Fringe elements can play a big role in undoing a party’s overall strategy by acting out on their own. Every time Rahul Gandhi goes on his political pilgrimage to the US, he provides considerable content to the BJP for its anti-Congress narrative through his utterances. During his latest trip, he did the same and the BJP was all set to haul him over the coals for at least a couple of assembly elections, but then an MLA belonging to its ally, the Shinde Sena, announced a reward of Rs 11 lakhs to anyone who cuts off Rahul’s tongue. And the entire BJP strategy was derailed, with the conversation becoming about the ‘encouragement’ being given to attack the Congress leader. This incident will also have an impact on the coming elections to the Maharashtra assembly.
The top leadership of the BJP cannot be happy with the actions of such mavericks. The party has a horde of supporters that have taken it upon themselves to promote a radical political line, particularly as the scope for it is enormous on social media. Sadly, most of them are not very intelligent and succeed not only in alienating those they consider as the ‘other’, but also those who may favour Hindutva politics. This has been one of the primary reasons for the distrust that arose among the socially backward sections regarding the intentions of the party during the recent Lok Sabha elections. The ‘Sabka Saath’ slogan that was directed at the Muslims, could not impress even the Scheduled Castes and OBCs! No matter how much good work was done in this regard, it was all washed away by prevailing perceptions.
It is not just one-sided. The latest loose arrow has been fired by a Telangana Congress MLA who has offered land to anyone who kills Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu. All these persons might think they are displaying their loyalty to their party or leader, but they are damaging not only their parties’ image, but also causing harm to the democratic process. At a time when voters should be thinking of the general good, they get distracted by divisive politics that does nobody any good. One reason for this is that political parties do not pay necessary attention to educating supporters on the ideology they follow. The Congress has long departed from its basic philosophy; the BJP seems to be well on that way.
