Switching to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may not guarantee success in politics, but for those who leave the saffron party, the going is tougher. According to a study of prominent BJP defectors, this is the case. BJP leaders claim Navjot Singh Sidhu, a cricketer-turned-politician, is a prime example of this since he has been struggling to gain primacy in the Punjab Congress.
In political circles, Sidhu’s rebellion against Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is seen as Sidhu’s desperate bid to become the Congress party’s face in the next assembly election. After 13 years, Sidhu left the BJP and joined the Congress. Shiromani Akali Dal ties are being severed by him. As part of the alliance at the time, the BJP was only able to contest 23 seats in Punjab, which left no hope for an ambitious Sidhu. Despite becoming a minister in Amarinder Singh’s government, he resigned later to challenge the CM. Rahul Gandhi is said to be supporting Sidhu’s cause, but Capt Amarinder Singh is too much of a heavyweight to be pushed aside easily.
Regardless of the outcome of this tussle, Sidhu, as a BJP defector, is still better off. At the very least, he has the support of the Gandhis. BJP defectors are facing obstacles in other parties or reverting to the party they defected from. Many party leaders left the party, such as Jaswant Singh, Shatrughan Sinha, Kirti Azad, Manvendra Singh, and Yashwant Sinha. Kalyan Singh and the firebrand Uma Bharti left the party, returned, and now find themselves marginalized. The rare exceptions included former Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole, and B.S. Yediyurappa, who became the chief minister of Karnataka after returning to the BJP.
We have a limited understanding of this complex issue. Many who left the BJP and tried to launch their own parties – including Kalyan Singh, Babulal Marandi, Uma Bharti, and Yediyurappa – returned after their unsuccessful attempts. Shankersinh Vaghela was the sole former BJP leader to enjoy some success outside of the party, according to Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Center for Policy Research in Delhi. There is a possibility (which may also be occurring in Communist parties) that in ideological parties it is difficult for leaders to create a political base. Workers and voters in the BJP are tied to the party rather than to their leaders, he explained.
In most cases, when these leaders leave, they do not cause a split in the party. Thus, these defectors have less political leverage when joining another party. Launching a new party requires adequate financial and manpower resources. As a result, cadre-based organisations such as the BJP have difficulty holding onto leaders (outside).
Returning BJP leaders
Uma Bharti, the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, is one of the BJP leaders who returned to the party but is still fighting for survival. In December 2005, Bharti was expelled from the party for indiscipline and anti-party activities. Former party president L.K. had been attacked by her. Shivraj Singh Chouhan became MP chief minister, despite the opposition leader’s protest.
The Bharatiya Janshakti Party, which Bharti formed, failed to achieve political success. In 2007, she lost even in her home constituency of Tikamgarh, Bada Malhera. The RSS urged her to return to the BJP in 2011 after six years. She was also inducted into the first Modi government cabinet after being asked to focus on Uttar Pradesh by the party leadership. However, she was left out of the cabinet after PM Modi secured a renewed mandate in 2019. A Hindutva icon from a similar state is Kalyan Singh, who was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh when the Babri Masjid was destroyed.
In 1991-92 and 1997-99, Singh headed the BJP government as chief minister. Singh was sacked as chief minister in 1999 for rebelling against then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and replaced by Ram Prakash Gupta. Singh received a show-cause letter for his public statements deemed anti-party and derogatory to the party made in Delhi and Aligarh that year. Despite this, Singh claimed that the BJP was sidelining him. However, Singh returned to the party two months before the 2004 elections.
‘Kalyan Singh and Vajpayee had an awful chemistry. Singh had not campaigned in a number of constituencies when the then-PM visited Uttar Pradesh,’ a senior BJP leader recalled. Singh had claimed that he was sidelined and Vajpayee promoted sycophants. R.P. According to Singh, the national BJP spokesperson, those who return are not sidelined, but he added that Singh could have become the prime minister if he had stayed in the BJP.
The following examples illustrate this point: Uma Bharti, Madan Lal Khurana, and Kalyan Singh. ‘Upon rejoining the BJP, all three were given key positions,’ Singh said. Khurana was still made CM candidate after he returned. Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti were both accommodated by the government. The BJP is an ideology-based party. Kalyan Singh could even have been the PM if he had stayed back.
The BJP spokesperson cited the ideological argument as well. “The trio was accepted by the ideological cadre when they decided to return. Those who join other political parties find it difficult to adjust. Provided they are held to an ideological DNA, adapting to a new system becomes difficult for them.
Those who left
The BJP, along with some other party leaders, are now seeking relevance in the outfits they joined. A cricketer-turned-politician is Kirti Azad, who was suspended from the BJP after openly rebelling against Arun Jaitley in 2016. He joined the Congress in 2019 but lost his seat in Koderma in Jharkhand. Shatrughan Sinha, an actor-turned-politician who served in the Vajpayee government, joined the Congress in 2019 after the BJP refused him a ticket to represent Patna Sahib. Ultimately, he contested on a Congress ticket and lost to Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. His wife Poonam Sinha contested on an SP ticket in Lucknow and lost to Minister Rajnath Singh.
The presence of Jaswant Singh, one of the tallest BJP leaders and a former external affairs minister, in the party shrank over time, until he was finally expelled over a book that he wrote last year. He was also denied a ticket for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which he ran as an independent candidate from Barmer and lost. Experts claim that those who leave the saffron party will have a hard time making a difference in other opposition parties.
Those who leave the BJP and join elsewhere will not flourish, unless they join a Hindutva political outfit. They may flourish in a Hindutva political outfit, but if they join another party, they will not be able to sustain themselves. For over thirty years, the BJP has built an image for itself that no other party can match, said former finance minister Badri Narayan. ‘But Yashwant Sinha may be an exception,’ Narayan said.
Read more: 21st century will be the ‘techade’: Digital India marks six years
‘Yashwant Sinha belongs to the Vajpayee-Advani school and has a strong socialist background. It might be possible to revive him, but it would be a difficult task,’ the official said. In relation to others, I do not see the future of their party beyond the BJP. The Congressmen who join another party and adjust can still make themselves known.
Former IAS Yashwant Sinha quit the BJP in 2018 after criticizing the party under Narendra Modi. Sinha had joined politics as a Janata Party member after resigning from the IAS in 1984. With a promise to save democracy, Sinha launched a political platform in 2020 and announced to run in the Bihar assembly elections, but he failed to do well. In March, he joined the TMC and was appointed vice chairman.
Post Your Comments