At the end of yet another Chinta Baitak> the BJP still looks so confused, that you wonder how they managed to run the country for 5 years. Led by aging dinasaurs they still seem to be singing yesterday’s song with singers who are terribly out of tune. Much like a Lata Mangeshkar sings a “mere vatan ke logon” today, and most of us who loved here singing wince because her voice is thick, nasal and out of tune – so to it is with the BJP.

I am not the greatest fan of the BJP. There are too many of their members who are either in bed with raving zealots from the RSS to give me any level of comfort with the party. Yes, if they break links with the RSS and the rest of the raving rightwing – the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, et al – and just become another party that has right wing ideology – yes, one may think about voting for them. But until the party is controlled by fascist it is, atleast for me, unelectable.

So in Goa, what did the BJP do. Well, they began by saying we are going back to Hindutva. Then when other NDA (what NDA) allies made a noise the BJP said that maybe not Hindutva. And then they came out with a final line which said that Hindutva is nationalism. Now, the flip side of it is that if you think that Hindutva is crap – which I do, not because i am a psedu secularist but because I am a devout Hindu – then you (the voter) is probably an anti nationalist.

In the two months since the general elections, and being voted out, the BJP has looked totally shell shocked and rudderless. While there is a part me which wants to rub her hands in glee at their going into an auto self destruct mode, there is also another part which says that unless an opposition party behaves like an opposition – it is going to be dangerous for Democracy. Image a Lalloo exercisng power and no one there to check him. Staying away from parliament – like an aging prima donna throwing a tantrum – is not any way to behave like a responsible opposition.

The BJP in the last two months has not shown any indication of being a party that could take on the responsibility of power. They are behaving like a bunch of school bullies and lower stall audience -that is making a laughing stock of themselves.