The ideological barrier for entry into the BJP is as low as it is for exit from the Congress, going by the exodus from the latter and the mass migration into the former in recent days. This makes both the parties, and their leaders, appear cynical opportunists.
Careerists in the Congress have all migrated to the saffron pastures of the BJP. Does this mean that both parties form an indistinguishable barren land of absent ideology? Not quite. There is a difference between the two parties in balancing careerist opportunism with ideological fidelity.
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The BJP has maintained an ideological core and it harnesses opportunistic possibilities to maximise electoral power; the Congress, meanwhile, has shrunk into a bunch of opportunistic leaders and conveniently outsourced ideological projects to external experts who never organically connected with the party.
The BJP has Hindutva ideology as the core of its network; the Congress has had thoughts-on-hire groups in its peripheral networks. The Congress confused ideological thrust with technocratic efficiency and ended up with indifferent or even hostile co-travellers. For instance, under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, among those tasked with redesigning the school syllabus and textbooks were those calling for the death of the Congress!
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While the BJP is crowding its benches with all types of people, it is not leading to a dilution of its Hindutva project; on the contrary, it is increasing its capacity to pursue the ideology. With its ranks swelling, the BJP will eventually confront the inevitable problem of plenty, but that will be largely organisational rather than ideological. If and when the party unravels, its core cadre will still remain intact, as they did many years without power.
UPA legacy
During the 10 years in power heading the UPA, the Congress was fronted by a class of largely apolitical people who of course had a general commitment to centrist liberalism. The Rajya Sabha coterie — which included the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself — kept the organisational party at bay. Young faces of the party were children of senior leaders. The disconnect between politics and thought leadership in the party was institutionalised and celebrated in the form of the National Advisory Council (NAC), an apolitical body of experts and activists.
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This arrangement between the manager-politicians who controlled power during the UPA and the external intelligentsia that theorised its governance reinforced each other’s power, but undermined the party. Those who could think politically and translate them into state policy, such as Arjun Singh, were sidelined and even humiliated.
BJP and its ideological compatriots form a symbiotic whole; the Congress has hired ideologues who form a parasitic relationship with the party. The current structural weaknesses of the Congress are a legacy of the UPA years when power was captured by those who had not won it.
