The Bharatiya Janata Party continues to adopt leaders who either opposed it during their respective lifetime or who refused to toe its line. If the party carries on this practice, days are not far away when it may appropriate the Mandal hero, V P Singh, whose government the saffron party brought down in 1990.

The first deputy prime minister-cum-home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was instrumental in imposing ban on RSS after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Today the leaders of Sangh Parivar shower fulsome praise on him and even consider the choice of Jawaharlal Nehru as the prime minister by Mahatma Gandhi a mistake. In Gujarat the world’s largest statue of iron is being built in the memory of Patel.

But Patel is not just one such leader. They have adopted several lesser known personalities in various state too, especially those who had opposed the Nehru-Gandhi family. In September 2013, that is just three months after the BJP-JD(U) alliance collapsed in Bihar the saffron party was reminded of celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of the three-time former chief minister and former Congressman,
Bhola Paswan Shashtri––obviously to woo the Dalit voters, especially Paswans or Dussadhs. It is other thing that Amit Shah, who was initially supposed to attend it––and a couple of other state BJP leaders––could not turn up in this function.

Since last year the BJP has taken up the campaign to observe the birth anniversary of former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, who has absolutely nothting to do with the saffron party.

In 2014 the party invited the then national president Rajnath Singh for this occasion. The objective was clear: to woo the extremely backward caste votes. The party projected Narendra Modi as a backward caste leader and it succeeded in attracting a large number of EBC votes.

This year the party’s present president Amit Shah was the chief guest. Incidentally, just five days before his arrival communal riots broke out at Azizpur village in Muzaffarpur district. Coincidentally an EBC, Sahni, was in the forefront against Muslims after the body of a youth belonging to this caste was recovered from the farmland of a Muslim.

But unlike in Muzaffarnagar the party did not whip up the communal passion in Muzaffarpur.In the function organized by its EBC Cell Karpoori Thakur was given special status. His portrait was placed between that of the two leading lights of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. He was projected as if he was very close to the Sangh Parivar, when the truth is just the opposite.

Amit Shah chose the occasion to highlight the anti-Congressism of Karpoori Thakur and accused Nitish Kumar of abandoning his ideology and for joining hands with the Congress.Former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi recalled how the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, then a constituent of the Janata Party, helped Karpoori become the chief minister in 1977. But he did not mention how the same Jan Sangh brought his government down in 1979.

Though the Jan Sangh withdrew its support a few months after the implementation of Mungeri Lal Commission report, which recommended reservation for the backward castes in the state, the supporters of late CM always accuse it of bringing his government down.In 1978 Bihar witnessd a widespread anti-reservation movement.

But Karpoori Thakur had to resign from the post of chief minister after April 1979 Jamshedpur communal riots.However, believing that people’s memory is short and young generation is not aware of all these facts the BJP is now going all out to project Karpoori as its hero.

If the Sangh Parivar continues with its policy of appropriating leaders just for the sake of votes they may one day end up observing the birth anniversary of V P Singh. But the big question remains: whether to attract Rajput or backward caste votes. V P was a Rajput, but he ended up doing more favour to the backwards, leading to a massive anti-reservation agitation in 1990-91 in which many lives were lost.

Ideological compromises are made with political rivals when he or she is alive. This is often called marriage of convenience. But the BJP is adept in appropriating dead political opponents to achieve its objective.