The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday, June 21 announced its support to former Lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma for the Presidential polls. The BJP has been arguing that as the main Opposition, it does not want to give a walkover to Congress. While this may be true, the BJP it would seem failed to come up with a suitable candidate who could give a fight, not just a token one, to the UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee. Poor Sangma seem to be unaware of the BJP’s ploy to use his candidature only for the sole reason of bargaining with two prospective allies for the BJP in the coming 2014 General Election. Sangma has been arguing that he is a candidate of the Tribal Forum of India (TFI), a group that one has heard very little about. Anyway it is obvious that the significance of Sangma’s candidature comes not from the TFI but the endorsement he received from two powerful regional players—Jayalalitha of the AIADMK and Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal. And it is precisely this two regional party that the BJP is trying hard to win back into the BJP led NDA Alliance ahead of the 2014 election. Sangma only happened to be at the right time and place otherwise without the political support of the AIADMK and the BJD, the BJP would never have supported Sangma for President. Those who are representing the so called TFI should therefore not get too carried away that the BJP is in support of a tribal President. To best describe the decision of the BJP in backing Sangma, one can call it a calculated political move to broaden the NDA alliance with two powerful regional satraps.
So is Sangma completely unaware of all that is going on? Probably not because being a shrewd politician himself, he would have assumed that the BJP would not have been able to resist the temptation of backing someone who had been endorsed by two politician, which the BJP had been trying hard to court. Nevertheless, one should admire the resolution of Sangma, who despite all the odds stacked against him never gives up without a fight. However the concern is also that Sangma’s political ambition and his open willingness to compromise with his principle could well lead to his own downfall. Although starting off as a staunch Congressmen, ever since his revolt against the leadership of Sonia Gandhi (on her foreign origin issue), Sangma has become overly anti-Congress even though his former NCP party is an ally of the UPA government and his daughter has been made a Union Minister. All these years, Sangma has been propagating an anti-Congress alliance in the Northeast. In fact during the run up to the last Lok Sabha election, sensing the debacle of the Congress led UPA government, the so called Northeast People’s Forum was floated under Sangma’s leadership. Further expecting the NDA Alliance to come back to power, Sangma publicly announced that he would contribute at least 4 or 5 MPs to the BJP led NDA kitty. But as soon as the Congress led UPA stormed back to power, the much touted NE forum simply disappeared and Sangma was back at his game wooing the Congress party for a ministerial berth for her daughter Agatha Sangma, which she finally got. It is therefore not a surprise that Sangma is again jumping ship. And perhaps with another General Election due soon and the Congress led UPA facing anti-incumbency it is only a matter of time for Sangma to formally join the BJP led NDA.
