National executive decoded: Projecting Congress as corrupt is BJP’s focus this election

 

Bharatiya Janata Party’s two-day national council meeting that ended on Saturday set tone for campaigning in the run up to general elections. 

 

Coming as it did a month after the party's loss in three crucial states in the Hindi heartland and less than four months away from the general elections, the meeting saw the BJP review its election strategy and highlight three primarily focus areas.

 

One is the ‘There is No Alternative’, or the TINA, factor—that is, playing up the perception that there is no alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a “strong, decisive, corruption-less government”. This was reiterated by all the leaders, including the Prime Minister himself, several times during the meeting. 

 

Two, projecting the Congress as corrupt. This includes claiming that the anti-BJP coalition was trying to “oust Modi” to ensure a weakened (in their words, mazboor) and “corrupt government”—the prime minister’s phrasing “majboot versus mazboor sarkar” was in line with this narrative. 

 

The third, and perhaps the more important takeaway from the meeting, is the attempt to change the Ram Temple narrative by pushing the blame on the Congress party. Leader after leader at the pre-election convention— including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and their chief Hindutva poster boy, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath—have been telling the audience at the convention that it was Congress leader Kapil Sibal, a senior advocate in the Supreme Court who represents one of the petitioners in the Ayodhya title dispute, who wanted the Supreme Court to hold off hearing the case until after the 2019 general elections.

 

Given that Ram Mandir is a highly emotive issue for its core Hindu voters these elections, the BJP is satisfied with letting the Sangh and its combatant affiliates—such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad—do the hard talk while it awaits the Supreme Court’s verdict.