Is BJP losing ground?

BJP is discarded as a communal party and divisive force. Many people will disagree with this because all the parties have been on the same side and have done similar or worse things that BJP is accused of. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in North India, particularly Delhi, in 1984. Today, Congress says that it is history and should be forgotten as a bad dream. By same logic, shouldn't the people forget Gujrat riot by next election in 2014? This issue does not seems the real issue for poor performance by BJP.

It seems that the BJP is losing the real issues and has difficulty in connecting with the grass root workers. Mumbai attack and national security were important issue and should not be forgotten by a party that wants to play important role in national politics but these are the issues for the people who go to exercise their franchise. Only elite and middle class talk about the national security issue and most of these do not exercise their franchise because they do not like to queue or do not consider their single vote can make any difference. For a man in a small town and village, the biggest challenge of security comes from the thieves and the police. They are more worried about their belongings that constitute generally cooking utensils, some clothes, few hundreds of rupees and silver or copper jewellery (and sometime gold as well). Many of them have never heard about Mumbai attack, anyway.

BJP invested resources and time on online campaigning that does not make any sense in Indian politics. Less than 1% population of India has any interest in online campaigning and reading manifesto of the party or listening the speeches of the leaders from website. There is no need to make facebook groups, twitter discussion or any other activity because a few thousand people read or participate in these activities and as I said earlier they never come out of their apartments to exercise their franchise.

Indian population is still poor in large. We are not middle class society as America so we can emulate election strategy from them. We need some elite and educated people for discussion on the television channels but these discussion do not win elections. Local leaders needs to spend more time with the people. They need to visit the village and try to solve their problems in whatever capacity they can. Winning the trust of the people is most important to win rather than expecting the incumbency factor to work in one's favor.

BJP also need to choose their next candidate for the prime ministerial post. Sooner they choose the better it will be. It will be difficult to choose one and their will be a lot of in fighting but they need to face this reality one day. They are avoiding to chose a leader from second generation but it seems that the time has come to let the second generation to come forward. There is no point of pushing Murli Manohar Joshi or Jaswant Singh forward. Though Jaswant Singh has advantage of being liberal in the party and he can not be accused as communal but he might be little old in 5 years time.

BJP might follow the Congress strategy to choose a prime ministerial candidate who is not too active politician. It is upto the party to make right decision. Only time will tell whether the decision they make are right or wrong.