The Bharthiya Janata Party(BJP) suffered a severe setback in Elections 2009 losing as many as 20 seats from their previous eletion tally in 2004. On the other hand,the Congress surged ahead to get 206 seats on its own. But, is it really all over for BJP as many analysts predict? Lets look ahead and try, analyse the outcome. The one thing which obviously separates Congress from BJP is that BJP is not a pan-India party like Congress. BJP simply doesnot even have a miniscule presence in South India. Apart from Karnataka, which it won as recently as 2006, BJP's tally in Tamil Nadu,Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, so called game changers in any election, is literally zero.They are not even a second or thrid alternative in these states and donot even figure in any credible alliance with major regional parties. They languish allay-less and are not a force to reckon with. They just have to start from scratch and try build a base,which acceptably seems very distant or even impossible without the help of the regional parties.
But, the scenario is not as worse in west and central India as in the south. They have a strong base, which of late is seeing some cracks, in Gujarat,Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. BJP, which is believed to have a created a strong attraction by both good administration in these states and also communal politics. Gujarat's growth in terms of infrastructure and government intitiatives in creating plethora of jobs in many sectors should be physicallly viewed to believe it. Yet, BJP faired marginally bad in their strong-hold states. For instance, BJP won just one seat more than in 2004 in Gujarat, where they were predicted to sweep the elections.Similar to South, BJP as a party is quiet alien to east India. Unless they have some kind of alliance, they seemed to be far behind. BJP was wiped out in Delhi, the National capital, Jammu and Kashmir,Uttarakand and won just one seat in West Bengal.
All said and done, BJP still has some hope and it may be down,but not out. After all, they are the prime opposition party and by far the second largest, in terms of number of seats won in Lok Sabha. In terms of administartion, BJP, under AB Vajpayee showed the way for the country in infrastructure development,telecom boom and the overall economic growth during their tenure from 1998-2004. In terms of foreign policy, both Congress and BJP, donot have any major differences. One thing, the Indian voter would like them to weed out from their system, is their Hindu fundamentalist face, which is advocated by a small group of grey-haired leaders in their ranks.
Maybe, a younger leader with a futuristic approach with clean non-communal image is the order of the day for BJP. The old issues like building temple in a particular site may not fetch vote anymore. Also, they can win back hearts and votes by being a resposible opposition party and helping the government in implementing important projects and also criticising when the government takes the wrong approach and giving alternative ideas. Like the saying goes, "Never say never in politics", BJP may come out of this predicament with the right, non-communal approach putting the welfare of the country as priority or slump further to oblivion by taking a dangerous fundamentalist approach. The ball is in their court and even this "not-so-good period" can become a water-shed moment in BJP's political survival.
