The exit of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), one of the oldest allies of the BJP, from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), would not impact the strong majority of the 303-member BJP in the Lok Sabha but it may dent its own catchy and all-season political slogan of “sabka saath, sabka vikas”.
The NDA has now been reduced to a conglomeration of Janata Dal(U), LJP, AIADMK, Jana Nayak Janata Party, Apna Dal and a handful of regional outfits in North-East.
The SAD has only two members in the Lok Sabha, including Harsimrat Kaur, who resigned from the Modi Government following SAD’s protest over three farm Bills recently passed by Parliament.
The three Rajya Sabha members of the SAD are Balwinder Singh Bhunder, Naresh Gujral and Sukhdev Singh Dhinsa.
On the eve of Lok Sabha polls in 2019 and soon after the poll victory, the BJP had claimed to having 36 NDA allies which included major parties like Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Shiv Sena and SAD, JD(U) and several other assorted regional outfits across the country.
The departure of SAD in a year when Shiv Sena too “lost patience” with the BJP and less than two years following the TDP’s decision to move out of the NDA in 2018 reflects that the BJP is increasingly asserting itself with its plans and programmes after its sweeping victory in the Lok Sabha.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Mehbooba Mufti in Jammu & Kashmir and Upendra Kushwaha’s RSLP in Bihar, left the NDA due to different political reasons.
The NDA which started in 1998 under Atal Bihar Vajpayee has transformed considerably since 2014. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah taking a tight grip over the affairs of the Government and the party and setting the BJP with an aim of “speedy expansion” in the States and introduce its policies the allies have reasons to feel threatened.
The protest against the too much of centralisation of decision-making in the NDA had also created rumblings in the North-East with Asom Gana Parishad walking out of the NDA to protest Citizenship (Amendment) Bill but it rejoined later. Another regional NDA ally Bodo People’s Front too had differences with the BJP which were ironed out by State leadership.
The policy of accommodation to NDA partners that reflected soon after December 2018 shock defeats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly polls seemed to have been rolled back in favour of giving hard push to party’s expansion at the cost of allies.
The tussle with Sena for Chief Minister’s post and its ultimate decision to quit clearly indicates the BJP would dictate whereever it can.
In November 2019, Shiv Sena, one of the biggest NDA constituents with 18 members, broke its alliance with the BJP soon after the results of the Maharashtra Assembly election came out last year.
The party had accused the BJP of breaking its promise of giving equal division of power to the party in the State. The tussle between the Shiv Sena-led Government in Maharashtra on the actor Sushant Singh Rajput case with the Centre amply demonstrates that the BJP wants itself to be in the driving seat in the State.
Among the BJP’s allies, SAD is the oldest. They had allied with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, BJP’s predecessor, for the first time during Punjab Assembly elections in 1969. It formed a coalition with the BJP again in 1997 during the State elections. At the Centre, however, SAD joined the BJP-led coalition in 1998 and has been with it since.
In 2018, just ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the TDP ended its four-year alliance with the BJP over denial of special category status to Andhra Pradesh. In June, 2019, four out of TDP’s six Rajya Sabha members joined the BJP as TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu lost State Assembly polls. TDP has currently three Lok Sabha members.
In a bid to expand its reach in extreme South, the BJP also tied up with smaller Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu. PMK was given seven seats and DMDK got four seats. PT, NJP, and NR Congress got one seat each in the State alliance which did not give it political dividends.
As of now the NDA had 336 seats in the Lok Sabha (out of which 303 of BJP) only and 118 seats in the Rajya Sabha. With 88 seats in the Rajya Sabha of the BJP only, the BJP is the largest NDA party in Parliament.
NDA’s partners also include Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Apna Dal (Sonelal) (AD(S)), Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Kerala Congress (J), Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), Mizo National Front (MNF), Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM), Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), Naga People’s Front (NPF) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) (HAM(S)).
