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POLITICAL DIARY
New Delhi, 14 March 2009
Election Roulette
ARE WE GOING BACK
TO 1967?
By Poonam I Kaushish
Politics today resembles a revolving door. One doesn’t know
who is in and who is out. Who’s jumping into which bed, eloping with whom,
tying the nuptial knot and divorcing whom. Who is entering which door and
cutting which deals --- sideways and under. Who is cutting corners or
double-crossing whom? Juxtaposed against this ever-changing kaleidoscope is the
quest of political parties for miracle men. All means favoured. Age, caste,
religion, sex no bar. So long as they can deliver power out of nothing.
The Congress President Sonia Gandhi busily hums “'Jai Ho Congress…!” The BJP quotes a
verse from Vikram Seth’s Suitable Boy --- “Kushal
Advani Nirnayak Sarkar” and bombards the Net. The nascent khichri Third Front prefers playing gulli danda with everything and anything
it can lay its hand on --- parties, polity and policy. All practicing
individuals’ meanness for public good.
True, it is still too early to predict the arrival of the
motley Third Front comprising CPM, CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc, TDP, TRS, JD(S) and
Bhajan Lal's Haryana Janahit Party as a stable pre-poll formation. Even as the
regional primma donna ---- Tamil Nadu’s Jayalalitha --- holds her cards close to the chest. And Orissa’s BJD
refuses to play ball. Notwithstanding, BSP’s Mayawati and NCP’s Pawar making
plain their Prime Ministerial ambitions. After all, if Gowda and Gujral could
become Prime Minister with their Janata Dal strength of 44 and 27 MPs
respectively (neither enjoying a popular mandate), why can’t they? However, the
Front has refused to bite so far.
Importantly, this is the first sign of regional satraps and the Left cohabiting to
challenge the bid of the two national parties. (after Morarji Desai’s 1977, VP
Singh’s 1989 and Gowda-Gujral’s 1996-97) Given that the Congress and BJP have
ceded space to regional parties in various States. And, wherein in the event of
a fractured verdict, the regional outfits could decide the complexion of the
next Government at the Centre. Plainly, the Third Front is trying to dent the
Congress-BJP appeal by driving home the point that the State leaders can
realize power despite the national parties. Besides, providing a ready platform
for parties in UPA and NDA to work out post-poll collaborations.
Already, various permutations and combinations are being
worked out. The Samajwadi talks ad nauseum of having no truck with the
Congress yet it has kept an opening for itself to negotiate a post-poll deal
and at the same time break bread with the Left. The NCP is part of UPA, but is
playing footsie with BJD’s Naveen Patnaik, Shiv Sena and Jayalalitha. Wherein
in a post poll scenario in case the Pawar falls short of a few seats to get the
top post, the Sena could chip in. In Kerala too, the NCP plans to contest after
its efforts to tie-up with the Congress-led UDF failed. No matter it could dent
Congress’s fortunes in the State. Besides, it was also flirting with regional
players in Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Assam.
The Left continues to see ‘red’ over the Congress even as
backroom channels have been opened to ‘do business again’. While, LJP chief Ram
Vilas Paswan, presently with UPA could turn-coat and side with the Front.
Assam’s AGP though aligned with the BJP too could switch sides if the Third
Front’s numbers work out.
According to these satraps,
the combined strength of Congress and BJP would be around 250 seats in the coming
polls, leaving the field open for an encore of the 1996-97 political drama when
the 44 MPs strong JD(S) Deve Gowda and Gujral led the United Front Government.
Thus, such a Third Front coalition could lead to parties presently in the
Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA to hop on board the regional bandwagon. In
fact, the CPM is going all out to broad-base the Front. See how Sitaram Yechury
rushed to Bhubaneshwar to seal a pact with the BJD after it fell out with the
BJP.
Understandably, there is a very high premium on these
parties which will be traded and horse-traded many times over. Witness the
games being played between the Congress and the SP. The SP duo, Mulayam-Amar
Singh who can’t make up their mind whether they love Congress’s Sonia more or
themselves. Both need each other to take on the BSP and survive. But neither
trusts the other nor are they sure whether a pact would survive. The BJP too
would like a pact with the BSP again to make it a strong contender for power at
the Centre, alongwith its other smaller allies.
Unfortunately, the national parties have been caught in a
web of their own making-- pandering and giving in to the blackmail of these
regional vote banks. Knowing full well that the national parties’ rule was
dependent on their support, the regional parties refused to be manacled any
longer. This resulted in the regional blocks adopting an uncompromising and
inflexible attitude not only towards national parties, but also cared a
tuppence for national stability.
The run-up to the 15th Lok Sabha has shades of
the Fourth General Elections in 1967 --- the first of the post-Nehru era. Whereby
the poll verdict shattered the Congress Party’s virtual monopoly of political
power. The State Assembly polls that followed only carried the process a stage
further. The time when the Congress was humiliated at the hustings and lost
majority in six of the 16 States (Bihar, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan and
W Bengal), defeated by a hastily cobbled up alliance of the various parties
which sought to form a coalition Government.
This encouraged dissidence within the Congress and led to
defections and the fall of its State Governments in UP, Haryana and Madhya
Pradesh. In fact, by July 1967 two-thirds of the country was under Opposition
rule. But none of these coalition Governments lasted for long --- their
longevity ranging between a few days and a few months. Sadly, these elections saw
the debut of politics by defection whereby parties tried to overthrow Governments
by winning over the MLAs via money and power.
The same holds true now. History, it seems, has come a full
circle. Thus, with the national parties vacating their central position and
being over-dependent on others to keep them at the centre-stage of the nation,
there is likely to be a vacuum in the party system at the national level.
Especially at a time when India’s political process has
touched a new low. Given the dynamics of politics in the present fragmented
state, clearly there will be an inherent compulsion for the parties to come
together, so as to be a recognizable force. Nothing objectionable. But when it
comes to alignments, there is a chasm between ideologies and objectives.
Sadly, so eager to come to power are they that no thought
till date has been given for a common meeting ground and how to jointly tackle
the challenges from within and without. For argument’s sake, it would have been
unimaginable a month ago that the CPM which left no stone unturned to lambast
the Manmohan Singh Government post the nuclear deal, specially on the economic
front, is today again talking in terms of a possible understanding with the
Congress.
What next? Can we merely shrug our shoulders and dismiss it
as political kalyug? No. True,
numbers will decide who sits on Delhi’s gaddi.
At the same time, all parties should quickly rethink their priorities and
desist from destructive mindlessness electioneering. If they are real Desh Bhakts as they profess to be, they
should remember this adage: Nothing costs a nation more than a cheap
politician. Jai Ho! --- INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
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