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The Real Challenge in Year Two will be Bihar #NaMo365

After scoring electoral victories in a host of states, BJP should focus on Bihar in its second year of government.

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May 2015 marks the first birthday of the Narendra Modi government, and the first anniversary of Modi’s compelling electoral triumph. It also signifies a year since Amit Shah put his stamp on the BJP and became, at 50, the youngest president in the party’s history. In a sense, this is a time to assess Shah’s performance as well, and not just Modi’s.

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The Performance Yearbook

After scoring electoral victories in a host of states, BJP should focus on Bihar in its second year of government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi offers a sweet to Amit Shah, the then newly appointed president of the BJP, July, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
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How has the party fared in the past year? On the face of it, that may sound like a silly question. Parties in power are usually in a celebratory mood so early in their government’s term. In the case of the BJP in particular, this has been a period of tremendous success.

The 12 months from December 2013 to December 2014, bang in the middle of which fell the May blockbuster, saw the BJP retaining power in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, regaining power in Rajasthan, and forming governments in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. The party also swept Jammu, allowing it to subsequently form a coalition government with the PDP.

In terms of the pre-existing support base, winning a simple majority in Haryana, a state where the party was hitherto an also-ran, was the BJP’s best election performance ever. The decision to break ties with the Shiv Sena before the Maharashtra election and to enter into a coalition with the PDP after the Jammu and Kashmir election represented among BJP’s most audacious gambles.

All, but the first, paid off and the BJP finished as the leading party in Maharashtra, though it fell short of a majority. The second is still a work in progress.

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Reality Bites

After scoring electoral victories in a host of states, BJP should focus on Bihar in its second year of government.
A wall clock carrying a portrait of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. (Photo: Reuters)
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Of course the honeymoon ended — as all honeymoons do — with a thud and the drubbing at the hands of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi in February 2015. Nevertheless, despite that defeat, the fact is that BJP has used the past year very effectively and emerged as the primary pole in Indian politics. It was and should be satisfied, even if Arvind Kejriwal spoilt a potentially perfect year.

The BJP’s experience with government has historically been a mixed one. In 1998, when the party first came to power, its top talent migrated to the government.

The party and its organic ambitions, its hopes in a state like Andhra Pradesh for instance, or even Maharashtra, began to take second place to the need to secure the government and keep allied parties happy. Number 11, Ashoka Road, became a quiet place.

Modi and Shah have been conscious of not repeating this. Shah has had a busy year, touring almost non-stop — in Bihar one day and Kerala the next. He has probably matched Modi in clocking air miles, even without the benefit of foreign travel. He has sought to talk up the party and keep its morale high.

He has studied local and state-level talent and in the coming months is expected to introduce new faces and next-generation names to the party’s various departments. This could be reflected in television studios as well.

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The Hoary Predicament

After scoring electoral victories in a host of states, BJP should focus on Bihar in its second year of government.
SBJP supporters wear masks and posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a party campaign rally in Kolkata, February, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
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Having said that, the old dilemma between the BJP’s deeply-felt and legitimate aspirations to grow into new geographies and the exigencies of running a government that needs to deliver on its mandate in a given time frame remains. This has been most acutely seen in West Bengal, where the BJP, bolstered by its strong performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, took on the Trinamool Congress virtually from day one.

The result was Trinamool became the driving force of a difficult and stubborn Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, stalled key legislations and wasted the winter session of Parliament.

Ironically, through all this, the Modi government was completely fair to the Trinamool administration in Calcutta. It didn’t discriminate against the Bengal and Bihar governments, for instance, in granting greater revenues from coal and mineral auctions to resource-rich states. Both states are run by rival parties that will take on the BJP in electoral battles in the near future.

A more cold-blooded political culture, and at least some senior people in the party, would have preferred a round of hard bargaining.

What does year two hold for Shah and his team? Bihar, where polling is meant to take place in October, is a crucial challenge.

The BJP has relatively less at stake in elections in Bengal (due next summer but likely to be brought forward, Trinamool sources suggest) and in Tamil Nadu (which votes in early 2016). It is no wonder then that Amit Shah will be on that flight to Patna very often in the coming months.

(The writer is a political commentator)

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