Bharat Dharma Jana Sena president Tushar Vellappally left the National Democratic Alliance meeting on May 20 in a hurry. The state-level convener of the BJP-led coalition sought to leave the venue in Kochi hardly 15 minutes into the meeting. He said he had to attend a wedding that he could not afford to miss but the hasty retirement also signaled the discontent brewing in the BJP’s young ally which is yet to get its hands on the fishes and loaves of office.
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More significantly, the hasty departure underlines the fact that the alliance is a non-entity in Kerala. Even the convener thinks it more rewarding to attend a wedding than presiding over meaningless discussions. Even the BJP is not bothered. Even as the BJP leaders toil to strengthen their organization, the alliance is struggling to keep pace.
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BJP president Amit Shah has called for a meeting of NDA leaders in Kochi on Friday, when he starts his three-day visit to Kerala. He is supposed to host a sumptuous lunch for the leaders of the allies in the state as usual. It was not clear if the planned menu included beef. However, the allies are looking for something more than a happy lunch.
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Shah is aware of the discontent. He had already asked the state leaders of the party to concentrate on programs organized under the banner of the NDA. The state unit of the BJP was accused of not consulting the allies even if they were to organize a hartal.
The leaders of the BJP allies were taken for a ride when they went to Malappuram to campaign for the coalition’s candidate in the Lok Sabha byelection. The BJP had not bothered to arrange travel or accommodation facilities for the allies.
The NDA does not have local-level units in every district.
The root of the problem is in the BJP leaders’ aversion to a coalition and the smaller parties. The BJP’s local leaders hesitate to share the stage with allies because they do not want to be relegated to the second row. Sometimes, even a state-level leader of the bigger party may end up in the background thanks to the crowd of allies on stage.
The apprehensions were not lost on Shah, who ordered his party workers to correct course immediately. The directive was reflected in the lineup in a protest meet organized in front of the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram against the Left Democratic Front government. The third anniversary of the Narendra Modi-led government at the center was marked with celebrations under the banner of the NDA, not the BJP, in all districts.
The symbolic gestures have not done much to give the alliance a boost in the state. The BJP leaders still can’t understand the relevance of the patchwork of 10 parties including the remnants of the erstwhile PSP and NDP. The NDA at the national level has only 12 constituents.
The BJP leaders are at pains to explain how an alliance of tiny parties can energize a movement. After all, most of the parties were there because they could not find their way to either the ruling LDF or the opposition United Democratic Front. State leaders of the BJP have passed on the job of expanding the alliance to the national leaders.
Of the coalition partners, only the BDJS, the Kerala Congress faction formed by former MP P C Thomas and the outfit formed by tribal leader C K Janu stand any chance of getting rewarded by an office of the central government. BJP’s state leaders want to limit the division of electoral seats among these parties but the other constituents may go to Shah with their peeves.
The BDJS expects five administrative offices and eight Lok Sabha seats to contest in 2019. Shah wants the BJP unit to be clear on its election strategies. Both the central and state units agree on the point that the party does not stand a chance without luring in enough minority votes in the state.
The NDA leaders attending the previous meeting of the coalition wanted to employ all means to secure the release of Fr Tom Uzhunnalil, the Malayali priest who was abducted in Yemen. The NDA could score among Christians if the central government could get the priest released, they opined.
Shah was also faced with a proposal to join hands with K M Mani, the former Kerala Congress minister who has taken his party out of the Congress-led camp. George Kurian was appointed to the National Minorities Commission with a purpose. The BJP is also projecting as its minority poster boy Anoop Antony Joseph, the Yuva Morcha national secretary who accompanied national chief Poonam Mahajan to Thiruvananthapuram to inaugurate the organization’s agitation against the Kerala government.
The allies want the BJP to set its house in order before finding faults with them. The grapevine is that BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan may be accommodated in the Union cabinet, necessitating his replacement in the state party.
Will a new captain be entrusted with the job of completing the new party headquarters whose foundation stone is planned to be laid by Shah on June 4. Many of the allied leaders are expecting a change. That may not be a smooth transition though.