The Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) has resolved to swallow the bitter pill and continue in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the time being, but will keep its options open till the dust and heat of the Karnataka Assembly election subsides.
The party would abstain from the Chengannur Assembly byelection campaign till May 15 so that Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah would get adequate time to engage the BDJS leadership to redress its grievances. BDJS leader Thushar Vellappally told The Hindu on Sunday that what concerns the party was not the positions in boards and corporations offered by the BJP, but a smear campaign by a section of the State leaders that the national leadership had offered him a Rajya Sabha seat. This campaign, he said, was aimed at deriding the party and its leadership in public.
“Much more than the positions, we are genuinely concerned about the fact that the NDA continues to remain non-starter in the State. It remains only on paper and does not function as a political entity,” he said.
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The BDJS as the principal NDA ally, feels that its alliance with the BJP had earned it any gains. While the BDJS toiled to increase the vote share of the BJP, its leadership feels that the latter had not reciprocated. It is no more willing to cede its political space to the BJP and is gearing up to prove its clout ahead of the next major elections.
Akin to AP, Maharashtra
As in the case of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, it places the onus for the failure of the NDA experiment on the oneupmanship of the BJP State leadership, which could not allegedly take forward its allies as a cohesive whole.
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Mr. Thushar said there were no permanent friends or foes in politics and neither the Left Democratic Front nor the United Democratic Front is an anathema to the party. Though SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan had said that the party would even think of fielding its candidate in Chengannur, Mr. Thushar did not subscribe to it.
Though annoyed by the recurring breach of promises by the BJP, Mr. Thushar said the national leadership was responsive to its demands and hence decided to adopt a wait and watch policy for the next fortnight too.