Sense of desperation in Sangh Parivar

Amid mounting apprehensions over a persistent decline in popular support over the past six months, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the ruling party at the Centre as well as in 13 States, has been scrambling to overcome the sense of despair through a number of frenzied manoeuvres, including a flamboyant propaganda overdrive and dramatic shakeups in State-level organisational structures. The cover-up strategies to counter this have revolved around two familiar themes adopted for long by the BJP and its associates in the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh-led Sangh Parivar—blatant attempts at instigating communal polarisation and societal divide, along with efforts to aggressively project and promote Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the “messiah of the poor”. As a result of the rising tide of public discontent and inner-party rumblings, Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have ended up playing pivotal crisis management roles, especially because the States that witnessed stormy inner-party tremors on account of declining popular support included Gujarat, where Modi was Chief Minister for 13 years, and Karnataka, the only southern State where the saffron party has come to power. The activist and several of his associates in different parts of Uttar Pradesh admitted that the “COVID crisis” as well as the longstanding farmers’ agitation against the three controversial farm laws have dented the Prime Minister’s image, although not significantly. Especially important is the communal harmony slogan of ‘Allah-u-Akbar, Har Har Mahadev’ raised by Rakesh Tikait at the mahapanchayat.” The activist added: “The demand for a caste census, raised by a number of political parties, including the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal, an ally of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in Bihar, is also a cause for concern.