Apart from coming to power through Assembly elections, the BJP has been following the defection- route to form State Governments. In this method, a split occurs in the non-NDA ruling party with the invisible or visible support of the BJP, resulting in the collapse of the State Government. Then the split-group either gets disqualified as members or merge with the BJP or become a split unit and help the BJP to form the State Government by ensuring majority. The Anti-Defection Law becomes incapable of checking the current defection trend as it checks individual defection but not the defection of two-third MLAs of a political party.
Popularly known as “Operation Lotus”, the BJP had applied this approach to the Congress Governments in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and is heard of working on it on the Congress ruled States of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. It was said that the BJP’s attack on the Congress led State Governments was part of BJP’s Congress-Mukt Abhiyan. The regional ruling parties were in safe zone. But the recent toppling of Maharashtra’s Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi(MVA) Government by splitting the ruling Shiv Sena is considered by the political observers as the first political strike of the BJP on a regional party led State Government. It becomes clear henceforth that the BJP shall use defection route to snatch power not only from the ruling Congress but also from the ruling regional parties in the States.
The recent National Executive Meeting of the BJP at Hyderabad and the speech of the national leaders have shown the party’s focus on Telengana, a regional party led State. Shall it be easy for the BJP to split other regional ruling parties, a pertinent question in the present context.
Let us map the ruling parties in various States and Union Territories. The States and UTs like Gujarat, Harayana, Maharastra, UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya,Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, Bihar, Madhyapradesh, Karnataka, Goa, Puducheery are being ruled by the BJP , either singularly or with its allies. On the other hand, the States of Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh are ruled by the Congress. Taminadu and Jharkhand are ruled by the regional parties in collaboration with the Congress. Left Front alliance Government is ruling in Kerala. Regional party Governments are in the States of Delhi, Punjab, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana. Thus the operation- lotus vulnerable regional -party ruled the States are Delhi and Punjab in the north,West Bengal and Odisha in the east and Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Tamilnadu in south India. These are the States which the popular poll strategist ,Prasanta Kishore, was referring to the base of a third front for 2024 general election.
BJP’s interest and work for 2024 general election is understandable as it is a national party and it likes to repeat its win in 2024 to take forward its policy after coming to power. But why it is in a hurry to occupy the State Governments using defection method? The BJP claims that it can serve the people of the State through a double-engine Government which could be the reason behind capturing power in States. The other reasons could be to increase its strength in the Rajya Sabha for Parliament legislation convenience. The third reason could be to weaken the opposing regional parties before 2024 Parliament election as they could join hands with the Congress in putting up a challenge to the BJP.
The Opposition accuses the BJP of using CBI and ED to topple the Congress or regional party State Governments. Legally this cannot be an accusation. The BJP counters it by telling the Opposition to face the process of law and come clean if they did not violate law. But it seems that the proverbial Chankya formula of “ Sam, Dam, Danda, Veda” might be applied by the BJP to defeat the Opposition which is a natural norm in politics.
It is important to analyse the factors which were conducive for the BJP to resume power in Maharashtra. The first favourable factor for the BJP was its strength in the Assembly. It had bagged the largest number of MLAs (106 out of 288 ) in 2019 Assembly election. It required only 39 MLAs more to form Government. Had the party got 50 Assembly seats instead of 106 , it would not have gone ahead with the plan of breaking the Shiv Sena. The second favorable condition for the BJP was the size of Shiv Sena MLAs and the presence of a huge number of dissidents. The situation was not there in NCP or in Mahrashtra Congress. The third favourable situation for the BJP was the Hindi -speaking State. The fourth favourbale factor was the acceptance of the voters to Hindutwa ideology due to which the Shiv Sena and the BJP had formed Governments earlier in the State. Very importantly, Udhav Thackery is a simple man and new to the Chief Minister role and could not get time to build his brand as a Chief Minister or acquire skill to manage complex party dynamics.
The BJP therefore has more scope for operation lotus in the regional party ruled Hindi-speaking States than in the non-Hindi States like West Bengal, Odisha, AP, Telengana and Tamilnadu. By offering the Chief Minister post to Eknath Sindhe in Maharashtra, the BJP has raised the prize tag for the dissents of the regional parties. But the Chief Ministers like Naveen Patnaik, Mamata Banerjee and even Arvind Agarwal, have built their own popular brands by delivering pro-people programmes and have become cult figures among masses. Any defection from their parties shall be unsustainable. Many dissidents had emerged and perished in the BJD in the past. Similarly, the defected leaders came back to the TMC. It is also a tough job to break the southern regional parties. However, all the regional parties must be ready to face the BJP in poll and in the post-poll scenario and build a strategy.