BJP : Largest political party in the world Tepid response from the hills

On record the largest political party in the world with 180 million or 1800 lakh or 18 crore members, the BJP sits tall and pretty at the top as far as numbers go. Top this off as the party at the helm of affairs in the largest democracy in the world since 2014 and set to go on till 2029 and everything looks good for the saffron party. In Manipur, it snatched power from the Congress in the 2017 Assembly elections and walloped the oldest political party in the 2022 Assembly polls, reducing it to just five members in the House of 60. Surely the BJP seems to have come a long way in Manipur and the good fortunes it is witnessing in Delhi and the rest of the country had obviously rubbed off on the people here. However May 3, 2023 came along and the negative impact of this day could be clearly seen in the 2024 Parliamentary elections when both the Outer and Inner Parliamentary Constituencies were bagged by candidates from the Congress with handsome margins. Cannot say off hand if it will rank up there as the biggest victory margin, but significant to note that the Congress candidate in the Inner Parliamentary Constituency Dr Bimol Akoijam whipped the BJP candidate by over one lakh vote while in the Outer Constituency, the Congress candidate Alfred Kanngam bested his nearest rival from the Naga People’s Front (NPF) by over 85 thousand votes. Significant victory margins and take the fact that the elections were held amid the ongoing ethnic clash and this is where the reference to May 3, 2023 becomes relevant. Nearly one year since the Lok Sabha elections and the latest information that has come is the tepid response to the BJP membership drive in the hill districts of Manipur. Not that the valley area has done much better, but the showing is better in the valley than in the hills which has so far shown that not a single individual has been enrolled as an active member in the membership drive at the Assembly Constituencies of Tipaimukh, Thanlon, Henglep, Churachandpur, Saikot, Singhat and Tengnoupal. The number of primary members is also extremely limited with only 670 persons enrolling in the six Assembly segments of Churachandpur and Pherzawl.  The showing is also not encouraging at Kangpokpi where only 21 persons have enrolled as active members of the saffron party though this particular Assembly Constituency has returned figures of 11,000 primary members. Significant to note that the ACs mentioned where no new active members of the saffron party have enrolled themselves are areas dominated by the Kuki-Zo community, though seven MLAs from the said areas continue as BJP MLAs including two Ministers. In the Naga dominated districts too, the scenario is no better with not even a single active member of the party to take charge of things in Phungyar AC, Mao AC, Tadubi AC, Karong AC, Tamei AC and Tamenglong AC.
These are figures on paper and while these statistics may or may not mean much in the ultimate analysis of electoral politics, it stands in stark contrast to the tag of being the largest political party in the world with 18 crore members. How this has gone down with the party’s leadership is not yet known, but one cannot help but connect the dots and juxtapose it against the 2024 Lok Sabha elections here. This is what is significant. The largest political party in the world, a party which is into its third consecutive term in office at Delhi and second consecutive term in Imphal and surely the tepid response to the membership drive would have raised the interest of many keen observers of the political developments in Manipur. As stated many times in earlier commentaries here, the 2027 Assembly elections is still a good two years away and anything may happen in the interregnum and one wonders what impact the continuing ethnic clash would have on the outcome of the elections. How the BJP led Government at Imphal conducts itself in the face of the ongoing ethnic clash will go a long way in deciding its standing in the eyes of the people and when one says this, it should be seen in the context of the manner in which it has responded to the sentiments of the people. Whether its conduct has been affirmative or not will be hugely reflected in the next Assembly elections and this is not overstating the facts.