Rajnath the only ‘sane’ leader in BJP: Congress

Questions have been posed in various reports and analysis on the media.

“That proves performance in an assembly election in a state doesn’t have any bearing on electoral fortunes in a neighbouring state”, said Sinha. It comes as a jolt to the grand alliance which was floated to counter the BJP in the state.

“The BJP lost the 2004 parliamentary elections”. BJP leader Siddharthnath Singh said Prime Minister Modi has been talking about “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas”, which is a key policy of the party and everybody under him will support it. He pointed to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s popularity maintaining that this factor had clearly not been taken into cognisance by Shah and the others in charge of the campaign. “Ab ki baar, Modi sarkar” (This time, Modi’s government) became a defining motif of the campaign. This was a departure from past practice; historically, the Hindu nationalist BJP has functioned as a cadre-based outfit, often emphasizing its stable of local, regional, and national leaders.

The tensions culminated in Bihar, where voters overwhelmingly rejected the notion, put forth by Mr. Shah, that a vote against the BJP was an act of treason that would be celebrated in Pakistan. Their victory will inspire other state leaders from opposition parties who are preparing for state-assembly polls in the coming year, notably the strongwomen Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Jayaram Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu.

“Modi led the campaign and the party secured an all-time high number of Lok Sabha seats”. Then he had even blamed the veteran leader as the one behind his exit as Chief Minister.

“The Bihar debacle shows polarising (Hindu and Muslim) voters did not pay dividends”, said Prof Bidyut Chakrabarty, a political science professor at the University of Delhi. Like him or not, few Biharis could dismiss the notion that life had, in fact, gotten better under Kumar’s tutelage. A religious fringe has felt emboldened during Modi’s watch to try to occupy the political mainstream. His remark that defeat of BJP in Bihar will be celebrated in Pakistan with firecrackers sealed the BJP’s fate.

India’s prime minister, a polished showman and gifted communicator, will have meetings with David Cameron and lunch with the Queen, and will visit the former home of B R Ambedkar, a champion of India’s lower castes, in Primrose Hill, north London.

Mr. Modi’s union administration has tried to disassociate the results in agrarian Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, from his plans to develop India into the world’s third-largest economy by 2030. Hence, amid whispers of cabinet reshuffle after the winter session, Modi must consider a permanent solution to this void and find a suitable person who not only showcase people about what the government of India has done, but save the government in crisis also.