Limits of chest thumping by the BJP 

Indian voters have seldom allowed political parties to take them for a ride or be taken for granted.

About a month after the attack on a CRPF convoy in Pulwama and more than a fortnight after the Balakot strike, efforts of the Bharatiya Janata Party to cash in on these developments fast appear to be yielding diminishing returns.

There is also a likelihood that the whole exercise may backfire as the BJP has overplayed its card and BJP leaders have blown up the issue by thumping their chest and taking credit for it. There are indications that the largely apolitical defence services are uncomfortable about being overtly used for political purposes.

The situation has reached such a pass that now even leaders like Raj Thackeray of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, till sometimes back a big admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has started questioning the BJP.

Recently he expressed fear that Pulwama type incident may once again take place before the election so that the BJP may capitalise on it. He minced no words to say that lies can be spread to win elections.

Though some media pundits are of the view that the BJP may capitalise on these latest developments, news emerging from different nooks and corners of the country suggest something else.

The general opinion is that had the BJP not attacked past governments and not boasted about their own actions, it would have been much better placed. People have now started questioning the manner in which none else but PM Modi and party chief Amit Shah went on with their rallies immediately after Pulwama and kept criticising the past governments, especially of the Congress.

The full throated attack on the Congress was unwarranted as the Congress and all other parties had suspended all their activities after Pulwama.

It is this self-praise and dubbing all those opposed to them as anti-national which is working against the BJP.

Not to speak of rival political parties, even the family members of the CRPF personnel who died in Pulwama are questioning the failure of the government in preventing their lives.

Wives of army and air force personnel who lost their lives recently also said that war is no solution. There is no dearth of people who are praising the Modi government for the action but at the same time they hold it responsible for the rise in terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir after 2014.

This had happened after the sharp decline in violence and big jump in number of tourists in pre-2014 years. There is a rush to take credit after Pulwama and Balakot because there is no other achievement to highlight in the last five years. This is the common refrain.

High unemployment, shoddy implementation of GST, Demonetisation, failure to pay ₹15 lakh as promised before 2014 poll are the issues which cannot be swept under the carpet.

The BJP bigwigs are training their guns on the Congress party but are silent as to why Atal Bihari Vajpayee government did not cross over the LoC or international border during the Kargil war or when the Indian Parliament was attacked.

What the BJP is also not answering is why parties like MNS and family members of fallen soldiers are raising more questions than Congress leaders. With the Model Code of Conduct coming into effect the BJP would not be able to question the patriotism of political rivals.

Now the saffron party will have to answer the posers being raised by the common people. It needs to be mentioned that Narendra Modi’s rallies across the country are now not attracting as much crowd as in 2014.

Patna’s Sankalp Rally was one such glaring example.