Rating Modi's one year as PM by looking at BJP allies

Though May 26 marked the first anniversary of the first ever BJP government, which came to power with an absolute majority, and not just Prime Minister Narendra Modi, newspapers and media outlets have made it solely about Modi. Opinion editorials, television debates and social media chats are discussing the intricacies of how India performed in the past one year. But all these discussions have mainly focused on the governance, not the political front. How India performed in the past one year can best be determined by policy researchers and economists, but clearly BJP has lost out on one aspect, which it should focus on improving.

Maintaining relationships with old and new allies

BJP proved that handling overwhelming success can be tough and not everyone can be good at it.

Shiv Sena has been in alliance with BJP since 1989, owing to the common allegiance to the Hindutva ideology and close relationships between supremo Bal Thackeray and BJP leaders. Ties have severed between the two in the past few months. Buoyed by its emphatic Lok Sabha victory and multiple state assembly successes, BJP got carried away and cold-shouldered the Sena multiple times. During formation of the new Maharashtra government, due to a constant snubbing by BJP, Sena almost became the opposition party, but a last minute patch-up led them to form an alliance.

However, in spite of an alliance in Maharashtra, things have remained utterly bitter. Modi has been repeatedly criticised by Sena on multiple accounts, latest being Modi's decision to give $one billion to Mongolia, despite farmers in Maharashtra committing suicide and facing distress. But BJP's first year has also seen the emergence of many new friends and allies, albeit small and unreliable.

In Maharashtra, BJP entered into an alliance with smaller parties such Republican Party of India (Athawale), Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, which aren't really influential at a national scale. In J&K, it formed an alliance with People's Democratic Party (PDP), another right-wing party, which is completely opposed to BJP's stands on various important issues such as Article 370 and Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Further, other issues such as the release of separatist Masarat Alam and continued furling of Pakistani flags in the Valley ensure that the two parties, in spite of being in an alliance, are constantly at loggerheads.

The month of March also saw the increasing bonhomie between Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi, after several months of bitterness and mud-slinging, which culminated in slowdown of the Saradha investigation and Modi visiting Bengal and launching several flagship schemes from Kolkata.

Down south, BJP is also seen to be trying to inch closer to AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha and her acquittal is being seen by BJP floor managers as an opportunity to garner her support in the Rajya Sabha. Even BJP's alliance with Telugu Desam Party (TDP) appears to be crumbling and under stress, with differences over the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill and BJP's agitation over Pattiseema irrigation project.

But what BJP isn't realising is that regional players like AIADMK and TMC are just pure opportunists and completely unreliable as witnessed in their previous alliances with UPA. They could walk out-walk anytime and cannot be trusted. BJP's arrogance and over-basking in glory might just fall flat on their face in the next Lok Sabha elections, should it not get a majority.

True political friends who stand by you at all times are extremely hard to find and in the past year, BJP's perfidious hunger for power has ensured that their old friends are miffed with them. Probably, the damage has already reached an extent where it cannot be repaired. Politics is not just a matter of one year or five years, it's a matter of a lifetime. Therefore, if BJP wants to maintain its electoral stronghold in India, in the next couple of years, it should place a considerable focus on one thing it has completely faltered at - relationships with parties and allies.