties take a lenient view of it.

The logic of such behaviour is unexceptionable. The first six months of a new government is the "honeymoon" period. It is difficult to turn the popular mood against the government during this time.

This is because a freshly elected government is usually perceived by the people to be incapable of doing anything wrong. Also, the Opposition party is busy reorganising itself after an electoral defeat.

A party that has failed to get the people's mandate cannot sound very convincing in its criticism of the government so soon after the elections.

But this is not how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) behaved after it lost the election in May this year. Its conduct in the last six months since the formation of the United Progressive Alliance government has been very aggressive inside and outside Parliament.

Right from the day the BJP realised that it had no chance of forming the government at the Centre, it began attacking the Congress party on any issue that came its way.

First, it was one of a "foreigner" heading the government. BJP leaders, unmindful of the adverse electoral verdict they received from the people, questioned the correctness of allowing Sonia Gandhi to become the Prime Minister of the country.

How can an Italian-born person head the government of India, asked the BJP leaders. One of them took a vow that she would shave her head and start wearing white clothes to mourn the assault on the country's sovereignty.

Sonia Gandhi, however, proved to be far too clever for the BJP. She decided to give up a job that was hers for the asking. Instead, she nominated Manmohan Singh to be the Prime Minister. The BJP leaders did not know what had hit them.

In one stroke, the party was without what was turning out to be its most potent campaign against the Congress. With Sonia Gandhi stepping down, it was left without any issue.

The second issue that the BJP raised in Parliament was the appointment of ministers with a criminal record. These "tainted" ministers, the BJP argued, must be dropped. The BJP leaders disrupted Parliament proceedings and then began boycotting the session.

In a bid to force the issue, the BJP leaders even forced its chief minister in Madhya Pradesh, Uma Bharti, to resign once an arrest warrant was issued against her. After much acrimonious debate, one of the tainted ministers in the UPA government was dropped.

It is debatable if the BJP pursued the right strategy against a government so soon after its formation. The issues of a "foreigner" heading the government or the continuation of "tainted" ministers in the council of ministers are not entirely irrelevant.

But raising them so soon after the formation of the Congress government was not a wise strategy. Six years in power at the Centre have clearly affected the BJP's strategic thinking.

Instead of trying to embarrass the new government, the BJP would have done well to have focused on itself to identify the factors that were responsible for its defeat at the hustings.

When it finally realised that it must set its own house in order, the BJP leadership faced even bigger problems. One, it had to fall back on L K Advani to revitalise a party that always boasted of a strong cadre of workers and an array of young leaders to succeed the old guard.

Neither the strength of the disciplined cadre of party workers nor the depth of leadership was in evidence when Mr Advani tried to instill discipline in a party at a meeting of its office-bearers.

The nationally televised live walk-out of Uma Bharti from the party's office in New Delhi symbolised all that went wrong with the BJP since its exit from power. Efforts are now being made to repair the damage.

New strategies are also being finalised to rediscover the party's old slogan by rekindling the Hindutva spirit among its supporters. The BJP's attempts to exploit the recent arrest of the Kanchi Shankaracharya for political gains have to be seen in the context of its efforts to revitalise its old support base.

But it would be naive not to recognise the basic mistake the BJP committed immediately after it lost the general elections in May 2004.

The party should have made an effort to learn the right lessons from the electoral debacle. Instead of initiating that exercise, it launched an attack against a newly elected government that had just begun to savour its "honeymoon" period.

A wiser strategy would have been to wait for at least six months and start attacking the UPA government after the initial euphoria about the UPA government was over. A beleaguered BJP means the UPA government has got some more time to settle down.

akb@business-standard.com