Vimal Sumbly
By supporting Baba Ramdev’s movement against corruption and other issues the Bhartiya Janata Party is creating yet another political Frankenstein for itself which will be difficult for it to tame later. The party has already started taunting and abusing the team Anna, which it supported till recent past, and it will be just a matter of time only when it will start doing the same to Ramdev too.
Baba Ramdev’s vituperative attack on the Congress and the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh notwithstanding, he has actually done a great favour to the party and the government by occupying the opposition space that should have been with its (Congress’) main rival the BJP. For the Congress and the government taming Ramdev’s protests, no matter how massive these may be, will always be easier to handle than any such mass movement by the BJP or any other well organised political party.
The BJP will be grossly mistaken if it thinks it is trying to corner the Congress using Ramdev’s protest. Rather it is conceding its own space to Ramdev, who is only occupying the opposition space available in the current political spectrum. BJP’s overtures to Ramdev are not being acknowledged in the same measure. While BJP could not offer more support than the party president Nitin Gadkari himself sharing the stage and sitting with the Baba for some time, Ramdev in return has been claiming to be supported, not only by the BJP, but by almost the entire political spectrum except the Congress.
He claims to being supported by even the Congress allies and supporters like the Nationalist Congress Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party and not to speak of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Biju Janata Dal, Telugu Desam Party, Janata Dal United and Janata Dal Secular, Shiv Sena etc. Whether these parties are actually supporting him or not, hardly matters as none of these can afford to say they do not support him but they have nothing to lose in silence as long as they remain at a safe distance.
But the BJP has denied itself the privilege and luxury of ‘safe distance’ after Gadkari attended the protest on Monday. The BJP cannot wriggle out of the situation even if it wants to, despite the fact that it has nothing much to gain. The only consolation the BJP can get is that Ramdev has been able to sustain the anti-government sentiment to some extent.
But there is other argument as well. There were not many local people from Delhi who joined Baba Ramdev’s protest. They had been driven mainly from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and most of them were die hard BJP supporters. That does no good to the party either because in any case such supporters will always be with the party come what may, hence no additional or extra gain.
Ramdev has not been able to influence the “swinging middle” classes who had supported Anna Hazare’s movement last year. This year the Anna movement failed as the middle class was disillusioned with the team. There is no reason to believe that the angry middle class has shifted or switched over the loyalty from Anna to Ramdev. Anna’s movement failed this time just a few days before Ramdev’s.
The BJP in the recent issue of its official mouthpiece Kamal Sandesh has been harshly critical of the team Anna lashing out its decision to join politics. The party has simply betrayed its jealousy that grows out of certain insecurities that a particular person or a group is going to grab its space. And not long ago the BJP leaders would sing paeans to the Anna movement with no less a person than Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitely attending the protest personally last year.
Team Anna turned villain, for the BJP, just because it decided to test the political waters and the BJP is genuinely scared that it (team Anna) will grab the votes that should otherwise have gone to it forgetting that it was the BJP itself that had provided all the support to it (the team) during 2011 protest in New Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan.
BJP should better be reminded that ‘once bitten twice shy’. Having been bitten by the team Anna it should ideally have shied away from repeating the same mistake with Baba Ramdev. But it has its own compulsions due to credibility crisis. It knows it will not be able to mobilize and galavanise as much support as Baba Ramdev got. Hence it decided to play second fiddle to the yoga Guru hoping against hope that it may yield some political dividends for the party.
Ramdev managing to sustain the anti-government sentiment cannot be much of a consolation for the BJP. Rather it should be alarmed about the harsh reality that if people think Congress is bad they really don’t think the BJP is any better and that is why the masses are looking for the alternatives like Ramdev and others, even though they know they really can’t be the real alternatives. BJP has not much to cheer about as it must have, or it must if it has not, realized that it does not stand as an option with the people as on now.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel