With practically all other political parties targeting it in one way or another for its supposed anti-Christian tendencies, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) found it hard going to sway voters in Christian-dominated Meghalaya at the recent state election, the party’s internal assessment has found.
The BJP held a meeting here today to introspect on and analyse the results, which saw it unable to increase its share of seats in the Assembly from the two it won in 2018. This despite an unprecedented ad campaign visits from the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister and big pledges in its manifesto, all the while playing down its historic Hindu nationalism.
BJP state president Ernest Mawrie, who lost in his challenge for the West Shillong seat, said that the party was hit hard by the anti-Christian tag assigned to it by rivals. The Meghalaya unit was left having to defend the BJP from a string of attacks on Christian groups and churches in other parts of India as well as a controversial proposal in Assam to strip Scheduled Tribe status from Christian converts, all of which did not go down well with Meghalaya’s Christians population.
A weaker line of reasoning presented by Mawrie is that the Covid-19 pandemic hampered efforts to reach out to the grassroots. He also claimed that central government schemes had been usurped by another party (which he declined to name but is undoubtedly, in his mind, the National People’s Party).
Continuing to see the glass as half full, BJP national general secretary Rituraj Sinha said that the party’s base had grown. However, although it won more votes than it did in 2018, the BJP’s vote share did not increase.
“In a healthy democracy, after campaigning ends, and when results are out, we accept the mandate of the people and the BJP has done exactly that,” Sinha said, adding that introspection to further strengthen the party is a continuous process.
Concerning the BJP’s focus on alleged corruption by its ally, the NPP, Sinha said that that kind of talk is in the past and now it is time to ensure the best possible stable government for Meghalaya. He added that the state has plenty of developmental challenges, its finances are in a challenging state and that it is for the central and state governments to come together to find a solution for the people.
“Our priority is to work for the benefit and development of the people and that should be the priority of all constructive parties in Meghalaya politics,” he further said.
