Under Narendra Modi, the BJP has shown a flair for audaciously changing the headline and disarming the opponent, sometimes on national issues, but more often on the international stage, as the prime minister’s seemingly impromptu happy-birthday touchdown in Lahore has again reaffirmed. By all accounts, though, this out-of-the-box thinking stops at the doostep of the party. The BJP’s inner party affairs, it would seem, are to be conducted in ways that, relatively, lack in imagination, and large-heartedness or even tact. A party that took no action at all against those who blatantly sought to spread ill will between communities, like Ministers Mahesh Sharma and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, and MP Yogi Adityanath, has now speedily suspended cricketer-turned-MP Kirti Azad.
Three days after he held a press conference in which he held forth on an issue he has been raising for nine years now, about corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association under the 13-year stewardship of present Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Azad has been charged with anti-party activities, of “colluding” with the Congress and AAP to bring the BJP into “disrepute”.
Its large mandate in 2014 has given the BJP much room for boldness and experiments without and also for expansiveness and generosity within. It would be doing itself a disservice if it did not take advantage of both opportunities.
