National parties and their leaders will have little role in the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry as the real players are going to be state leaders who are key managers and star campaigners.
Regional parties will try to check the BJP from gaining space in these states while trying to weaken the Congress further.
The BJP grew in Maharashtra and Bihar with the help of the Shiv Sena and the JD(U) and tried to got mileage of its association with the BJD in Orissa and the Trinamul Congress in West Bengal. But chief ministers Naveen Patnaik and Mamata Banerjee realised the danger and thus quit the BJP-led front. Now, the saffron party is relying on the AGP in Assam and the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir.
While chief ministers Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa, Oommen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi and N. Rangaswamy are the faces of their respective parties in the election-going states, the BJP has projected Mr Sarbananda Sonowal as its chief ministerial candidate in Assam and thereby made it clear that it will lead a front if it comes to power.
Mr M. Karunanidhi, Mr M.K. Stalin (DMK), Mr Vijayakanth (DMK) and other leaders of Dravadian parties will be players in Tamil Nadu. If the BJP has not projected its face in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry so far, the Congress too is not keen on any projection in Bengal, TN and Puducherry.
The BJP is making corruption an issue against the ruling parties in Kerala and West Bengal but it will be interesting to see whether it will raise this issue during the election campaign in Tamil Nadu where it is equally relevant.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the BJP’s star campaigner in the Bihar and Delhi Assembly polls against the Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad Yadav combine (JD-U-RJD) and Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) while BJP chief Amit Shah was the chief strategist. But now it has to depend on local leaders and raise local issues in these five states.
The BJP’s campaign against Mr Yadav’s “jungle raj” in Bihar proved counter-productive.
