Realpolitik behind BJP’s reprimand of Mandi MP Kangana Ranaut for her remarks against farmers
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 27
More than anything else, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s rare reprimand of Lok Sabha MP and actor Kangana Ranaut for her remarks against farmers are rooted in realpolitik.
The ruling BJP remains acutely conscious of the 2024 Lok Sabha election setback it suffered in the rural heartland of India.
The party lost a third of its rural Lok Sabha segments, showed a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).
The CSDS found that while the BJP support fell 1% in villages and 3% in semi rural segments as compared to the 2019 elections, principal opposition Congress gained 1% and 7% respectively in these areas. The study had reached 18,000 voters across 191 LS segments over six weeks.
With a loss of support among previously strong electoral segments, the BJP failed to attain a simple majority on its own for the first time in a decade and returned to dependence on allies to stay in power.
Kangana’s anti-farmer comments naturally rang alarm bells in the party which has been at pains to mend its ties with the pressure group ever since the farm law fiasco and on the issue of statutory backing for minimum suuport price (MSP).
That explains why the BJP issued a rare official statement dissociating with the Mandi MP’s comments — something it has not done in the recent past.
The party has at the most verbally disowned controversial remarks made by its leaders.
The BJP’s act of a written statement on Kangana is being seen as an attempt to control the damage her remarks may have caused to the party on the eve of elections in Haryana, where farmers, dominated by the electorally influential Jats, hold the key to power. Further, nearly 35% of Haryana’s population resides in villages — a segment the BJP can ill afford to ignore.
BJP leaders from Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are also learnt to have conveyed their extreme displeasure over Kangana’s statements to party president JP Nadda, who authorised the official Monday statement dissociating from what Kangana said.
Though there were reports that Nadda had summoned Kangana on the issue today, the same could not be confirmed.Officially the party has ordered Kangana against speaking out of line in future.
Cases of BJP’s verbal distance from leaders
- 2024: MP Anant Hegde who had urged voters to give a two third majority to the BJP to effect changes to the Indian Constitution.
- 2019: Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur’s statement that IPS officer Hemant Karkare died in the Mumbai terror attacks since she had cursed him.
- 2017: Unnao member of Parliament (MP) Sakshi Maharaj who had blamed the Muslims for population boom.
