Losing game? The BJP's own goals may not amuse the referee

In the last couple of weeks a few members of Parliament, all from the ruling side, showed off their prowess at scoring own goals, writes HT editor-in-chief Sanjoy Narayan.

In football, an own goal is when a player scores by putting the ball into the goal he is supposed to defend--a stupid and usually inadvertent move but one that can sometimes cost a side a match. In the last couple of weeks a few members of Parliament, all from the ruling side, showed off their prowess at scoring own goals. These included a minister who made abusive remarks about a rival party at a public rally; an MP who wanted the Mahatma's assassin deified; another who wants to launch a drive for "re-conversion" of Muslims to Hindus; and the HRD ministry, which sent a notice to schools asking them to mark Christmas Day as "good governance day" by getting students to participate, ostensibly voluntarily, in various activities. All this caused enough controversy and disruption to stall business during a winter session of Parliament that had begun quite promisingly.

Minister-of-state-for-food-processing-industries-Niranjan-Jyoti-used-expletives-while-campaigning-for-the-BJP-in-Delhi-HT-File-Photo

Whatever people might think, in the BJP, not unlike in the Congress and other parties, leaders come from different backgrounds and with different ideological priorities. Some of the BJP's top leaders have cut their teeth as volunteers in the RSS, rising from the ground up; others began as student leaders in the ABVP, the RSS's student wing; and yet others have risen from the dozens of organisations that make up the Sangh parivar, including trade unions, farmers' associations, the BJP's youth wings like the BJYM, or organisations such as the VHP and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch.

During the Congress-led UPA regime, you could find leaders with varied beliefs--from die-hard leftism to unapologetic economic liberalism--coexisting in the same council of ministers and Cabinet. Similarly, Narendra Modi's ministers and his party's MPs who won 282 berths for the BJP in Lok Sabha last May represent a wide spectrum of beliefs, priorities and ideologies: from pro-development and indifferent-to-Hindutva moderates (one or two of whom could blend rather well with Congressmen) to hardliners whose priorities are all about building a temple in Ayodhya, rewriting history books and converting Muslims.

As well as stoking tension, these could hit Modi's main agenda that helped him win the elections last May. In his high-voltage campaign before those elections, Modi scrupulously avoided Hindutva issues, focusing instead on 'Vikas' or development and progress. If his agenda gets derailed by the own goals some of his party's leaders have been scoring, it will disappoint many Indians who came out to vote for development and not temples and conversions. The fallout could also affect foreign investors. For now, foreign investors are bullish about the Modi effect on the Indian economy. Recently, Standard & Poor's, a rating agency, called India "the only bright spot in the Asia Pacific region". And McKinsey & Co.'s boss Dominic Barton told a newspaper that under Modi, India had become a "magnet" for investors. But foreign investors are quick-change artists. If they see that the Vikas agenda runs the risk of getting hobbled by Hindutva issues, their views on Modi's India can do a U-turn.

The prime minister is said to have cautioned his party colleagues, including ministers, against speaking out of turn and jeopardising the government's core agenda. The problem is that for many along the variegated spectrum of ideologies among the BJP's leaders and influencers, their core agenda may be quite different from the government's.

(Sanjoy Narayan is Hindustan Times' editor-in-chief. Follow him on Twitter at @sanjoynarayan)