Knives out, BJP begins post-mortem

The “talking points” for the baithak,spread over nine pages,were compiled by the three-member Bal Apte committee — Chandan Mitra and P Muralidhar Rao are the other two members.

Since these were only “talking points”,the BJP top brass was quick to deny the existence of any Bal Apte report. “No document on the election analysis was prepared by the party and presented before the chintan baithak here. The document referred in sections of the media is totally imaginary,” said party president Rajnath Singh. Jaitley too said: “There is no Bal Apte report or a report of this nature by any BJP leader.”

Chandan Mitra told The Indian Express that “references to individuals like Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi” didn’t figure in what had been given to the baithak for discussions. “I completely deny the existence of any Bal Apte committee report. We received feedbacks from various states and a set of questions,as points of discussion,had been prepared and suggested for the chintan baithak. There are no authoritative conclusions therein. A final report will emerge only after getting inputs from delegates at the chintan baithak,” he said.

But the “talking points” clearly have in mind those who spearheaded the party campaign,including themes such as “Majboot Neta — Nirnayak Sarkar,India’s internal security,price rise” which “either did not get positioned effectively or there was a mismatch or both to some extent”.

This is what the document says:

•n Failure to advertise the agenda of the party

“We failed to highlight and bring on record the achievements of present NDA-ruled states. We also could not emphasise the effective governance of six years of NDA rule at the Centre earlier. We let the the opposition get away with their single point agenda of defeating BJP… we failed to set an agenda of our own and let our adversaries and the biased and hostile media dictate it to us”

•n Chinks in our armour — Strategy failures

“…our overall candidate selection process got delayed. Candidates’ selection was also not appropriate at some places… lack of leaders of stature and profile affected our performance in certain states (Orissa,West Bengal,Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu)… personal attack on Manmohan Singh did not go well with people… we failed to corner Congress on Mumbai 26/11. Instead we let them and the media divert the issue and drag us to Kandahar… our response on Kandahar was disappointing”

•n Muslim factor in polls

“By and large,Indian Muslims have included Congress in their options. Various efforts from the UPA government and its leadership have increased its acceptability amongst Muslims. As expected,in states where BJP was in direct fight with Congress,Muslims voted for the Congress candidates. In states,where there were more than two major players,Muslims voted for the candidate who could give the toughest fight to the BJP candidate… In certain states,Muslim parties which contested parliamentary elections for the first time performed well”

•n Poor alliance management

“In Delhi,we lost the game even before it was played out. Similarly,in Haryana,we failed to assess the popular mood… In Punjab,the alliance partner attitude has affected NDA’s performance… almost zero-presence of BJP/NDA in four states that account for 144 seats (Kerala,Tamil Nadu,Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal)… people in these states might have wanted to bring a stable government at the Centre that would be free from manipulations of the small regional players. Since BJP is absent in these states,Congress became the logical beneficiary”

Other factors listed as contributing to the poll defeat include the “failure to connect with the youth; external factors (Left propping Mayawati as PM may have worked against it and in favour of Congress… populist schemes of UPA like NREGA and loan waiver may have tilted the balance in rural India); vote bias; anti-incumbency at the candidate-level for BJP ( 50.37% of repeated MPs were re-elected); BJP’s downfall in SC/ST seats.”

The BJP analysis argues that the Congress mainly gained from decline and division in the vote share of its opposition and favourable distribution of votes in states like Uttar Pradesh. The party thinks that course correction could be “in the form of checking the anti-incumbency against its sitting MPs (which is particularly high); improving its index of alliance; and devising an audit mechanism for its MPs in Parliament and in their constituencies”.