While
BJP was in Power:
Before
analyzing the defeat of BJP in the present Lok Sabha election, it is necessary
to have a look how the Party came to power in 1999 with 183 MPs. One may recall
that in the Lok Sabha elections held in 1998 the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) obtained a simple majority. This time, the BJP had
allied with the AIADMK
and the Biju Janata Dal besides its existing allies, the Samata Party,
the Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiv Sena. Outside support was provided by the Telugu Desam Party.
The NDA had a slim majority, and Vajpayee returned as Prime Minister. But the
coalition ruptured in May 1999 when the leader of AIADMK, Jayalalitha, withdrew her support, and fresh elections were again
called in October, 1999. Within this brief period,
BJP did two remarkable jobs that made it popular across the country. Firstly,
it conducted the testing of the nuclear device at Pokhran and secondly, it
fought the Kargil war with Pakistan in May-July, 1999.
These
two achievements were hailed by the entire
population who discovered a courageous fighter in BJP, capable of protecting
the sovereignty and freedom of the nation and thrashing the rogue enemy state
Pakistan. The people of this country gave BJP a hero’s welcome and,
as a consequence, in the Lok Sabha election held on October 13,
1999, the BJP-led NDA won 303 seats. The
BJP won an all-time high of 183 seats. Vajpayee became Prime
Minister for the third time in his life, and Advani became the Deputy Prime
Minister and Home Minister.
But
the said image of BJP was considerably shattered when
the NDA government shamefully submitted to the unjust demands of the Pakistani
terrorists after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane, Flight no. 814 on
December 24, 1999, and released three dreaded terrorists, most undemocratic
way, from the Kashmir jail and one cabinet minister went to Kandahar, by a
special plane, with those three terrorists and
rupees 900 crores and a planeload of high explosive (to be used against
India),.as ransom But after the hijacking drama, it would have been
proper for the NDA government to order our army to cross the border of
Afghanistan and our air force to bomb Kabul and Kandahar. And thus force the terrorists to release 174 passangers and
15 crew members of the hijacked plane. In this context, one may
recall how the Russian government dealt with the Chechen terrorists who seized
a school in Beslan in 2004.
On
December 13, 2001, five terrorists attacked the Parliament House (Sansad
Bhawan) in Delhi. It was due to the prompt and brave action of our security
forces, six of whom sacrificed their lives, the lives of a few hundred of our
MPs were saved. After this incident many of our
commentators described it as a rape of our Parliament, or rather a rape of our
democracy. Our military top brass advised the government to take
immediate military action against Pakistan and hence to teach a good lesson to
that rogue state. Some of our top army personnel commented that we had enough
of talks, and time had arrived to act. So an army
mobilization was ordered and our troops, with their modern sophisticated
weapons were dispatched to the Indo-Pak border and were waiting for final
signal from our leaders to cross the border. Our troops were waiting
for months after months, but the NDA government failed to gather sufficient
courage to give that final signal. Ultimately
troops were withdrawn wasting nearly three thousand crores of rupees, as the
cost of mobilization and wear and tear of the sophisticated weapons. It is important to note that, had the NDA government conducted the military operation
against Pakistan and taught that rogue state a good lesson, the people of this
country would have given a hero’s welcome to BJP for the second time and they
would have voted BJP to victory in the 2004 Lok Sabha election.
On
April 21, 2001, Bangladesh Rifles abducted 15 Border Security Force (BSF)
personnel into Bangladesh. They subsequently
butchered all the 15 BSF men and carried their mutilated bodies like carcass of
animals to return the dead bodies in an extremely humiliating manner.
As a cover up of that criminal act by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the
government of Bangladesh said that our BSF men illegally crossed the
Bangladeshi border and hence BDR captured and killed them. It is to be noted
here that, even if it is admitted that the BSF men
had entered Bangladesh illegally, it was proper for BDR arrest them and produce
them in the court of law. In any case, they could not have killed them.
The most justified reply of the NDA government to this heinous
crime was to give order to our army to cross the border of Bangladesh and march
towards Dhaka. But our leaders, for the lack
sufficient courage or for the sake of its newly adopted policy of Muslim
appeasement, failed to take military action against even a small and weak
nation like Bangladesh. On the contrary, they supported the claim of the
government of Bangladesh that our forces had done a wrong and by entering
Bangladesh without any provocation. Our PM sent his
personal secretary Brojesh Misra to Dhaka to beg pardon on behalf of the Indian
Government for the so called offence committed by our BSF personnel.
It
is needless to say that all the above mentioned
cowardice acts have completely shattered the image BJP had built up by fighting
the Kargil War and testing nuclear device at Pokhran. And there is
no doubt that this loss of image had played a major role in its defeat in 2004
Lok Sabha election.
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