The blunt fangs of the gargantuan BJP are showing in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. With the BJP cadres forcing “Jai Shri Ram”, down the throats of the people of West Bengal, in their zeal to upset the ruling Trinamool Congress Party of Mamta Banerjee, the BJP’s office-building, freebies offers and party posts distribution spree is not without reprisal from its own cadres. Indian PM Narendra Modi and HM Amit Shah would want us to believe that despite the steep ebb in the image of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party is on the rise and that it would perform exceptionally well in the elections, local issues, tensions and leadership notwithstanding. Political analyst and thinker Dr Kumar Sanjay Singh examines the dithering, internecine violence and desertions from the party soon after the first phase of elections.

HYPERBOLE SEEMS TO HAVE SUBSTITUTED STRATEGY in BJP’S political thinking, at least in eastern and northeastern India. Consider the stunning claims being made by the top echelons of BJP’S leadership. Amit Shah, who is projected as a modern-day Chanakya -Kaultilya for the West, by his acolytes, did not only make an outlandish claim of winning over 200 seats in the Bengal state assembly election 2021 but also exhorted party workers to repeat the claim [ab ki baar do sau paar -this time around, let us cross 200 (seats) ] even in the face of public incredulity.

While discussing the erosion of the demarcation between fantasia and reality, how can we ignore the stunning claim of the maverick Chief Minister of Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb? Being no stranger to idiosyncrasies, Biplabh Deb in a public meeting on 14 February 2021, claimed, “Amit Shah, who was then the BJP national president, had told us that the party was planning to expand its footprint and establish its rule in Nepal and Sri Lanka during a close interaction with several leaders at the state guesthouse here ”

Notwithstanding the mirror and smoke tricks that Amit Shah conjures to mesmerize the media and the electorate, reality has a way of exposing the true sartorial status of the emperor.

He further informed the journalists of The East Mojo, “We were talking in the state guest house when Ajay Jamwal [North-East Zonal Secretary of BJP] said that BJP has formed its government in several states of India. In reply, Shah said, ‘Now Sri Lanka and Nepal are left. We have to expand the party in Sri Lanka, Nepal and win there to form a government”. It may have been an amusing jibe, but reflects the expansionist fantasies of the leader.

It’s pertinent to recall here that the forthcoming assembly elections in 2021 were a significant subject matter of Shri Biplab Deb where he is reported to have proclaimed, “The people of West Bengal will bid goodbye to Mamata didi -sister, as Modi and Shah have reached Bengal. The flip-flop of CPM and Congress in Kerala will be over this time because BJP is all set to come to power there. The government in Tamil Nadu would not have formed without BJP. The lotus will bloom across the country.”

Do you want to know what is the condition of #BJP in #Bengal?

See👇🏽

Here’s the video of clash between BJP workers in Paschim Bardhaman’s Durgapur ahead of #DilipGhosh event.

Interestingly this happened hours after Union Home Minister #AmitShah left Bengal#AmitShahInBengal pic.twitter.com/iFQasHPYv8

— Bhartendu Sharma (@Bhartendulkar) December 21, 2020

To understand this recourse to hyperbole one has to take into account the anticipated loss of parliamentary seats owing to the peasant disquiet against the farm laws. Even the most sanguine BJP partisan grudgingly admits to the demise of the party organizational structure in Punjab, Haryana, Western UP and in North Rajasthan.

Being a party that measures its success primarily in terms of electoral victory, recouping the anticipated loss of parliamentary seats in the aforementioned regions has become an obsession of the Modi-Shah led BJP. Hence the desperate tactics and the outlandish claims becoming a feature of this edition of assembly elections.

Notwithstanding the mirror and smoke tricks that Amit Shah conjures to mesmerize the media and the electorate, reality has a way of exposing the true sartorial status of the emperor.

Evidently, all’s not well with the world’s largest party or as Marcellus would have exclaimed, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. “

Reports from state-based newspapers underscore that BJP seems to be imploding under the weight of its internal contradictions in West Bengal and Northeastern states of India. Open conflicts between the old and the ‘new’ BJP (read defectors from rival parties) in Bengal has been covered even by the print and visual media of North India.

There is, however, considerable ferment within the organization even in Assam and Tripura. In Assam, since mid-March 25 leaders have been expelled from the party for fielding their candidature against the official party nominee. Seven of those expelled were leaders who contested polls in the first phase of Assam assembly elections.

With 7 more BJP leaders having been expelled from the party yesterday, 15 of them including former deputy Speaker of Assam Assembly Dilip Kumar Paul expelled earlier and MLA Shiladitya Dev resigning from the party, all is definitely not hunky-dory in Assam.

In Tripura too, 11 party leaders were expelled for contesting as independent candidates in April 6-scheduled Tripura Autonomous District Council elections.

There is a further sting in the tail that will give BJP strategists sleepless nights. It’s of immense political significance to note that the erosion of the organizational structure is most pronounced in states that have a very strong tradition of regional politics.

Evidently, all’s not well with the world’s largest party or as Marcellus would have exclaimed, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. ” There is a further sting in the tail that will give BJP strategists sleepless nights. It’s of immense political significance to note that the erosion of the organizational structure is most pronounced in states that have a very strong tradition of regional politics.

Admittedly it is too early to predict whether this rise of regional current in politics will halt the BJP juggernaut, nevertheless, it is important to prognose that BJP’S rise as the largest political force lay in its ability to expand beyond its traditional base of Hindi heartland into areas that were erstwhile strongholds of regional politics. It’s also important to recall that the splintering of INC into regional political formations was in a large measure responsible for its declining political clout.