Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party exulted at its windfall gains in Bihar, courtesy the Nitish wave that swept across the state, it did not let the moment get the better of its natural instincts. The news from Patna had barely begun to sink in, and the Congress party had barely gathered its wits to respond to the summary rejection of its negative campaign in the state, that the BJP announced in New Delhi that the tainted Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa would stay on. Doing so, the principal opposition party in parliament not only let the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance central government embroiled in a series of corruption scandals off the hook and squandered a rare political opportunity but also exposed the lack of authority within its ranks.     

The win in Bihar signifies the triumph of development-oriented governance in a traditionally caste-ridden polity. The capitulation to Yeddyurappa, on the other hand, acknowledges the party's reluctance to grapple with the political consequences of dispensing with a leader who belongs to the dominant lingayat caste in Karnataka. Two states, two contrasting signals. The second, ill-timed as much as it is ill-advised, takes away from the euphoria of the first. It is all the more infuriating because it is clearly timed to pass away almost unnoticed and undebated in the bigger news from Bihar.

Citing the upcoming panchayat elections in the state next month, the party president Nitin Gadkari said in a statement on Wednesday, "After my consultations with senior party colleagues and the state leaders, the party has decided to continue Yeddyurappa as the chief minister." The statement came just three days after the party urged Yeddyurappa to resign for showering favour on family members with land allotments.

Yeddyurappa had said in almost as many words that by being corrupt he was only following in the footsteps of his predecessors. What's more, the first BJP chief minister in south India had dug in his heels and threatened revolt. Reasons enough for him to be shown the door. And that is exactly what the BJP would have done a few years ago. That was when Kalyan Singh, Pramod Mahajan, and anybody else for that matter, had to contend with the Vajpayee-Advani duo that brooked no such nonsense. Nothing illustrates the erosion in the party's command structure since those days quite so tellingly.

Despite scoring the self-goal at a time when the party believes the audience is riveted to the match in the other stadium, the BJP is sure to discover to its discomfort that it will take more than a piggyback ride to rid itself of its vulnerabilities.