It was just three months ago the Telugu Desam Party from Andhra Pradesh had accused Bharatiya Janata Party of betrayal and had left the alliance. Now, it is the turn of the Peoples’ Democratic Party of Jammu and Kashmir to break the alliance giving a severe beating for the BJP.
The NDA is losing the strong allies starting with Shiv Sena from Maharastra, followed by Shiromani Akali Dal from Punjab and Telugu Desam Party from Andhra Pradesh, who enjoyed more than a dozen MPs in the Lok Sabha and were strong allies of the BJP. Now, with the PDP too quitting the BJP-led NDA, there are just two parties, Lok Janasakthi Party of Ram Vilas Paswan with 6 MPs and Bihar’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party with 3 MPs. The rest have one or none MPs to stand by the BJP.
The NDA was formed by the combine of Atal Behari Vajpayee and L K Advani in 1998 bringing all anti-Congress parties, even smaller ones, together. The arrangement worked well against the Congress-led UPA and had captured power. In 2014, Narendra Modi took over the NDA and had swept the polls. As the BJP alone had own 274 MP seats in the election, it did not require the support of any of the allies in the NDA. Ironically, this situation had prompted Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to look down at the allies. While Vajpayee-Advani have built the NDA brining party after the party into its fold, Modi-Shah are now destroying it year after the year.
The Shiv Sena had left the NDA first, followed by Shiromani Akali Dal of Pubjab and the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh and now Peoples’ Democratic Party of Jammu and Kashmir. The exit of these major players in the NDA showcases the power arrogance that both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are showing towards the parties.
Going by the way the BJP is handling the political affairs in the country, distancing one after the other ally, and the Opposition is getting strengthened in the same speed, things are not going to be easy for Modi in the 2019 elections.
