Is India headed for a decade of Congress’ rule?

As results of the assembly elections come in, I cannot help but ask the question:

Is India headed towards a decade under Congress’ rule?

I believe that unless there is a total & complete revamp of the BJP – starting right from the top of the organisation – the party has lost the chance to pose any credible challenge to Congress at least for the next five years – possibly longer.

Insiders tell me that things will look up after December – when the leadership change is expected to be announced.

Recent developments however hardly support that optimism.

As Offstumped mentioned in a recent post:

More analysis and rationalizations will follow on this debacle once the final electoral outcome is clear. Much will be said of the Raj Thackeray factor and every other conspiratorial angle will be analyzed threadbare.

…The bottomline however…is that the BJP is trapped in its rhetoric and legacy of the past while its Delhi based non-leaders are trapped in a Semi-finals mindset.

The “Party with a Difference” is sounding very hollow today.

Sadly my prognosis from about two months ago, appears to be coming true:  For BJP, Is this The Beginning of the End?

Opening this thread for your comments/ thoughts.

Related Posts:

Reviving BJP – Points to Ponder

BJP and The Art of LieCycle Maintenance

B Shantanu

Political Activist, Blogger, Advisor to start-ups, Seed investor. One time VC and ex-Diplomat. Failed mushroom farmer; ex Radio Jockey. Currently involved in Reclaiming India - One Step at a Time.

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15 Responses

  1. The Priest says:

    Power doesn’t come by idling around. BJP is idler. It takes lots of things for granted… For example leadership provided by Advani who needs to be deposed ASAP even if it means giving him a hard kick if softer ways doesn’t work. I am all sympathetic for Shantanu which is what he deserves.

  2. Moderator says:

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  3. संदीप नारायण शेळके says:

    I see BJP as only hope for the better Bharat, as of now.
    Because there is hardly any credibility left in congress among the voters.
    If the winning margins observed for the recent assembly polls in Maharashtra then it can be clearly seen that candidates have won by as less as 40 votes in some constituencies.
    Which is necessarily not a good condition either for Congress or BJP.

    If BJP at all feels it want to revive it self and become a strong contender for the change that Bharat needs then it should break all ties with allies or absorb them under their name only.
    Instead of looking for the shorter goals BJP should prepare for longer and bigger goals.
    BJP hardly has any presence in Andhra, Haryana, Bengal, Kerala, TN, Arunachal, J&K, UP.
    They should go all out for all seats in this states and fight on there own.
    I’m very sure that more than any other party BJP will prove its mettle if contest all sits.

    We need BJP as strong party otherwise these congressi will sell Bharat and us to foreigners.

  4. B Shantanu says:

    Sandeep: Unfortunately – as things stand now – there really does not appear to be a credible alternative to Congress…which is a terrible shame.

  5. ya .. rt … good going bjp .. keep ignoring arun shourie and others who want the party grow …. looking at the events .. i wonder wht the present crop of lka , rajnath and arun jaitley and the coterie at friendsofbjp have to show …..

  6. Ajay Anand says:

    BJP was the only credible alternative. But, as of now I feel Advani is taking too long to step down, Rajnath Singh hardly has a vision for reviving the BJP, and, the next rung of leadership is hoping that the leader will be selected from the top. They seem to be unwilling to follow the democratic process of electing their leader. Besides that, they cannot decide whether to follow the Hindutva plank, or, should they be with the Sangh or …

    That party with a difference – is now become similar to any other party, say like Congress.

    Besides that they are living in kind of a fool’s paradise that they can go alone in all elections. Before every major election, they seem to be breaking up existing alliances, and, unwilling to forge new alliances.

    Even after close to 5 months after the general elections the BJP has not been able to analyse thee true cause of it’ss loss, and, eeven if they have, they are unwilling to admit it publicly.

    In elections, even though there are plenty of issues around, they do not seem to pick up the right issues while campaigning. It seems that it is not united at all, and, if they do not regroup themselves soon – even before the Jharkhand elections, they are bound to disintegrate – and, that will happen very soon.

    The BJP is like the Ambassador car – unwilling to modernize, while the opposition has changed with the times….

  7. Dosabandit says:

    The BJP would do well the listen to Dr. Shourie. It makes no sense to have a man like him in the party and not give an ear to his thoughts. Tough medicine, though bitter, is the only way to revive BJP. The Delhi cabal must go and be replaced with young, credible leaders.

    BTW did you listen to the audio of a discussion Dr. Shourie had at Harvard recently?

  8. B Shantanu says:

    @ Dosabandit: Yes, I did…He is more optmistic than I am (I felt)

  9. manju says:

    Appears this could be the beginning of the end for the BJP. But why should we assume that another ‘party with a difference’ can not be formed? Even in the BJP there seem to be enough people who could form such a new party.

  10. B Shantanu says:

    @ Manju: Yes, the possibility exists…I doubt though whether existing leaders within the BJP would break ranks.

    That would make the task doubly more daunting (in my view). An internal purge may be relatively easier.

  11. Smita says:

    BJP has to realise they have to move with the times, India needs a healthy democracy and secular minded parties, no harm being proud of one’s heritage, one should be of the positive point sin it, but not make it a fetish.

  12. B Shantanu says:

    Excerpts from Elegy for the BJP:

    Last week’s election results confirm that the political map of India is radically changed. There is only one political party left on the national landscape because the Bharatiya Janata Party can now be officially declared dead.

    …If corruption was the BJP’s only problem, there might still be hope. Corruption, as Indira Gandhi so memorably said, is a global phenomenon. It certainly is an Indian one. Most political parties these days are filled with young heirs whose main reason for entering ‘public life’ is to make easy money. There is no easier way to make pots and pots of ill-gotten money in India than to enter politics.

    So, if BJP officials are enthusiastically lining their pockets, it should not be held against them. Speaking of which, I tried to find out what happened to the Rs 2 crore that mysteriously disappeared from party coffers last December and discovered only that the matter has been hushed up.

    But, if a political party can be so casual about the loss of such a large amount of cash it gives us an itsy-bitsy glimpse of just how much money has been made by party officials.

    The BJP’s demise has not been brought on by corruption but by serious political ineptitude.

    …So then? What happens now? I agree with Arun Shourie when he says that the need of the hour is to bomb the headquarters. But, when he suggested in his interview to The Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta that the only hope was for the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh to take the party over, I nearly fainted with horror. This is not a solution. It is the kiss of death. The RSS has not had a new idea since the 1930 when it made the weird couture decision to dress its rank and file in khaki knickers. Not a single RSS leader has a political idea worth discussing and on the cultural front they need to begin by first learning the fundamentals of Indian culture. Forget so big an idea. What about just committing its khaki knickers cadre to cleaning the Ganga and the Yamuna?

    What the BJP needs is to reincarnate itself into a proper political party with inner party democracy, discussion and debate. At the moment it is no more than a poor imitation of the Congress Party. And, who in their right mind will vote for that?

  13. max says:

    all hindus are not right wing leaning rascals and all right wing leaning idiots are not hindus in india . that is the beauty of india and our hindu culture .

  14. संदीप नारायण शेळके says:

    The youth is knowingly being forced towards the job seeking and money making education.
    1. I’m a Computer Engineer studied from Pune University (So called Harward of East). But I do not remember the names of professors who taught me, because the quality delivered is so bad I can barely recollect anything taught in the college.
    2. I’d a friend in college (no more in touch with him), he had only 54% in 12th but was still admitted to the in demand course in first round of selection. I had 71% but got place in the last round that too in payment quota. The difference is I’m belong to Open Category and he to SC/ST.
    3. The same person took 6 years to complete degree of 4 years. I completed it in 5 years (I did not fail, but could not pay fees in 3rd year so had to opt out and lost that crucial year).
    4. Now the tragedy is that the same person joined teaching at the same college when he did not get job in the mainstream job market.

    What is a lesson that one should take from this. Today I can think on that matter as time has passed. But I was not in this position while studying and made up my mind that there no ‘RAM’ in Bharat any more.
    One can see what is being allowed in the educational institutions.

    So the moral is Congress is sucking every good that is with us, but where the hell is BJP? What are they doing? Why they can not fight with the difference?
    Or it is just another Congress?

    Jai Hind!

  15. Rohit says:

    Problem with BJP is that they do not have anything which is called as mechanism to constantly weeds out bad in the organization.