Last week saw the United Progressive Alliance government issue a “report card” that concealed as much as it claimed. The second instalment of the UPA has consistently failed to deliver on basic reform. However, the week also saw the national executive meeting of the largest opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party. The occasion revealed precisely why the BJP has been unable to capitalise on the disarray in the government and continues to struggle to project itself as a credible alternative. What could have been an opportunity to hold the government to account and present a clear set of alternative policies turned instead into a lengthy clash of personalities. Attention was focused on how and why the party’s president, Nitin Gadkari, got an unprecedented second three-year term that would ensure he is in charge until after the next general elections. Then, party insider Sanjay Joshi had to resign from the BJP national executive just before its meeting, presumably to ensure that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi did not stay away from the deliberations in Mumbai. Doubts were expressed, too, as to whether former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa would be present. Instead of presenting a unified front, the party reinforced the image that it has developed since the last election — of having a centre so weak that it is always held hostage to struggling regional chieftains, and to the demands of the BJP’s parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
In the end, both Mr Modi and Mr Yeddyurappa turned up, and the meeting went off largely incident-free. Yet the political and economic resolutions that emerged from the meeting were indicative of the reasons behind the party’s inability to seize the opportunity provided by the UPA’s abdication of governance. As expected, both talked at length about the corruption scandals and the price rises UPA-II has presided over. Yet the party dissolved into confusion on the question of whether the “Goa model” – of cutting state taxes on petrol to compensate for rising international crude oil prices – could be replicated elsewhere. Instead, it decided on a fuzzy, general opposition to fuel price increases. A party claiming to be an alternative at the Centre has to be able to demonstrate that it is capable of more than just criticism, and by that standard the BJP has failed — not just during this last meeting, but during all three years of UPA-II. It has not been able to frame a credible, reformist agenda that can be contrasted with the UPA’s. Few policy pronouncements were voted on at this meeting, for example; the most talked about was a complete ban on genetically modified crops, which hardly speaks of the party’s reformist credentials.
The BJP might be tempted into thinking that the UPA’s incompetence means the next elections will be handed to it on a platter. That would be a mistake. India’s voters are quite capable of, instead, rewarding regional parties that have been seen as being effectively populist. India’s citizens expect an Opposition that can hold its government to account and present a set of alternative, responsible policies. So far, the BJP has failed to oblige.
