New Delhi, Nov. 9: The BJP pinned its Bihar rout to the "social arithmetic" constructed by the Grand Alliance and admitted initially it could not properly assess the magnitude of the votes' consolidation achieved by the coalition of the JDU, the RJD and the Congress.
A meeting of the party's parliamentary board, presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah this evening insulated the leaders, central and state, and the RSS "sarsanghachalak" Mohanrao Bhagwat against potential culpability.
Shah's day began with a call on Bhagwat at the Sangh headquarters in Jhandewalan.
Although Manmohan Vaidya, the RSS spokesperson, described their meeting as an "occasion to exchange Diwali greetings", it acquired a political context after the Bihar MPs, Hukmdev Narayan Yadav and Ashwini Kumar Choubey blamed part of the rout on Bhagwat's "untimely" statements on reservation review.
Hukmdev was quoted in sections of the media saying: "Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar made the remarks an issue. How could the BJP have prevented them from being made into an issue? People believed that the BJP will follow the Sangh's diktat, become its slave. So when the Sangh ordered a review of the reservation policy, the BJP would do it. When the BJP and Modi clarified that we will stake our lives to retain reservation, the backward castes and Dalits did not believe them."
Briefing the media after the parliamentary board meeting, finance minister Arun Jaitley sought to cap the controversy that dogged the BJP through the Bihar polls, stating: "We have accepted the concept of reservation on the basis of social backwardness. I understand that this is also the stand of RSS. There should be no confusion about it."
Vaidya said: "Now that you see that the BJP's stand is different from the views expressed by certain members. I have nothing more to add."
Asked if a second loss after Delhi reflected on Shah's leadership, Jaitley said in the last year or more, the BJP won four Assembly elections and a string of local body elections under his helmsmanship. "Winning and losing is part of the game. The party collectively wins and collectively loses," he said.
On whether Modi's foregrounding in the Bihar polls was a "mistake", Jaitley said: "I don't think it was a mistake at all".
Asked if the contentious statements that emanated from a minister, V.K. Singh, and a party official, Kailash Vijayvargiya, had affected the BJP adversely, Jaitley answered: "No election is determined by a single statement or two. An election has its own arithmetic."
On the social equation the Grand Alliance had forged, he admitted: "After a detailed analysis, we have observed that vote transferability of the Grand Alliance was quite good and it had a major impact on the polls. The unity of the Grand Alliance is the reason for our defeat."
The BJP's initial seat projections were predicted on the assessment that Nitish's relatively urban voters would not accept Lalu's political style.
Therefore, it went in for a strategy that played on the "Jungle Raj" slogan associated with the RJD regimes and the fears the phrase may evoke again in the voters. During the third phase, the BJP figured out that its tactic to force a breach in Nitish and Lalu's voters did not work.
Asked if the meeting had discussed the possibility of taking action against Bihar MPs Shatrughan Sinha and R.K. Singh, whose periodic comments against the party and its leadership had embarrassed both, Jaitley said no.
But within the BJP, there was a demand that the leaders ought to crack the whip against the "errant" MPs.
Central minister Uma Bharti started the chorus, alleging that Shatrughan was part of a "huge conspiracy to package and project our government negatively".
"India is progressing rapidly under Modiji, that is why a conspiracy was hatched, awards were returned, the beef issue was raised and certain statements were put out," said Uma, minutes before the BJP's parliamentary board sat.
Shortly after word was out that Shatrughan had called on Nitish and Lalu in Patna and posed for phto-ops, BJP general secretary and Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya - whose remarks against flim star Shah Rukh Khan hit headlines last week - said: "When a car is moving and a dog moves alongside, the dog believes that the car is moving because of him."
