New Delhi Keen on inducting leaders who have been lawmakers or senior functionaries in other parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to ensure those joining have substantial political heft to be able to garner votes and their coming on board is perceived as a blow to the party they left, said functionaries aware of the details.
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The party’s candidate screening will be more stringent as it prepares to welcome new members on board, particularly leaders from some Opposition parties ahead of the upcoming general elections, they added.
The screening committee will be assessing inductees, particularly ticket-seekers, on a host of parameters, but their hold over a constituency or caste group will be a significant factor, a leader said, asking not to be named. In states where the BJP does not have a strong cadre or a formidable ally, such as Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the party is eyeing inductions from other political outfits for its expansion.
“It is now commonplace for leaders to switch parties ahead of polls, particularly if they want tickets to contest. Since the BJP has emerged as a party which has popular support and an unmatched leader in Narendra Modi, there are many leaders who are queuing up to join,” the leader said. “The party will assess whether these leaders, including current or former MPs or MLAs, can win on their own steam.”
{{/usCountry}}“It is now commonplace for leaders to switch parties ahead of polls, particularly if they want tickets to contest. Since the BJP has emerged as a party which has popular support and an unmatched leader in Narendra Modi, there are many leaders who are queuing up to join,” the leader said. “The party will assess whether these leaders, including current or former MPs or MLAs, can win on their own steam.”
{{/usCountry}}The need to gauge a leader’s heft has been reinforced in the wake of some from ally groups having indicated that in some constituencies they would prefer to be given tickets on the BJP’s symbol. “In Maharashtra, for instance, some leaders who are from the Shinde faction of the Shiva Sena have indicated that they would prefer to contest on a BJP ticket for a favourable outcome,” a second leader said.
The other reason for this stringent assessment is the performance of turncoats who have been unable to deliver in a bunch of polls, for instance, in Karnataka, where eight Congress turncoats who joined the BJP in 2019 and helped the party form a government, lost in the May 10 assembly elections. In Uttar Pradesh, too, BJP candidate Dara Singh Chauhan, who was earlier with the Samajwadi Party, lost the Ghosi by-election, prompting the party to revisit giving tickets to big names from other parties and how that sits with the local leadership and the electorate.
While it is par for the course to set up screening committees ahead of polls to vet candidates and even scout for potential contestants from non-political background, since the BJP has set a target of winning more seats than the 303 it won in the 2019 general election, it wants to ensure it picks candidates who are the right fit.
Earlier this month, the party put together a committee of senior leaders, including union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Anurag Thakur, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP’s organisational general secretary BL Santhosh to oversee entrants at the central level.
“While the party has an open-door policy for people who want to formally associate with the BJP, it expects them to follow the party’s ideology, ethics and code of discipline,” said a third leader, who is also a state level office bearer.
The party leadership is keen to ensure it does not face embarrassment by leaders wanting to join only to contest polls and deserting it in the event of being denied a ticket, he said, seeking anonymity.
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A spate of exits took place in West Bengal, including Mukul Roy and Babul Supriyo, and in Madhya Pradesh more recently, when leaders who had joined the BJP ahead of the assembly polls returned to the TMC and the Congress, respectively.
The party also wants to avoid gaffes when senior members oppose new inductions. Party leaders, however, said that in recent years the BJP has attracted more leaders than it has lost. “At least three former Congress chief ministers joined the party, SM Krishna, Krishna Kumar Reddy and Amarinder Singh. Over a dozen Congress leaders who were also ministers have joined too,” said the first leader cited earlier.