India’s Prime Minister Modi faces revolt within party

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing a revolt within his Hindu nationalist party, with senior leaders questioning his leadership style after the party’s debacle in recent elections in eastern Bihar state.

In a virtual challenge to Modi’s leadership since he led the BJP to power in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar said the Bihar defeat showed that the BJP had learnt nothing from its crushing defeat by the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi in February.

Shah, who had during campaigning said “crackers will burst in Pakistan if BJP loses the Bihar election”, has faced substantial flak for the statement and is now being blamed by many within the party for “unnecessarily annoying the entire Muslim community”.Manjhi, who felt it would have been better for the NDA had it also announced a CM face, added, “Though Bhagwat did not say anything about revoking reservation and his intentions were good, his remark was ill-timed”.

In an obvious reference to Modi and his confidant Shah, it said “a thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as the way the party is being forced to kowtow to a handful and how its consensual character has been destroyed”.

Before the statement was released from the residence of Joshi, a former BJP president, former union minister Arun Shourie and former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya were closeted with Joshi.

“The principal reason for the latest defeat is the way the Party has been emasculated in the past year”, the statement said.

The Begusarai MP said the rampant use of “unparliamentary language” by Modi and other party leaders during the election campaign harmed the BJP, leading to its defeat. BJP President Amit Shah’s invocations of virulent nationalism to reap an electoral harvest struck no chord with the voters.

After Modi became the Prime Minister and Shah BJP chief a year ago, Advani, who had served as the party president for the longest period, and Joshi were made members of the “margadarshak mandal” (guiding group).

Former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and PM Narendra Modi.

“BJP was winning the election before this remark was made”.

Though RSS did not react formally, the organization strongly rebutted criticism that Bhagwat’s interview to saffron journals Organiser and Panchajanya had given BJP’s rivals Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad a very useful handle to attack the party.

On Tuesday, Bhola Singh became the fifth BJP MP to blame Modi for the defeat.

Bhagwat also met home minister Rajnath Singh after the results and the meeting was seen in the context of the leader positioning himself as a possible interlocutor with intellectuals protesting against the government over “growing intolerance”.

“Prime Minister fell to Lalu’s googly and left his “sabka saath sabka vikas” pitch”.