Losers burden

As the first electoral exercise after the Lok Sabha verdict,these assembly election results gain an especially national context. For the BJP,in a spiral of denial since its May defeat,they come as a reminder that postponing a stock-taking will not stop the wreckage from piling up. The BJP will perhaps wonder what may have been had it persisted with its earlier seat-adjustment with the INLD in Haryana. In Maharashtra it has gamely conceded defeat. But it needs to do a lot more to show itself worthy of the opposition space it occupies,especially in Maharashtra and at the national level.

The BJPs Maharashtra leadership is already rationalising the BJP-Shiv Sena alliances third successive defeat to the Congress-NCP combine by arguing that Raj Thackerays votes were really theirs. This is disingenuous and lazy. In a first-past-the-post system,pointing to fragmentation of the vote can hardly be consolation. But the Thackeray factor is certainly at the heart of the BJPs troubles in Maharashtra. It is not that Thackeray was threatening to garner substantial vote away from the BJP-Sena combine,especially in what used to be their urban stronghold. It is that the party failed to articulate a political response to his hyper-chauvinism. It was certainly a chauvinism inspired by the Senas familiar rhetoric. But the challenge for the BJP,as a national party,was to craft a positive agenda to present itself as an alternative to both the ruling coalition and to the challenger-come-lately. As seen from its feeble statements and its manifesto,it chose to play Thackeray-lite and even alarmed its coalition partner in Bihar,the JDU with talk of work permits for migrants.

This failure is indicative of the BJPs challenge nationwide. Once a party of the urban middle classes and small entrepreneurs,it is now struggling to articulate a political agenda responsive to the aspirations of the cities and the urban periphery. This may be bad news for the party. But it is also unhealthy for our polity that the largest party of opposition is consumed by problems of factionalism and turned away from the urgent issues of the day.