GIVEN A rude shock by the Opposition in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is not taking lightly another prospect staring it in the face. The party that was once known for its deep bench, and constant grooming of a new leadership, now seems jaded compared to the young and new faces in the Opposition’s ranks. Its numbers far short of a majority in the Lok Sabha, the Narendra Modi government had consciously stuck with continuity after coming back to power this time, with very few changes, especially in the faces helming crucial ministries – including Modi himself (73), Amit Shah (59), Rajnath Singh (73), Nitin Gadkari (67), Nirmala Sitharaman (64), and S Jaishankar (69). In comparison, the Opposition Benches have Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition, who has managed to retain the mantle of a “young leader” despite being 54; and INDIA bloc leaders such as Akhilesh Yadav (51), the chief of the Samajwadi Party, Abhishek Banerjee (36) and Mahua Moitra (49) of the Trinamool Congress, M Kanimozhi (56) of the DMK, and Supriya Sule (55) of the NCP. Besides, the RJD is identified with Tejashwi Yadav (34) now while Aaditya Thackeray (34) is the heir apparent of the Shiv Sena (UBT). Beyond Rahul too, there is a young second rung on the rise within the Congress – Assam MP Gaurav Gogoi (41), Haryana’s Deepender Hooda (46), Maharashtra’s Varsha Gaikwad (49) and Praniti Shinde (43), Tamil Nadu’s Karti Chidambaram (52) and Manickam Tagore (49), Meghalaya’s Saleng A Sangma (46), Kerala’s Hibi Eden (41) and Punjab’s Amrinder Singh Warring (47). Most of them have emerged as articulate speakers in the Lok Sabha, and the Congress is expected to project them in the coming elections as well. The BJP did have an advantage in the age game till a few years ago, when its prominent faces included former Union ministers Anurag Thakur (49), Smriti Irani (48) and Rajyavardhan Rathore (54), and MPs Poonam Mahajan (43) and Tejasvi Surya (33). However, Irani lost the elections this time and hasn’t been seen or heard from since, Thakur was not given a place in the Union Cabinet, Rathore was sent to state politics – he is currently a minister in the BJP government in Rajasthan – and Mahajan was denied a ticket for the Lok Sabha elections. Surya, now a two-time MP, has toned down his shrill rhetoric and largely faded from the news. The biggest emerging face in the BJP ranks in Parliament now is Bansuri Swaraj (40), the daughter of the late Sushma Swaraj. A senior BJP leader said it was a wrong reading of the picture, pointing out that top positions in the party and government are held in fact by leaders in their early 50s – putting them largely in the same age bracket as the Opposition’s stalwarts. Giving the examples of IT and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw (54), Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav (55), and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan (55), the leader said: “Unlike the Congress, which was forced to come up with young faces as their old leadership faded away, lost elections or quit the party over the last 10 years, the BJP does not have any dearth of leaders. The strategy of continuity or assigning experienced hands was our choice, not because we did not have options. For the Congress, these young faces are not a product of selection, but of compulsion.” BJP allies incidentally have a similar line-up of young faces as the INDIA bloc – whether the TDP’s Nara Lokesh (41), the Shiv Sena Shinde’s Shrikant Shinde (37), the RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary (45), or the LJP’s Chirag Paswan (41). However, another senior BJP leader admitted that age was as much a factor of the perception game, and that the Opposition held an edge due to BJP leaders often coming out as holding “old” traditional values, anachronistic to what the youth believe in. “Plus, the Congress has run a very successful social media campaign over the past few months positioning itself as a pro-youth party. The absence of articulate and young leaders on social media in our ranks amplifies the problem, “ the leader said. Senior BJP leaders admitted that the party’s summary dismissal of the “young” leaders in the Opposition’s ranks as “dynasts” no longer carries the punch it once did given the predominance of such scions across all sides of the political divide. In the absence of this, no concerted effort is visible towards “pushing youth in the party”, beyond the platitudes of “youth engagement”. Many BJP leaders hope that the upcoming revamp of the party will address this age gap, particularly in the choice of new office-bearers. Sources talk of leaders like Anurag Thakur being given organisational responsibilities. A party leader said that the criticism apart, a party like the BJP would always be a mix of the old and the new. “Unlike traditional dynasty parties, several hundreds who worked hard to build the party are in the BJP. When the party comes to power after so many years, it is impossible to tell these hundreds that they have to stand aside and give way to youngsters,” the leader said, adding that the BJP’s actions spoke louder than its words. “The party always backed fresh leaders, be it L K Advani bringing in Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan, to the current leadership picking Himanta Biswa Sarma (55) in Assam, Kishan Reddy (64) as Telangana chief, B Y Vijayendra (48) in Karnataka, K Annamalai (40) in Tamil Nadu, and Devendra Fadnavis (54) in Maharashtra,” the leader said, adding that this also showed that the party “prefers to focus on states”.
