The world’s largest political party, BJP is in the middle of an ever-exacerbating quagmire, where it is receiving scathing attacks from multiple quarters like the judiciary, people, party workers, and veteran leaders. Various sections of the society are lashing out at the party which leads the centre. It is due to underestimating the problems of Covid19, and the Oxygen crisis and overestimating the party muscle and the potential of its spin doctors with regards to West Bengal election, which the party lost.
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India is dealing with a huge public health crisis due to the second wave of Covid19, and an associated issue of Oxygen deficit. Apart from that, there are questions in the air in India about the status of vaccines, especially after the country supplied around 60 million doses of vaccines to around 70 countries, prior to the onset of the second wave. Critics of the regime currently at the centre have been questioning the vaccine deficiency & unpreparedness for upgrading of health facilities, and unresponsive & insensitive dealing with the Oxygen crisis when advisers within government had forewarned about the present situation beforehand. Higher Courts had to jump in to give a suitable dose of opprobrium to the lackadaisical inaction of the government. In one of the latest developments in this regard, Delhi High Court on Tuesday (May 04) had pulled up the central government over medical oxygen. The HC issued a show-cause notice to centre as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated after it sought to wriggle out of its liability to supply 700 tonnes of medical-grade oxygen to the national capital. Apart from such flaks from the HC, BJP-led centre has also been heavily criticized by people on its apathy on the Covid19 and O2 situations in Delhi and UP.
Apart from overconfidence in themselves and underestimating the Covid19 situation, BJP workers in Indore had gone a step ahead in using the Oxygen crisis for their own media spectacle. On April 17, Indore’s local BJP President, Gaurav Ranadive had stopped an Oxygen tanker carrying 30 tonnes of O2 for hospitals for a photo-op while patients remained gasping for the life-saving gas in the city’s hospitals. This incident delayed the Oxygen supply by hours and was criticized by people across party lines, especially by MP Pradesh Congress committee. MP Congress spokesperson, Neelabh Shukla said while castigating BJP that MP PWD minister Tulsiram Silawat carried out Puja Paath on the O2 tanker when hospitals were waiting for the gas.
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After the defeat of the BJP in West Bengal election, the atmosphere changed dramatically, charged with a wave of seething anger. Now, even the diehard fans of BJP are gradually losing their calm and are questioning the government regarding vaccines and solution to the Covid19 crisis and the Oxygen deficit. Since such ardent followers are not getting anything as a recompense for their support towards BJP, which could have been crystallized by a victory in West Bengal election, the obvious outcome is anger towards the party. An example is a member of BJP IT cell, which had placed Amit Malviya to campaign on social media prior to the Bengal polls. Anshu Thakur is a member of the BJP IT cell, who is currently targeting the government over vaccines. He works as a coordinator of the IT cell (BJP) in Jhanjharpur town in the Madhubani district of Bihar. In one of his Facebook posts, he stated, “This is no time for free food. Give us vaccines.” He posted this on Bihar BJP’s Facebook page in response to a post which announced 5kg of free foodgrain in May and June for the beneficiaries of the public distribution system of the state’s coalition government, where BJP partners with Janata Dal (United).
In West Bengal, from 2002 to 2006, Tathagata Roy was the head of the BJP unit. After the debacle of BJP in the West Bengal election, he blamed Dilip Ghosh & Kailash Vijayvargiya for the rout of the saffron camp. Roy who has also served as the Governor of Meghalaya and Tripura, on Thursday castigated BJP and levelled allegations of incompetence against Ghosh and Vijayvargiya. As a concluding remark in one of his latest tweets critiquing the Bengal unit of BJP he stated, “Now faced with abuse from party workers they (Kailash-Dilip-Shiv-Arvind) are staying put there (Agarwal Bhawan; BJP election HQ in West Bengal), hoping the storm will blow over.”
Roy, who himself is a civil engineer from IIT and has a law degree added in his vitriolic comment on Ghosh, Vijayvargiya and other current faces of Bengal BJP, “A substandard, uninspired, mercenary bunch of people with no political insight, no analytical abilities, no sense of Bengali sensitivities. Education up to Class VIII and a fitter mistri’s certificate. What do you expect?” He also accused the state leadership of BJP to be clueless about the ground sentiments in West Bengal.
All of these developments point to the fact that BJP is now shaken to its core. The triumvirate of defeat in West Bengal election, Covid19 crisis, and the issue of Oxygen is pushing it fast against the wall built on outrage across various sections of society ranging from personnel in the party’s IT cell to a veteran politician within the party.
