Recent election surveys show the BJP gaining ground and the Congress losing it. But, while the former’s gains are small, the latter’s setbacks are massive. Can the BJP enhance its advantageIJ

The findings of recent nationwide election surveys which two leading television channels commissioned, lead us to the following bare conclusion: The Bharatiya Janata Party is gaining ground and the Congress is losing steam. There is a related addition: While the gains of the BJP are not spectacular, the losses of the Congress are dramatic. In other words, the BJP now has to convert these small gains into bigger ones as the date for the lok Sabha poll draws near. But the Congress will exhaust the months preceding the election in trying to narrow the margin of debacle, and by the time it believes it has reached a position of positive push, the voters will have exited the polling booths, having done their job.

What should the BJP do to gain the critical mass to break from its ‘Hindu rate of growth’ and along with the National Democratic Alliance come within striking distance of the magic 272 figureIJ Three States, one each in the south, the west and the east, provide us a glimpse of the roadmap the party must adopt, and without delay.

let us begin with the southern State of Karnataka. The BJP has to get Mr BS Yeddyurappa back into the fold. The party and Mr Yeddyurappa desperately need each other and both will benefit from the reunion. It would be good if the former Chief Minister’s Karnataka Janata Paksha allies with the party; it would be infinitely better if it merges with the BJP and Mr Yeddyurappa is again made the party’s face in the State. His return will not immediately catapult the BJP to the pre-eminent position it held before the messy separation and the drubbing it received in the recently held Assembly election. But a reunion will certainly prevent the party from being washed out in the State in the coming general election. Riding on its recent success, the Congress may still bag a majority of the 28 seats on offer, but with Mr Yeddyurappa on board, the BJP can hope to gain a little over a double-digit number — which is not bad in the given circumstances.

From all accounts, the BJP’s Election Campaign Committee chairman Narendra Modi is keen on Mr Yeddyurappa’s return, just as the former Chief Minister is. The question is: Will the powerful section of the party which plotted Mr Yeddyurappa’s departure, allow it to happenIJ

Already a few subtle hints have come from the anti-Yeddyurappa camp. Party veteran lK Advani, who many believe had gone along with the assessment of senior leaders like Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Ananth Kumar that Mr Yeddyurappa had become a liability and that his departure would help the party, recently said the surge in the BJP’s popularity can be maintained if the party did not compromise on the issue of corruption. Read between the lines, it was a message that the party must not compromise with Mr Yeddyurappa.

While it is true that Mr Yeddyurappa’s tainted image did become a problem, what really destroyed the BJP’s credibility in Karnataka is the standstill in governance, resulting from the factional fight that the then Chief Minister was perennially engaged in with his detractors within the party. let’s not forget that many of his party opponents had been openly backed by this powerful section of the BJP which must take the blame for the Karnataka debacle. The taint of corruption got magnified because nothing good in governance was happening. (If corruption is indeed a major standalone election issue, how is it that Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy, now behind bars on graft charges, is expected to wipe out the Congress in Andhra PradeshIJ)

To do an electoral course correction, the party must persuade the old guard to see reason, and more specifically, close the gap in trust between Mr Ananth Kumar and Mr Yeddyurappa. If the anti-Yeddyurappa camp refuses to relent, it must be decisively overruled.

While the challenge for the BJP in Karnataka is to win over a former heavyweight, the situation in Maharashtra presents a different problem. The surveys show that the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance is managing to hold on to nearly 50 per cent of the 48 lok Sabha seats simply because the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance is unable to strike the decisive blow.

The Opposition needs a spark, and that could be Mr Raj Thackeray and his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. If the MNS joins hands with the Sena-BJP coalition, it will be a game-changer in a State which sends the largest number of members to the lok Sabha after Uttar Pradesh. At the very least, the three-party grouping can capture a majority of seats in Mumbai.

But the MNS-plus alliance is easier said than done. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and his cousin Raj don’t see eye to eye, primarily because they are fighting for the same turf. They believe that one is out to decimate the other. But, since both are passionately anti-Congress, the only way they can deal a body blow to the party in the State is to put their egos aside and join hands for the lok Sabha election. The BJP must nudge them towards a political reconciliation that will lead to a BJP-Shiv Sena-MNS alliance. After all, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray — whom both Raj and Uddhav respect enormously —had wished for a rapprochement between the two cousins. There cannot be a better occasion for it to happen.

Jharkhand in the east offers the BJP a situation somewhat similar to the one that prevails for the party in Karnataka. Here too, it must try to win back its one-time leader and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi. With the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha forming the Government in alliance with the Congress there, the BJP which until recently ruled the State with the JMM as its coalition partner, has been left high and dry. The surveys show that the party will not fare to its potential because of this isolation. Mr Marandi’s return could not just add seats to the party’s kitty but also bring it value in a State where many leaders are seen to be steeped in corruption. Mr Marandi enjoys a clean image and should be open to negotiations on honourable terms.

Senior State BJP leaders like Mr Arjun Munda and a few from the national leadership must discard their pathological dislike for Mr Marandi in the larger interests of the party. If the BJP cannot get Mr Marandi back into the party, it must at least strike an alliance with his Jharkhand Vikas Morcha if it hopes to gain even half the 14 seats the State has in the lok Sabha.

Together, the three States contribute 90 seats and offer an opportunity to the BJP to do well. If the party falters here, no amount of credible showing in the so-called cow belt and Gujarat will power it and the coalition it leads to the Centre.