dna edit: Will BJP miss the bus in 2014?

UPA II is crumbling faster than a cookie. Scandals are compounded by gaffes. Prime minister Manmohan Singh looks a helpless captain, unable to get a handle on the situation that is spiralling out of control. It is not clear whether the Congress party, which has stood behind the prime minister like a rock on the India-US civil nuclear deal in 2008 and on the issue of FDI in multi-brand retail in 2012, is fully with him on the 2G spectrum allocation controversy and the coal blocks allocation scam. Singh has not yet been disowned but the party has distanced itself from him. UPA II is a divided house because the Congress and the Singh government are not on the same page. There never was a better opportunity for an opposition party to dethrone the two-term coalition government.

The BJP, the main opposition party, could not have asked for a better gift than that of a scam-scarred UPA, rudderless in its last year in office. The bleak economy only adds to the woes of the government.

What is puzzling people with a ringside view of political developments is that the BJP is totally unprepared to take advantage of a UPA in disarray. Its attempt to nail the government in parliament was not too successful. The boycott of the second half of the Budget session has not helped the party to improve its popularity ratings.

Its protest programmes in the form of rallies and dharnas and courting arrest have not been exactly innovative or inspiring.
There is a strong feeling within the party and friends outside that they should name Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and take the battle to the next level. There is a strange hesitation on choosing and naming Modi as the party’s choice for PM. There are genuine difficulties. It is not clear whether the Modi gamble will pay off. And the party is aware that it cannot afford to alienate its present and future allies. The BJP
is tied up in knots, which is not a
good sign.