Now that the BJP candidate list is finally out, many of ‘loyal’ karyakatas or ticket seekers are seen openly rebelling against the party. Violent scenes were seen on Sunday where supporters of candidates were seen burning BJP flags or vehemently attacking the backdrops with the pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President JP Nadda, CM N Biren Singh and state President A Sharda Devi.
While many are looking for fresh pastures some choose to remain with the party and some have chosen to contest as Independents. Almost every constituency has three to six/seven intending candidates vying for the BJP party ticket, which had clearly been a headache for the party leadership as many of the ticket aspirants seemed to enjoy patronage from among the state and central leadership. There is also the long arm of the RSS, the ideological mentor of BJP leadership, whose opinion carries a lot of weight while deciding the ticket.
It is just not enough that one has backing either from the chief minister or other powerful ministers or the state party President to be assured of the party ticket. One has to go through layers of vetting process which is still going on with survey teams spread everywhere collecting inputs and assessing the prospects of every intending candidate.
Party karyakatas imported from neighbouring states are roaming the lanes of every constituency assisted by concerned Mandal officials and collecting data. But, one never knows how much of these survey reports or data would be taken into account while deciding the party ticket by the leadership, as it has almost become a tradition for ruling parties to value the inputs of intelligence units more than any other input. Yet, everything is not absolute and in politics there is always room for favouritism and of propping up one’s loyalists to the party ticket.
Relying on inputs from whatever source or sources while deciding party tickets might also be a smokescreen put up by the party leadership to assuage the hurt feelings of the party faithful or the ones who were denied. What were the priorities of the party leadership or the determinant factors in deciding the party ticket? In the 2017 assembly elections, ‘winnability’ was a major factor and BJP pulled out all stops in its singular objective of unseating the 15-year-old Congress regime and except for a few, many of the BJP candidates were first-timers.
ALSO READ: Denied tickets, five BJP members join National People's Party in Manipur
The all-out effort in 2017 elections could produce only 21 MLAs in the 60-member Manipur assembly and it was forced to hastily cobble together a fragile coalition of parties and MLAs including a Congress deserter, while the single largest party Congress with 28 MLAs were denied a chance. As such, the attention of the party was most of the time consumed in managing the fragile coalition and also in tackling the infighting among the power centres within the party. This situation, the party wants to avoid it this time around and it will depend on getting a majority of its own.
This time also, the party seems to have bank on the winnability of the candidates although questions remain in the case of certain candidates. The more important question is whether the ultimate choice of party candidates gives advantage to Chief Minister N Biren Singh or any of the CM aspirants. Round one, N Biren Singh seems to have most of his choices given the party tickets as against the wishes of state President A Sharda Devi and senior minister Th Bishwajit. Among the candidates, the choice of O Henry for Wangkhei and Th Shyamkumar besides RK Imo from Sagolband and several others speak volumes.
ALSO READ: Denied ticket; BJP MLA P Saratchandra, former minister join Congress
While National President JP Nadda hinted at Biren Singh returning as CM, on January 6 at the virtual conference Union Home Minister Amit Shah was very clear on the question of the next leadership as he appealed to the people of Manipur to vote for BJP in the 2022 elections so that a BJP government led by N Biren Singh returns once again to continue the ‘good work’ of the double engine combine.
