'400 paar slogan did a great disservice to BJP'

Expressing disappointment over the results of the recent Lok Sabha elections, an eminent Indian American on Saturday said that it is time for the BJP “karyakartas” (workers) to introspect and not to celebrate the victory.

“Based on the merits, the work that (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji and the BJP has done in Bharat, they should have gotten 400 seats. But they did not. So now the question is, should we try to introspect, try to look at why that did not happen,” Dr Bharat Barai, told members of the OFBJP USA during the victory celebrations organised by it.

“If all we do is keep on celebrating, then next time you might find that the BJP government is out of Maharashtra. So, it's very important for us to do some soul searching that instead of getting 400 seats, why did we get only 292 for NDA? And even for the first time when the BJP got an absolute majority, why come this time the BJP got only about 240 seats?” he said.

“So, we should migrate from congratulations to soul searching, and that will help us understand what we do next time,” said Dr Barai, who played a key role in the success of historic Madison Square event in New York in 2014 followed by similar events in Silicon Valley and Houston.

He asserted the founding fathers of BJP thought that it would be a party to serve “Bharat Mata” and not to appoint friends and families to positions of power or get money from corporations or allow corruption to go unhindered.

“If the BJP or any party does that, then they are no different than corrupt and communal Congress party. So, whatever you know, wherever there is corruption and unfortunately that is still going on, though not at a higher level. Yes, you cannot corrupt Modi ji or most of the cabinet ministers, but there are allegations, and I don't know if they are correct. One of the points to emphasise is that the BJP is a different party where the power is meant to serve the people,” Dr Barai said at the event attended by Indian Americans from in and around the Chicago area.

Dr Barai said that they should support reservation, which is essential to bring up the downtrodden. “Whether you like it or not, the BJP has no choice but to do something so that the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and the OBCs or other backward classes, try to come up. Otherwise, you are going to have fractionation among the Hindus, and we will continue to suffer,” he said.

“So, as much as we like the theory that everybody should be promoting the merits in democracy, if you want to come to power and if you want to make positive change for the country, we will have to try to see that all Hindus come up,” Dr Barai said.

Sharing his analysis of the party's performance in the general elections, Dr Barai said the slogan “400 paar” did a great disservice, as people did not go out to vote thinking that Modi is coming back to power anyway.

Secondly, people in many parts of India, in particular places like Uttar Pradesh stayed home due to scorching heat, he said adding that he would recommend elections be held in February-March or September-October timeframe.

“But the most important part is to convince the voters that the BJP is a different party. The elected representatives, instead of becoming Congress Party B and enjoying power, they should try to go and serve the people. The legislature should go to their constituency, understand the problems of the people, and try to serve,” Dr Barai said.

There was a lot of disinformation by the opposition party and its leader Rahul Gandhi, Dr Barai said and added that the BJP workers should go out in the society, meet people and acquire their confidence.

“If you go as a panna pramukh only on the day of election or time of election, people are not going to listen to you. But during the year, whenever they have problem, if the Karyakartas go listen to the people, take it to the legislators and try to get their problem solved, that is what is going to take for us to know as true karyakarta's party that is the Bharat Sevak party and not another brand of political party like Congress,” he said.

“Keep in mind that we are the party of Bharat Seva, not of Bharat Meva,” Dr Barai said.