When Mukul Roy left the Trinamool Congress (TMC), a party he had co-founded, to join the BJP in November 2017, he was considered one of the biggest catches for the saffron party in West Bengal. Roy, arguably the closest aide of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, was virtually running the party. If anyone knew TMC’s strengths as well as its weaknesses, it was him. More was yet to come. In the run-up to the assembly elections in Bengal next year, BJP has snapped up another TMC strongman, Suvendu Adhikari, a mass leader from a powerful political family in Medinipur. He is believed to have clout to win at least seven assembly seats and swing the results in 40 more. His entry along with other TMC leaders has definitely given a boost to BJP’s quest to win the eastern state for the first time.
Where’s The Party?
The elections are near, it’s the season of loyalty shifts as regional leaders look for political survival in a battlefield dominated by the BJP
Adhikari is the latest in a growing list of regional leaders who have shifted allegiance to the BJP, the ruling party at the Centre and several states, and is widely predicted to spread its wings to regions which were considered out of its reach till not very long ago. The BJP has been systematically working towards its ambitious Coromandel Plan, which entails expanding the party in the coastal states of Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala, in addition to the northeastern states. The plan was put in place by then party president Amit Shah, soon after the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014 with the aim of making gains in hitherto unchartered territories.
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“Since the BJP’s organisation was not too strong in most of these states, it helped to pick the sharpest from the Opposition, while continuing to strengthen the party,” reveals a senior BJP leader. Even before Roy in Bengal, the BJP lassoed Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam in August 2015. Sarma was one of the most powerful Congress leaders in Assam, with his wife owning a big media company in the region, including a popular news channel. Sarma, also known for his networking skills, was appointed as the BJP’s convener of the party’s election management committee for the assembly elections. He repaid by ensuring the saffron party’s victory in Assam in 2016, a first for the state which had been a Congress stronghold till then. Over the years, Sarma has emerged as the BJP’s go-to person in the region, tying up alliances in other northeastern states too.
Sources in the BJP claim that a few more Congress leaders are waiting to join the party during Union home minister Shah’s visit to Assam on December 26. “Former minister and sitting Congress MLA for Golaghat, Ajanta Neog, is one of them. She has already had a meeting with chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal. She will be joining during Shah’s visit, along with some other Congress leaders,” says a BJP general secretary.
Defections to the BJP—seen as a party that is going to be in power at the Centre for some years to come—are not happening only in West Bengal and Assam but also in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, which will elect a new assembly in the coming months.
In Tamil Nadu, with two strong regional parties, it’s a season for defections and not all towards the BJP. All parties in the state are actively pursuing disgruntled and sulking leaders in other parties, tempting them to cross-over. Even as two AIADMK leaders—former minister V.S. Vijay and former MP Lakshmanan—recently joined the DMK, what has surprised political watchers is the defection of former deputy speaker V.P. Duraisamy from the DMK to the BJP, parties ideologically at the other end of the political spectrum. “The BJP is being increasingly accepted in Tamil Nadu. We appointed L. Murugan, a Dalit, as the state unit president. Former IPS officer K. Annamalai has also joined the party. Actor Khushbu Sundar crossed over from the Congress. AIADMK has reiterated its commitment to the BJP. You have seen the party’s recent victories in Telangana. We are all set to make a mark in Tamil Nadu too this time,” says a confident BJP leader.
BJP general secretary and in-charge of West Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya says it’s owing to the party’s strong organisational structure that it is seeing success across the country, and also emerging as a magnet for leaders from other parties. About Bengal, in particular, he says everyone knows that the BJP is going to form the next government in the state and that’s why the rush to join the party. “There are hundreds of workers and office-bearers from other parties, including the TMC, Congress and Left, who want to join the BJP. It is not just the senior leaders, but also those from panchayats and districts, who have signalled us. Naturally, we are not going to induct everyone,” he tells Outlook.
According to him, the BJP is not doing anything to lure leaders from other parties. “It is the corruption in governance and the arrogance of the party leadership that is forcing the people to leave the TMC,” he adds.
Political analyst Sanjay Kumar agrees that while there may be a push factor for leaders to leave their respective parties, there is also a strong pull factor that draws them towards the saffron party. “The BJP has a wing whose sole responsibility is to tap those who are unhappy and sulking among the opposition parties. The duties are assigned very carefully and are obviously being discharged assiduously,” he says. The way Jyotiraditya Scindia was inducted into the BJP and then used to overthrow the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh says a lot about the BJP’s successful planning.
Comparing politicians jumping ship to migration, he says, the push factor has to be strong for the pull factor to work. “It can be about unfulfilled ambition and lack of opportunities. Even the trump card of diluting or the threat of ramping up criminal cases against some individual leaders will work only if the push factor is strong enough,” he says. The BJP is far from apologetic about leaders crossing over from other parties to its fold. “It is the frustration that makes a politician leave his/her party. “Remember R. Kumaramangalam, who left the Congress in 1998 to join the BJP to protest the way the late Sitaram Kesari was managing the party. Also, when Indira Gandhi was in power, she engineered many defections as well, notably in Karnataka, Sikkim, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh,” says the BJP general secretary.
A senior TMC leader concedes that many of them are unhappy with the way the party is functioning. “Mamata Banerjee is no more in control of the party. It is her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, who is calling the shots with people like Prashant Kishor. There are other leaders too, who command no respect in the party, but are throwing their weight around. The atmosphere in the party is driving the leaders out,” he says.
And the BJP is seen as an attractive option. “It is a rising star in the state. It continues to have a bright future at the Centre. If anyone has to switch political loyalties, they will do it for the BJP, and not for a regional party or for a party like the Congress that seems to be imploding,” says Kumar.
Contextualising the issue, sociologist Dipankar Gupta says the fact that the transition is nearly always to a national party demonstrates how important it is for regional parties to think nationally. “Rarely, do defections happen from a strong national to a regional party, other than when the national party is crumbling and is not an attractive place to be in. Defections may, however, take place between two national parties more freely,” he says.
The belief that people are more responsive to regional parties needs to be modified. According to Gupta, the appeal of national parties cannot be discounted in the Indian political scenario. “The Indian electorate always keeps the national context in mind even when they vote for regional parties.”
Regarding the recent cases of defection, he says, there are two variants which come to the fore. One, where the current party has a supremo and that blocks the upward mobility of the next-to-the-podium political personalities. “The supremo factor, and consequent blocked mobility, are important. If an election is coming up, then this precipitates the transition,” Gupta explains. Second off, luring the person from the opposition party with money. “This usually happens midway, without an election in the offing. Those who shift for money are happy to be foot soldiers in their new party and they don’t aspire leadership positions, as in the first case,” he adds.