- Due credit must be given, and some may have to grudgingly acknowledge, how the Bharatiya Janata Party goes about its preparedness on a perpetual basis to fight the elections at any level. Be it the Parliamentary elections, legislative elections, district/taluk/panchayat elections, or for that matter various council-level elections, the intensity with which the BJP poll machinery chugs along is simply admirable and worthy of emulation. None of the political parties, national or regional, can match up to the relentless poll battle preparedness of the BJP. It is fascinating to note how every election is taken with utmost seriousness by ever concerned right from the top leadership down to the grassroots workers on the ground.
PC: NH Web Desk
- Simply put, there is no parallel to the way BJP handles the elections day in and day out. As you are aware, the recently concluded Rajya Sabha elections were in the limelight throwing up various permutations and combinations for the contesting political parties. It was widely reported leading up to the Upper House elections how disparate parties were aiming to claim victory leaving no stone unturned in their efforts. The ensuing presidential elections in July had turned these elections into somewhat interesting as well as intriguing. Even though the National Democratic Alliance-led BJP at the Centre sits pretty, every additional Rajya Sabha win would only help the ruling dispensation in pressing ahead with its candidate for the top constitutional post.
- The four hotly contested seats among the 16 Rajya Sabha spots up for grabs saw Congress in Rajasthan, Haryana, and Karnataka, and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra put up a determined fight against the BJP. The en masse rejection of Congress Haryana legislators’ votes in the Rajya Sabha contest between media baron Subhash Chandra and lawyer RK Anand in 2016 and Ahmed Patel’s agonizing struggle in 2017, when Gujarat Congress MLAs were lodged in a Karnataka resort, was a wake-up call for the Grand Old Party. It realized to much dismay that stakes could suddenly become high even in otherwise placid RS polls. In contrast, BJP’s approach hasn’t changed one bit and treats every election with utmost zeal and unbridled passion.
PC: Surendra Kumar Verma
- Looking at recent election results would reveal that except for TMC in Bengal, no opposition party has matched up to the BJP. Of course, Congress, SP, and RJD learned this the hard way. Indeed, huffing and puffing to victory in RS is also a warning of the intensity and resourcefulness needed against the BJP in larger elections. After all, RS electors are a small community of MLAs who can be clumsily shielded from poaching efforts by cutting off their communication modes. At best, this can be termed as a vindication of political troubleshooting skills, not a winnability quotient. Nonetheless, there’s a lesson for BJP too as bearing down too hard on rivals can scale up the index of opposition unity ala Maharashtra and end up hurting it.
