The BJP’s advantage in the forthcoming Presidential polls is that it has friends – both overt and covert – in the Opposition camp. Their presence not only boosts the party’s numerical strength but also sows seeds of doubt and disaffection among its adversaries. The two overt friends of the BJP Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Odisha and Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSR Congress of Andhra Pradesh, have stood by the BJP during the passage of controversial measures in parliament like the abrogation of Article 370 and the (now withdrawn) farmers’ bill. At a time when the BJP’s relations with its partner in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) – the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar – are not very stable, the backing that the BJP is receiving from the BJD and the YSR Congress must be a source of considerable satisfaction for it.
Unlike the Janata Dal (United), neither the BJD nor the YSR Congress seems concerned about the impact of their proximity to the BJP on the Muslim vote. The BJP also treads carefully in Andhra Pradesh about issues concerning Christians such as the anti-conversion bill given chief minister Reddy’s Christian background. Apart from the friendship of the BJD and the YSR Congress, the BJP also has covert connections with parties like the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Aam Admi Party (AAP). Formally, both are enemies, even stridently so. But, by staying away from the other Opposition parties at the national level, as they did during the recent meeting called by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the TRS and the AAP can be said to have played the BJP’s game on the question of putting up a united front against the BJP. The TRS and the AAP have explained that their absence from the meeting of the 17 Opposition parties called by Mamata Banerjee was in protest against Congress’s presence. The two parties regard the Congress (and not the BJP) as their main adversary, presumably because the Congress is the main opponent of the TRS in Telangana, and the AAP in Delhi, Punjab, and elsewhere.
Whatever the explanation, the fact that their anti-Congress stance indirectly helps the BJP is undeniable. It also emphasises their distance from those parties which attended the recent meeting in New Delhi whose areas of influence extend from Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the south to Maharashtra in the west, to West Bengal, Bihar, and Jharkhand in the east, and Kashmir in the north. Needless to say, the TRS and the AAP can appear to be more isolated in this context than they would like to admit. On the other hand, Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s Asaduddin Owaisi has been sharply critical of the BJP, however, the party’s predominantly Muslim base makes the ‘secular’ parties wary of associating with it. The ghost of Jinnah still haunts the Muslim outfits despite their willingness, as in the case of the Majlis, to come to terms with the secularists. Needless to say, such an attitude bred by the continuing antipathies of the pre-independence days, helps the BJP. It, therefore, looks like the BJP enjoys a more favorable scenario in the Presidential polls currently, unless the other political parties come to their senses and let their logic and reasoning come into play, in choosing a fair and unbiased First Citizen of the country.
