Respect, not polls drove Bharat Ratna honours

Even as Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) officially maintains that the Bharat Ratna awards conferred upon former president Pranab Mukherjee and late music maestro Bhupen Hazarika have "no political dimensions", party detractors say these were given in view of the upcoming elections.

Given the popularity of these stalwarts in West Bengal and the northeastern states, the move will certainly win some hearts… and votes.

However, party insiders say Prime Minister Narendra Modi reveres the former president and would seek his advice regularly during Mukherjee's tenure. In June 2018, the former president visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, against the Congress's wish and addressed the Sangh's officers training camp.

Both West Bengal and the north-eastern states are among BJP's thrust regions for the upcoming general elections. In West Bengal, the party is confident of winning at least 12 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats. In the north-east, it is targetting 21 out of 25 Lok Sabha constituencies.

For long, there has been anger simmering against the Congress party in Bengal for not doing justice to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's legacy.

In sharp contrast to the UPA, the Modi government declassified files related to the life and times of Bose last year. In December last, PM Modi renamed three Andaman and Nicobar islands in tribute to the founder of the Indian National Army. Decorating Pranab Mukherjee is part of the same strategy, sources say.

Similarly, Hazarika is a cultural czar not only in Assam but all of north-east. Crowning him would turn things in favour of the BJP in all the connected states, political observers say.