With eyes on the 2019 LS polls : BJP on the offensive
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 02 2018 -

The intention of the BJP is clear. Free the North East of the Congress.

Congress Mukt and it is along this line that BJP National president Amit Shah was here to meet top leaders of the BJP in the North Eastern States.

What plans were drawn up have not been spelt out in detail but the agenda of the saffron party is clear and it will be interesting to see how the party fares in the region when the country goes for the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

The North East including Sikkim has a total of 25 Lok Sabha seats, but in the calculation of the BJP, it is not the number alone that counts, but areas and if the BJP can sweep the 25 seats, it would have succeeded in uprooting the Congress from the North East region, for long seen as the stronghold of the Congress.

Whether this is possible or not is something which only time will tell, but it is interesting to see that the BJP has already set its eyes on 2019, while not much is clear how the AICC intends to go about fighting it out at the Parliamentary elections.

A clear indication that the BJP is working overtime to sweep the region and one may say that such an approach perfectly fits in with the Act East Policy of the BJP led NDA Government at New Delhi.

Remember how the Look East Policy was turned into Act East Policy and which has been trumped as some sort of an upgradation. How well this has gone down with the people may perhaps be drawn from the Assembly election results of Assam, Manipur and Tripura.

And it is from the Assembly election results that the BJP is intending to take the show to the Parliamentary election.

How does the Congress intend to fight the aggressive onslaught of the BJP is something which only time will tell, but as things stand today, the BJP seems to have taken a step ahead of its principal rival.

Other than its aggressive posture, it is significant to note that the BJP has struck crucial ties with all political parties which have a presence in the region.

In Assam it is the AGP, in Meghalaya it is the NPP, in Nagaland it is the NDPP and in Manipur it is the NPF and NPP.

Striking ties with parties which matter and it is here that the BJP has always been ahead of the Congress.

One political party rule is passe’ today and this is something which the BJP has noted earlier than the Congress.

On the other hand, it is still not clear how the Congress intends to turn the air of apprehension felt in the North East over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and Jains, who had entered India illegally from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Can the Congress turn this apprehension to its advantage when the country goes to polls in 2019 ?

This is a question worth raising but so far not much have been heard from the oldest political party on this count.

In a way it is a shame that the party which gave Gandhi, Nehru, Tilak, Gokhale and others to the Nation seems to be floundering not really knowing on what plank to approach the voters ahead of the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Congress Mukt may be the slogan of the BJP, but does the country really need this ?

A strong Congress is what is needed to counter any extreme right wing policy that the BJP intend to unleash on the people.