New Delhi: In a recent jibe at Akhilesh Yadav, Union home minister Amit Shah vouched for the BJP’s “due process” in electing its party president. The Samajwadi Party in light banter in the last Lok Sabha session had mocked the BJP for struggling to choose its party president, alleging that “infighting” has created a leadership crisis in the saffron party that claims to be the biggest democratic organisation in the world.

Shah immediately got up from his chair and jeered at Yadav, saying that his party follows an extensive process to choose its chief, and those parties which have to elect its leaders from members of “one family” will never be able to understand a party like the BJP.

Shah had a point, but so did Yadav. The BJP has been beset with internal squabbles, so much so that it has not been able to even elect its state units on time. The inordinate delay in appointing its state presidents has delayed the election of the party president, because of which the saffron party has been forced to give multiple extensions to outgoing chief J.P. Nadda.

While the party’s national general secretary B.L. Santosh, the man in charge of conducting organisational elections, has had a hard time in containing the warring factions in different state units, especially those in big north Indian states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had problems with getting the party’s ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), on board.

The RSS’s approval for the party president’s position has been a constant factor ever since the BJP came into being. However, under Modi’s leadership, the BJP was seen as asserting its independent stature; recall Nadda’s remark that the BJP’s strength had grown so much that it didn’t need the RSS’s support like it used to during elections.

Subsequently, the BJP’s setbacks in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls were attributed by many insiders to the lack of support from the RSS.

Following the electoral outcome, RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat made his anguish remarkably clear by making a number of statements that indirectly aimed at Modi and his larger-than-life presence in Indian polity.

Modi’s recent visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, his first ever as prime minister, and his meeting with Bhagwat was seen as an ice-breaking gesture.

Yet, some reports claimed that Bhagwat is still unenthusiastic about Modi’s choice for the position of BJP chief. As a result, nothing in the top echelons have moved. A new BJP chief who was supposed to be elected by last December remains a distant proposition as of now.

Contrastingly, however, some of the parties that Shah never fails to take a dig at have shown signs of implementing internal democracy in new ways.

Over the last few months, Mallikarjun Kharge has led the grand old party from the front, both at the organisational level and in parliament. Rahul Gandhi, too, has shown his mettle as the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha.

At the same time, the party, although quite late in the day, has decided to effect a rejig from the bottom. In successive working committee meetings, Kharge has given an unequivocal message to energise the rank and file with ideological surefootedness while moving towards making the party socially representative from the bottom.

The district congress committees (DCCs) that had decayed over the years have come back into focus. In what is said to be a pilot, the Congress has appointed observers in every district of Gujarat to oversee the smooth functioning of their district committees. The DCCs are envisioned as the most primary unit of the party that can balance the otherwise top-down decision making from the New Delhi-based All India Congress Committee (AICC).

If the plan goes through, the Congress could see a revival of its defunct booth, block and mandal units – which have kept cadre-driven parties like the BJP or the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in good stead.

A bottom-up organisational set-up can also democratise the leadership in every state, energise ground-level party workers and prevent the over-centralisation that has proven to be a bane for the party, the Congress high command believes.

“There will be new power and responsibilities for the DCC. [Kharge] and [Gandhi] would like to have a day-long workshop in each state. We are going to start from Gujarat,” the Congress’s general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal recently said at the AICC session.

The AICC plans to create a political affairs committee in each district to take important decisions, pick regional issues for campaigns and also sort out potential differences among leaders.

Another panel comprising senior state leaders and at least one AICC leader is also being proposed to oversee these committees.

The Gujarat model, if successful, can be replicated in other states. In any case, the Congress has shown signs that it can identify problems and is willing to address those concerns. Both Kharge and Gandhi have reportedly played a significant role in conceptualising an organisational revamp ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.

The saffron party’s ideological nemesis, the Left, which has struggled in the last few years, has also signalled a positive change. For years now, the Left has faced criticism over its over-centralising impulses – a tendency that is borne out of its organisational structure that follows the Leninist idea of democratic centralism. Yet, it has rarely been late in electing its general secretary, the party’s face.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in its recent party congress not only elected veteran leader M.A. Baby as the party’s leader, but many of its senior leaders like Prakash and Brinda Karat stepped away from their politburo positions to make way for a new crop of leaders.

In such a context, the BJP appears to be suffering. True, for as long as the Modi-Shah duo remains at the top of the BJP, the party may appear to be strong. But there seems to be a strong erosion of the party’s internal democracy, for which it was once known, under the duo’s leadership. That may surely take a toll on the party in the long run.

On the other hand, parties like the Congress and the Left appear to have acknowledged their organisational problems and have been meaning to address those issues.

For the opposition parties, a level playing field may still be a distant dream, but this apparent contrast between them and the BJP is clearly visible at the moment, and that may be the beginning of something new.

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