By: Rajeev Ranjan Tiwari

The Ruling Party of the largest Democracy of the world may not be functioning effectively, but then the Opposition has its own concerns to deal with. The so called ‘corrupt’ United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has seen high inflation rate during its term. The main opposition party Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) may want to benefit from this in the upcoming 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, however, they seriously need to sort their internal conflicts if they want to be the ‘option’.

Rajnath Singh was elected the National President of BJP last month and as feared by many, the internal conflicts increased manifold, be it the PM candidature of Gujrat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi, settling the internal ‘politics’ in Karnataka, Senior leader L.K. Advani’s statements or the post appointment stress of Jharkhand’s state President. Although, Rajnath Singh is trying to tread patiently through all these issues, but it all looks like going out of his control.

The Lok Sabha Elections are scheduled in 2014 and one segment of BJP has already started projecting Narendra Modi as their potential PM candidate. BJP has a lot of senior leaders who are supposedly of a better vision and this is what seems to be perturbing Rajnath Singh. On the 11^th of March he very politely stated that Modi is a popular public figure, but the party has not decided on the candidature yet.

Moreover, L.K. Advani’s off late statement that the public is not very happy with BJP’s image too, has stirred up a hornet’s nest among the party. Advani commented that he is hopeful of BJP’s betterment however, the corruption cases against the Karnataka’s ex CM Yeddyurappa and Nitin Gadkari may turn against them in the upcoming elections.

Another biggie of BJP, Yashwant Sinha, seems to be adding to the problem, in the March 11^th meeting he stated that he was not happy with the appointment of Jharkhand’s State President, Ravindra Rai, who is said to be a close associate of Arjun Munda. He was displeased that he was never consulted before the decision of the appointment. When Gadkari was being considered for the recurring term, he had threatened to contest for the Party’s President post independently. So if BJP wants power, it will have to get its act together.