When the leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Mr Arun Jaitley takes a pot shot at the Prime Minister, ‘Dr Manmohan Singh by saying he is “losing the will to rule ” there is a subliminal message here that is hard to ignore – the Bharatiya Janata Party, out of power since the political eclipse of Atal Behari Vajpayee smells an opportunity to claw its way back into the reckoning. And the prime minister of the ruling party is fair game because, with the government, enmeshed in a damage control exercise over 2G and Radiagate, it is inarguably, at its weakest. To the opposition, the ruling UPA’s Achilles heel is the apolitical prime minister, who, en route to a key India-EU summit in Belgium and Germany is as Mr Jaitley says: “absent from a national debate in or out of Parliament.”
Are these fighting words from an Opposition leader a precursor to snap polls, as Jaitley himself indicated during a recent visit to Bengaluru? Or is it just bluster, grandstanding as the Congress party valiantly attempts to distance itself from the many scams that have bedeviled it these past months? Certainly, behind closed doors, all is not well within the lotus brigade. They have brought Parliament to a complete standstill and elevated corruption to the level of a national debate. But at the same time, with anger growing at the waste in public money over the stalled parliament, it is in two minds over whether it should keep up the tactic.
More so, as the BJP, the political face of the Sangh parvivar continues to be afflicted. Apart from the sagging image of the BJP — its remarkable showing in Bihar notwithstanding — the lack of a prominent leader, its lightweight party president and the factionalism among the top leadership remain huge drawbacks.
The undercurrent between the two heavyweights, the leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Jaitley, both rivals for the coveted slot of PM candidate does not help matters, a senior party functionary revealed. The scamble for the top slot only gets more complex by the continuing whispers in the saffron corridors of the RSS rooting for the Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi over Ms Swaraj and Mr Jaitley and reports- at the slightest hint of a mid term poll – of the old and “failed” warhorse, L.K Advani, resuming his umpteenth rath yatra, and the BJP chief, Nitin Gadkari, throwing his hat into the leadership stakes by manouvring to contest a seat during the Lok Sabha polls.
Electorally, the BJP has already lost the battle in the only state that can catapult it back to power - Uttar Pradesh. The party, which dominated the state has been reduced to a ragtag outfit with no leader to speak of. After Vajpayee, the BJP has failed to come up with any leader, who could swing the fortunes of the party in a state with largest number of Lok Sabha berths. “UP is the gateway to Delhi,” the saying goes but for the BJP that road maybe closed as BJP strategists admit the party “might not be able to retain what they have in the event of a mid-term poll.”
Despite the bravado, the party may also find it difficult to cobble together a strong coalition. The BJP under Vajpayee had 23 coalition partners. Today it is reduced to three allies, a sorry reflection of what it used to be. Though the party claimed to be witnessing an upswing, following its stunning performance in Bihar, in states like Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, party strategists are far less sanguine, a party functionary said, who also believe that the snap poll in 2011, the new buzz in the corridors of Delhi, could benefit the Congress.