Harsh critic Nitish Kumar loses face at home
The Congress can spin as many theories as it wants to downplay its defeat, but the fact is that the voters have comprehensively rejected it in Gujarat. The mandate of the recent by-elections is even more disastrous for the party because it had held all the two lok Sabha seats and the four Assembly seats in the State which went to polls. Senior leaders of the Congress are now going around saying that the BJP must not gloat over the victory because some of its winning candidates have a tainted image. Since the leaders are apparently referring to Mr Vitthal Radadiya who has won from Porbandar, they must remember that until the other day he was with the Congress, and the party had failed to act against him when he was caught on camera brandishing a gun at a toll booth. In any case, the issue at hand is not of the individual credentials of the winning candidates but the defeat of the Congress and the victory of the Narendra Modi-led BJP in the State. The Congress is also seeking to downplay its washout on the premise that the results are in keeping with the momentum of the Assembly election held six months ago, when the BJP bagged 115 of the 182 constituencies. But that only means the Congress has failed to reverse the trend. The Congress's claim that the results are localised and do not represent the national mood, is also flawed. After all, the BJP has also wrested two lok Sabha seats from the Congress, and surely national sentiment played a role in the victory.
The BJP's emphatic win in Gujarat has strengthened the prospects of Chief Minister Narendra Modi of playing a major role at the national level, and silenced his opponents who have been less than keen in the elevation of the charismatic and aggressive leader. It is, therefore, no wonder that the clamour to formally announce Mr Modi's name for the national stage, has gained impetus after the magnificent, recent victory. While it may still be some time before he is formally declared (if at all) as the party's prime ministerial candidate, there are indications that he will be sooner than later made the chief of the party's campaign for the forthcoming lok Sabha election. That would be the first step towards projecting him more unambiguously as the party's face in the general election in 2014, or earlier.
The Gujarat Chief Minister's position within the BJP has further consolidated after the defeat of the Janata Dal (United) candidate in the Maharajganj Assembly by-election in Bihar. It’s a setback to the State’s Chief Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, who has emerged as Mr Modi's most bitter critic in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. It's an embarrassment for Mr Kumar that he has had to cede ground to Mr lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal at a time when he is battling Mr Modi and his supporters and seeking to convey the impression that the JD(U) can do fine without the BJP. If he snaps ties, the Bihar Chief Minister will allow for the resurgence of his bête noire, the RJD, in the State. And, there is little on the ground to suggest that the BJP will lose significantly in case the JD(U) breaks away. On the whispers that the BJP sabotaged the JD(U)'s chances in Maharajganj, all that can be said is that the result is a wake-up call for Mr Kumar who plans to chart a new course without the BJP-led alliance on the Modi issue.