Not arithmetic, only chemistry: Ram Madhav on alliance for 2019

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Ram Madhav was at his candid best at the India Today Conclave South 2018 on Saturday as he spoke about a host of issues concerning the saffron party.

While the topics ranged from the party’s performance in the recently concluded assembly elections in five states to the upcoming general election in 2019, Madhav bluntly termed politics as chemistry, and definitely not arithmetic — a phrase that he would use a couple of more times during the session.

Madhav also hit back at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for his attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hit out at him calling him a great failure for the state. Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is an erstwhile ally of the BJP in Andhra.

“Politics is not arithmetic. It’s chemistry. All the way. You never know what might work and what might not. It’s about situations. As they turn out, the parties function. The TDP parted ways with us. But you never know if they come back,” Madhav said, adding, “there are no permanent enemies or friends in politics; there are only permanent interests”.

Madhav further said the BJP was open to any party to forge a coalition.

“We are welcome for any alliance,” he asserted.

Madhav further took on the Congress party and said when the BJP says it wants a Congress-mukt Bharat, they don’t mean to wipe it out physically.

“We want to end the political raj of the Congress party. And hopefully we have wiped it out of the Northeast,” he said.

According to the BJP general secretary, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has a long way to go before he becomes a world-class leader like Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I agree there is a wave of sympathy for Rahul Gandhi because he has been criticised a lot. But one cannot become a world leader only by receiving criticism. If that was the case, Modi ji is invincible, because every Opposition leader criticises him and calls him names,” he added.

Congress registered a victory in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, but the BJP is not really worried about it.

“It [the Congress party’s victory] does not mean we have become weak in that region. It just means we will have to try a little harder. We have already wiped Congress off from the Northeast. We have a strong South and East too. We are not very worried,” he said.

Having said that, Madhav does feel bad about the party’s poor performance in Telangana.

“But then Congress and TDP also performed bad. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has a strong presence in the state. And that is one of the many reasons we failed in the assembly elections,” he said.

When asked what those reasons were, Madhav dodged the question and said, “We are working on every reason.”

ON TDP AND YSRCP

“The state [Andhra Pradesh] requires a better alternative. We are willing to work with any other group here,” Madhav said, calling both the TDP and the YSR Congress (YSRCP) corrupt “family parties”.

Earlier this year, the TDP walked out of the NDA (a national coalition led by the BJP), frustrated with Andhra Pradesh’s wait for a special category status.

Madhav tore into Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, saying his government had been a “a great disappointment” to his state’s people and that he’d does “tamasha” to hide his failures.

“We will go from house to house to tell the people the truth,” Madhav said. The TDP, he said, has become the “other side of the Congress coin” — “same nepotism, same family raj, same inefficiency, same corruption”.

What about Naidu’s the YSR Congress (YSRCP)? Asked if the BJP will want to do business with them after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Ram Madhav said, “[The] question does not arise.”