New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has become BJP's Central Election Committee chief despite opposition from senior party leader LK Advani but faces many big challenges and responsibility. Modi's elevation at the National Executive meet in Goa has not only given him a very important and responsible position but also made sure that his path ahead will be full of thorns.
The biggest challenge that Modi faces is to ensure unity within the party after opposition by the Advani camp. Even if the RSS is not going to support Advani, his supporters like Sushma Swaraj can be a big hurdle in Modi's path. Sushma Swaraj is one of the senior most BJP leader and can be a candidate for prime ministership along with Arun Jaitely and Rajnath Singh.
After the loss in 2004 Lok Sabha election the BJP lost several allies. Today the BJP has only the Shiv Sena, Akali Dal and JDU in the NDA. However, the JDU is not happy with Modi taking centre stage. Moreover, there are no signs that old allies like Trinamool Congress's Mamata Banerjee, AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa and BJD supreme Navin Patnaik are going to join hands with the party anytime soon. So Modi has to ensure that the BJP not only increases many more seats that the party's present tally but also gets new allies.
Even though the BJP has been in power at the Centre thrice, but the party has never won an absolute majority on its own. In 2009 Lok Sabha election the party managed to win just 116 seats while the half-way mark in the Lok Sabha is 273.
Modi faces an onerous task of expanding the party's support base especially after the BJP was routed in Karnataka, a state where it had won a massive mandate in 2008 Assembly elections. The party has also weakened in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh while in Uttar Pradesh the BJP is struggling to make sure that its seat tally reaches the double digits.
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