BJP Leaders Remain Under Gag Orders, Breakaway Bora to Form New Party in Assam

NEW DELHI: Murmurs of discontent are becoming more audible within the government, and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Senior leaders are quietly, still hesitantly, sharing their woes with friends and supporters that arise from a centralised, authoritarian system where the corridors of power are subsumed by just the one corridor stretching across the Prime Ministers Office in South Block.

The silence, where the media too is kept away, is churning with stories---some appearing highly exaggerated---of high level surveillance where even the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is not spared. No one can say who then is carrying out this surveillance with the story stretching to speak of a ‘dedicated’ team of people in a high-tech room, with all possible equipment, directly answerable to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This might not necessarily be true but it reflects the unease within the government where the ministers and senior bureaucrats are feeling stifled, and as one literally said, “unable to breathe for fear of the consequences.” Journalists are certainly not a welcome tribe with access to senior officials and ministers completely denied.

The first high profile BJP leader to break away was its national executive member Prodyut Bora who has spoken out against the authoritarianism of PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. He has described their style of functioning in a letter that he wrote as his resignation, as undemocratic and arrogant. Significantly a sentiment that many in the current establishment appear to agree with, judging from the whispers, but are not willing to go on the record with.

Bora who was seen as a prize catch by the BJP, with degrees for the UK and the US to add to his IIM Ahmedabad qualification, left visibly disillusioned. He is active on Facebook and now seems to be toying with the idea of starting a political party in Assam to face the Assembly elections a year later. This party he claims will be inclusive, and as he has posted on Facebook, “ I do not promise any miracles, for I have no magic formula. I also don't want to resort to gimmicks like Mr Modi did before the Lok Sabha elections: 'if the BJP comes to power, Bangladeshis better pack their bags and go'.

The only thing I promise is that we would attract the most honest and dedicated people in Assam, and put them to work in the grassroots. Just as Mr Kejriwal did in Delhi! The BJP deployed 120 MPs, 20 Ministers, about 15 National Office Bearers, and thousands of RSS cadres. And yet they could not stop the volunteers of AAP! Therefore, the only learning is that we have to build this new party brick by brick. It will take time, but we have to be patient.

We would also do things differently. No Assam Bandhs, under any circumstances; no violence, no anarchy; and no abusing opponents.”

Bora says in the post that he is under pressure from some sections in the state to join Aam Aadmi Party but says, “ No Modi or Kejriwal will come and solve our local problems. We ourselves have to be our own Modi, or our own Kejriwal. If we put our hearts and minds to it—and if our intentions are pure—there is nothing that they have done that we cannot do.

Lot of people ask me to join AAP in Assam. I say 'no'. My argument is: why do we have to ride on the back of a Kejriwal? Why can't we be Kejriwal ourselves? We don't need to get Kejriwal to Assam; instead, if we like, we may adopt the values of integrity and transparency that he espouses. Rather than borrowing a template from outside, why can't we create such a model party that the whole of India emulates us tomorrow?”

To begin with he wants 1000 members who will pay Rs 1000 each per month to make the party run. He says if he does not get this he will bid politics goodbye, but if he gets the requisite support Bora hopes to get an inclusive, responsive and accountable political party in shape before the next polls to give the BJP and the Congress a run for their money in the state.

Bora has posted a video of ‘stree shakti’ by AAP expressing the hope that things will change in Assam. And most recently he has posted the speech by UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on “open society” that he says links to what Assam needs and should have. Perhaps Clegg’s observations on a ‘closed society’ in his speech are more significant in the Indian context, where :

“i) a child's opportunities are decided by the circumstances of their birth

ii) power is hoarded by the elite

iii) information is jealously guarded

iv) wealth accumulates in the hands of the few, not the many; and

v) narrow nationalism trumps enlightened internationalism

It is not difficult to see where Bora’s disillusionment came from.