Thiruvananthapuram: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central leadership is toying with the idea of a captaincy change after its ambitious Kerala plans suffered a rude jolt. Bribery charges against its state unit leaders surfaced as a fallout of intense factionalism in the state unit, putting the saffron outfit an a fix.
Media reports claimed that an internal investigation by the party leadership found a state-level leader guilty of accepting bribe from an industrialist, who runs a hospital group, to get some clearances from the Indian Medical Council. This has effectively dented the image of the ruling dispensation's state arm.
The central party leadership and its guardian angels in the parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), are in a state of disbelief – they consider the incident as the first instance of graft reported from any of its party units.
Also read: Bribery row in Kerala BJP rocks Lok Sabha, Congress says it's only tip of the iceberg
The RSS is reportedly miffed at the incident and wants radical changes to the organizational structure, but the central leadership is soft-pedaling.
The BJP central leadership has its own reasons and compulsions but it may not have much space to maneuver if the RSS sticks to its stand for a change in leadership at the Kerala unit.
The BJP's political compulsion is that any change effected now would be considered as an admission of guilt.
At the same time, it is keen to not dampen the prospects of the NDA unit in Kerala. The leadership is also shocked at the magnitude of factionalism that has gripped the BJP without which details of an internal probe would not have been leaked.
The BJP central leadership had adopted a proactive approach vis-a-vis its political contours in the state. It is keen to promote an NDA-led structure rather than a BJP-led alliance as it understands the peculiar political narrative in the state, which is heavily tilted against an aggressive Hindutva stance.
In other words, allies were to play a key part to boost the fledgling fortunes of the saffron party, which has failed to make inroads in the southern state.
The BJP got its first legislator in Kerala nearly six decades after the formation of the state in 2016 Assembly polls when former union minister O. Rajagopal won from the Nemam constituency.
Even that victory is attributed to generous help from the Congress-led United Democratic Front, which put up a weak candidate to nail the CPM.
The present state BJP chief Kummanam Rajasekharan is widely seen as a nominee of RSS, but his coronation as the party boss was not the panacea the troubled saffron unit wanted.
Rather, it only triggered a fresh bout of factionalism in the state unit with various local factions changing tact as the new boss, whose finesse in realpolitik is still to be proven, struggled to get a firm grip.
Rival factions then pulled the party in diverse directions resulting in the BJP not being able to make deep inroads, which Amit Shah and his peers at the central leadership was hoping for.
Though the BJP had been cornered in a state, where a CPM-led front is the ruling dispensation, for a host of issues, including its aggressive Hindutva posturing, a graft charge was the last thing that the RSS would have wanted to tumble out of the Sangh unit's Kerala cupboard.
The BJP had been portraying the ruling LDF and the opposition UDF, fronts which have ruled the state for over 60 years, as flag-bearers of corruption.
At one stroke, the graft charge has robbed the BJP of that card in a state in which it had little options to catch the public's fancy. That means its narrow political landscape has been further shrunk.
The RSS is clamoring for a change of guard in the state, but with its own poster boy at the helm of the party's affairs in the state, it has pretty much lost the moral authority to crack the whip.
The only option now is to effect a comprehensive revamp, which would sideline all factions in the state and kick feuding local satraps upstairs – party and government postings can be used as baits.
The tough taskmaster in Amit Shah would not hesitate to wield the stick to get things done, but the timing is the issue.
The RSS leadership may give breathing space to the BJP to effect a revamp, but with just two years to go for the Lok Sabha elections in which the saffron outfit wants to make a significant presence, time is perhaps running out.
The state BJP would definitively get a more than cosmetic makeover ahead of LS polls. Only the timing of such a move is in question now.
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