The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is keen on focussing on local factors as reasons for the setback in the Assembly by-elections, but the centralising style of president Amit Shah has become a subject of discussion. In the by-elections, the BJP lost 13 of the 23 seats it had held in various States.
For the coming Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections, it has departed from the practice of announcing chief ministerial candidates, focussing the campaign on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP has been planning not to project a chief ministerial candidate in Jharkhand also.
This strategy may come under strain after the setback, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. The campaign was highly centralised.
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A BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh admitted that the Brahmins and Rajputs, communities traditionally sympathetic to the BJP, perceive that their stake in the Modi-Shah project is limited.
“This is the first realisation that Gujarat model may not fit the entire country,” a party insider said. The perceived sidelining of Brahmin leaders such as Kalraj Mishra and Lalji Tandon, and Rajput leader Rajnath Singh from UP matters will have to be corrected, he pointed out.