(BiharTimes): Just when different factions of BJP in Bihar were closing their ranks to throw their weight behind Narendra Modi came the big news of devastating defeat of the BJP in Karnataka. The Janata Dal (United) rank and file are elated––perhaps no less than that of Congress and RJD-LJP combine––and party general secretary, Shivanand Tiwary, went on record to tell that his party had already warned the saffron brigade on projecting the Gujarat chief minister as the prime ministerial candidate.
But what is more shocking is that the Congress had in the last one and a half years snatched three states from BJP, yet the latter is dreaming of returning to power, most likely under the leadership of Narendra Modi, at the Centre in 2014. It lost Uttarakhand in January 2012 and Himachal Pradesh in October the same year. The interesting aspect is that the BJP lost in these two states though they have 95 per cent Hindu votes and negligible Muslim population. So the argument that Narendra Modi polarizes the electorate and creates Muslim-Hindu divide does not stand here.
However, Karnataka has 12.2 per cent Muslim and 1.9 per cent Christian population yet they are not substantial enough to ensure victory of Congress unless and until a big chunk of majority community votes went against the BJP.
Thus the results in the three state have increased the bargaining position of Janata Dal (United) within the NDA.
But what came as a bolt from the blue is the reaction of Shiv Sena, another oldest ally of BJP. None else but its president Uddhav Thakceray openly expressed his happiness at the rout of “anti-Maharashtrian BJP government of Karnataka.”
“Though nobody expected Congress to win in Karnataka, I am personally happy that the BJP government which always meted out injustice to the people in border areas is dislodged from power,” Uddhav Thackeray said. A sizeable number of Maharashtrians live in the bordering districts of Karnataka.
His statement has angered the BJP leaders in Maharashtra. But the remarks are being examined closely in Bihar as it has not come from his cousin Raj Thackeray of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, who is often dubbed as close to the Congress-NCP alliance, but from Shiv Sena, which had run the government with the BJP in Maharasthra in 1990s as JD(U) and BJP are running here. The MNS often scores over Shiv Sena in targeting Biharis in Maharashtra.
Though Shiv Sena has as such nothing to say on Narendra Modi’s candidature its chief has rubbed in the wounds of the BJP at a very wrong time. As BJP’s relationship with the third oldest ally of the NDA, the Shrimoni Akali Dal, is not at its best the Karnataka verdict has for a moment slowed down Modi’s march to the post of PM’s nominee.
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