BJP after Uttarakhand: UP challenge looms as other parties fear Big Brother

[related-post]

Developments in Uttarakhand will strengthen the anti-BJP forces, both national and regional. Destabilizing tactics used in Uttarakhand will worry smaller parties and legislative governance requiring their cooperation will become tougher for the BJP.

Regional parties, many of whom have thrived on being anti-Congress mainly due to its big brother attitude towards them and repeated misuse of Article 356 – are wary of the BJP after its adventurism in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The worries were reflected in the Lok Sabha during a debate on theUttarakhand budget on Tuesday. All the regional parties, including SAD, opposed the central government’s use of Article 356. BJD’s Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo, who moved a statutory motion against the Uttarakhand Appropriation Bill, questioned the very relevance of Article 356 which, he said, originated from a 1935 British law and was opposed by all Indian leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru.

However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley argued that the provision is necessary but should be used in “rarest of rare cases” such as, he said, if a state assembly passes a resolution for secession.

Jaitley and other party leaders failed to convince the political class —or the courts — that there was a constitutional break down in Uttarakhand. Political observers have expressed their displeasure over the way the central government and the BJP were trying to flex their muscles with a brute majority in the Lok Sabha. Many MPs in the Lok Sabha said such mistakes would give more space to judiciary intervention.

Criticism of the attempts to destabilize governments in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand – which many in the party wanted to extend to Himachal Pradesh and Manipur – in the social media, a space once dominated by BJP fans, should have been a clear signal to the party leadership that its moves were not going down well with the public. Conversely, the BJP’s moves have helped the Congress to regain some public credibility when it was at the nadir in the last few months.

WATCH INDIAN EXPRESS VIDEOS HERE

Uttarakhand sends out a message to the BJP leadership that it cannot take its majority for granted and that having the numbers in the Lok Sabha does not give it a license to indulge in such activities.

Now it’s for the party to review its strategies as a party with adifference, as it used to claim.