A day after the Bihar poll debacle, the BJP on Monday attributed its loss to “better vote transferability” among the Grand Alliance partners — JD(U), RJD and Congress — compared to that of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which had lJP, RlSP and HAM under its banner. The BJP also admitted it was wrong in assuming that the Grand Alliance constituents would not be able to consolidate their votes as a front.
Notwithstanding the Bihar poll defeat, “the developmental narrative” will continue, the BJP insisted and asked all its leaders “to maintain decency in their speeches” and work towards the success of Government’s agenda.
The BJP Parliamentary Board, which met to dissect the poll results for over three hours, found that the Mahagathbandhan partners fought as separate parties unlike the NDA.
“Our assessment that Grand Alliance constituents will not be able to transfer their votes to each other was incorrect,” said senior BJP strategist and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after the meeting.
The calculations went wrong, he said and recalled that in the lok Sabha poll of 2014, the Grand Alliance together collected 45.3 per cent votes, where as BJP+ scored 38.8 per cent votes. In the Assembly polls, BJP+ polled 34.1 per cent votes and Grand Alliance polled 41.9 per cent votes.
Both sides got reduced percentage of votes in the 2015 Assembly elections, but the 7 per cent difference (41.9-34.1) in votes between the two remained the same as was during the lok Sabha polls.
“Though difference of votes remained the same between the two, the strike rate and transferability of votes of the Grand Alliance was better this time,” the senior BJP leader sought to explain saying, “this was the biggest reason” for rivals’ success in the poll.
He said the party had thought that our “slogan for progress will gain upper hand” in the polls and the rivals will not be able to transfer their votes.
Jaitley said this was an initial round of scrutiny of poll results by the board and the party president would have detailed analysis of it in interaction with the BJP’s State unit. He dismissed question on fixing accountability for the poll reverses in Bihar.
Asked whether RSS chief’s comment on reservation damaged BJP’s prospects, he said the party does not accept the suggestion as it has a clear policy on reservation issue. Jaitley also did not agree that poll verdict was a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had extensively campaigned during the elections in the State.
The meeting of the highest decision-making body of the BJP was attended by Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and other central ministers like Jaitley, Rajnath Sigh, Sushma Swaraj, M Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar, JP Nadda, Thawar Chand Ghelot, general secretary (organisation) Ram lal and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minster Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Earlier during the day, BJP president met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to brief him on the poll defeat.
On the query whether not projecting a chief ministerial candidate was a factor in the defeat, Jaitley said, “The party has good strategic reason not to project any leader.”
He said though the BJP lost two Assembly polls, it has been winning Assembly polls since 2014 and recently performed well in many local elections, including in Assam and Kerala which are due for Assembly polls.
On the controversial comment of BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargia (where he had given an analogy of a dog while describing Shatrughan Sinha’s disgruntlement with the party), Jailtely said the party expects all its leaders to “to maintain decency in their speeches”. He said the developmental narrative would continue and the party would stay on the course of progress.