In this season of mass defection, many questions arise: Why do parties break up? Why do leaders change parties? Do ideology, principle or loyalty matter? Along with this, another question arises: Why do some parties break, but why do others not? First let’s see what happened during these months of massive ‘movement’. The internal coup of Mamata Banerjee’s TMC became the biggest news. But competing with him, Uddhav Thackeray’s remaining Shiv Sena also broke up again. In Jharkhand, MLAs of ‘India’ alliance made NDA supported independent candidate Parimal Nathwani victorious by cross voting. Congress can be happy that DK Shivakumar got some NDA MLAs cross-voting in the MLC elections in Karnataka. Aam Aadmi Party lost seven members. Biju Janata Dal ‘contributed’ three of its members to the NDA. Not long ago, YSRCP also reduced some of its members. Everyone only increased the numbers of NDA (BJP). There was also farewell from within Shiromani Akali Dal, including Manpreet Singh Badal. Among them is Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who is now a minister in Delhi. If I start making a list of Congressmen who have joined BJP, this entire column will also be short. Therefore, I will take only the names of those who joined BJP and became Chief Ministers or Union Ministers or were Chief Ministers in Congress. After all, the post of Chief Minister is one of the biggest posts that any party can offer. Today, three of the BJP’s chief ministers have come from the Congress: Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam, Pema Khandu of Arunachal Pradesh and Manik Saha of Tripura. N., who was the Chief Minister of Manipur till recently. You can also include Biren Singh’s name in these. All four held prominent positions in Congress. Names of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kiran Rijiju, Rao Inderjit Singh, Jitin Prasad and Ravneet Singh Bittu included in the Union Cabinet can also be taken. Almost all these leaders belong to famous families of Congress. The number of former Congress chief ministers who have joined the BJP is equal to a football team: Captain Amarinder Singh, Pema Khandu, Ashok Chavan, SM Krishna, Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Digambar Kamat, Kiran Kumar Reddy, Vijay Bahuguna etc. etc. No one got any benefit except Pema Khandu. It can be said that BJP is like a magnet for the leaders who are facing losses in all the parties because they can get profits only there. Apart from this, the policy of ‘Sama, Daam, Dand, Bheda’ is also adopted. The art of causing mass defection has been mastered. Get two-thirds of their members ready to switch sides and claim that the breakaway group is the real party. This raises the question whether the trend of sabotage in opposition parties has now started? Congress has been the master of this game. In fact, until the Supreme Court gave its verdict in the Bommai case (on 11 March 1994), the Congress continued to arbitrarily use Article 356 to topple the governments of opposition parties. The difference now is that ‘acquisition’ is being resorted to for its expansion. This brings us to our second question. Why do most parties break up and why do some parties not break up? Among those which do not break, I am telling the names of only three. There is BJP, apart from that, Samajwadi Party and Left parties. There has been a lot of debate and division among the leftists regarding Lenin-Trotsky, Moscow-Beijing, but they have remained united as a front. The Left parties are out of power today and are at the lowest level in their history. But none of them are looking for a way to go anywhere. Congress reached its lowest level in the Lok Sabha (44 seats) in 2014. In the 1984 general elections, the BJP was reduced to just two seats, yet remained united. In fact, in the 75 years since its inception (as Bharatiya Jana Sangh), the BJP remained in power only six years before 2014. But there was no split, and the only notable and short-lived case of defection was that of Shankar Singh Vaghela in Gujarat. On the contrary, Congress broke several times. However, there were some notable departures from the BJP, which deserve mention. The first example is that of Balraj Madhok, who was a ‘swayamsevak’ from Jammu and under whose leadership the party won 35 seats in the 1967 elections, the highest number. Madhok clashed with fellow leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani on the issue of linking the party with forces like the Swatantra Party on economic policy. The paradox was that the Sangh was closer to Gandhism in this matter and Madhok saw it as being left-leaning or having similarities with the ideas of Indira Gandhi. In 1973, Madhok was sidelined within the Jana Sangh, and he became angry. He made sharp attacks on party leaders, especially Vajpayee, but did not join any opposition party. In an interview, he had said that Indira Gandhi had offered him a ministerial post in 1980, but being a volunteer, he did not fall prey to greed. Later we saw former BJP Chief Ministers Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti and BS Yediyurappa rebelling. But they all returned home. Shankar Singh Vaghela remained Chief Minister for one year with the support of Congress. Later, he merged his faction with the Congress, was elected MP twice on its ticket and became the Union Textiles Minister in 2004. Today at the age of 85, he is living an isolated life. Dissatisfaction has been rising within the BJP but there has been no rebellion. The guru-disciple relationship between the Sangh and the workers has kept it united. In this, power has also been in the hands of homegrown leaders who have ideological purity. The policy of Sama, Daam, Dand, Bheda can be said that BJP is like a magnet for the leaders who are at loss in all the parties, because benefits can be got only there. The policy of ‘Sama, Daam, Dand, Bheda’ is also adopted. Congress has also been a master of this game. She has been using Article 356 arbitrarily to topple opposing governments. (These are the author’s own views)
Source link
Shekhar Gupta’s Column: Do principles matter in politics?
