Partner trouble brews for BJP

The UPA is not the only combine facing problems from parties that pledged their support. The National Democratic Alliance is silently facing its own share of woes.

The UPA is not the only combine facing problems from parties that pledged their support. The National Democratic Alliance is silently facing its own share of woes.

HT Image

The steering committee of the one-MP Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which joined the NDA before the Lok Sabha polls, has decided in Guwahati to break with the NDA

The five-MP Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), another ally that came on board during the Lok Sabha polls, has been avoiding NDA meetings and participating in meetings of the 13-party alliance led by the Left.

The two-MP Telangana Rashtra Samiti, which also joined the NDA at that time, has also been also staying away.

The remaining solid constituents of the NDA are the BJP, JD(U), Shiv Sena and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

“There are murmurs about the AGP in Assam thinking otherwise, but here the AGP has been with the NDA,” said S S Ahluwalia, deputy leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

The AGP believes the BJP gained at the cost of the regional party in the Lok Sabha polls, but BJP leaders cite the AGP’s poor candidate selection. On Gadkari’s reported statement that the BJP could go it alone in the assembly polls in Assam, a senior BJP leader said that while such things were said to uplift cadres’ morale, the party chief should not have said so.

On Ajit Singh’s RLD, a senior BJP leader said on Monday: “The RLD has not attended the last 5-7 NDA meetings. We have heard they are attending the 13-party group's meets.”
The CPM’s Sitaram Yechury confirmed this. On possible political realignments, he said, “It is too early to say.”

A section of the JD(U) — a stable ally — led by Sharad Yadav has been calling for sub-quotas within quota for women, though the BJP officially supports the women’s reservation Bill.

The Shiv Sena’s opposition to north Indians and Hindi in Mumbai goes against the grain of the pro-Hindi stance of the Jana Sangh and the BJP’s emphasis on nationalism.

The NDA — a successful coalition when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was PM — got its greatest jolt when the Biju Janata Dal ditched it in Orissa just before the Lok Sabha polls. The centrifugal tendencies have not waned, it seems.