SOROOR AHMED analyses the factors behind the electoral defeat of CPM, BJP and RJD, and comments on the differences and infightings which usually occur in political parties in India when they lose power.
Indian politicians appear to be bad losers. They lack sportsmanship spirit. The rout of a party is usually followed by bitter infightings and desertions. At times the Anti-Defection Law simply fails to check the crossing-over to the other side of the fence.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Rashtriya Janata Dal are the three important parties which faced big losses in the recently held parliamentary elections. True, the Telugu Desam, the All India Anna Dravid Munnetra Kazagham and Akali Dal too suffered defeat in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Punjab respectively yet their impact was not so strong on the political Richter scale of the country.
While the BJP and CPM are ideological parties, having their own committed cadres and organisational networks, the RJD is essentially a Bihar-based party, with some presence in Jharkhand, which too was a part of the same state till November 2000.
Now all the three parties are in turmoil. Incidentally, the BJP and CPM, both having collective leadership, are passing through the worst crisis of its kind. There is open rebellion in the saffron camp with top shots like Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha openly attacking the party president Rajnath Singh and Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani. There is no dearth of leaders who are now openly questioning the transformation of Hindutva Brigade into the Moditva Storm-troopers. The RSS hit back with one of its ideologues advising the BJP to shed Hindutva and follow some other ideology.
Similarly, after the ‘unexpected defeat’ in parliamentary elections 2004 the BJP faced a crisis of sorts. But some of the leaders tried to gloss over the infighting by giving a new twist to the whole issue. Immediately after the defeat Sushma Swaraj created a drama. She threatened that she would get her hair shaved if Sonia Gandhi became the Prime Minister.
The Left parties, especially the CPM, are in disarray, with many leaders openly conceding that nuking the Manmohan Singh government on the nuclear deal with the United States last July 22 was a major strategic mistake. In Kerala the party leadership is facing serious charges of corruption. In West Bengal the situation is all too grim with the Maoists virtually forming a parallel government in Lalgarh township of West Midnapore district. Their leaders openly claim that they have the backing of Trinamool Congress and Congress Party. After the defeat the CPM cadres seem to be on retreat. The party, which in the last three decades managed to plant its men in all walks of life, even in the masjid, mandir and puja committees, is helplessly watching them killed and their houses razed to ground or torched by the Maoists or the Mamtaists. Many of them are silently switching sides and joining the Didi’s outfit.
The RJD, which was essentially a one-man party, is no doubt confronting the same predicament. A couple of its top state-level leaders resigned from the party after the debacle to join the Janata Dal (United). But unlike in the case with the BJP and CPM, the RJD never had any big base among the intellectuals. It had hardly any organisational network nor is it a cadre-based disciplined party. While the BJP and CPM performed more badly than it was predicted, the RJD, with alliance partner the Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan, fared on the expected line.
Yet an objective analysis reveals that the situation is worst in the BJP to be followed by that in the CPM. Ironically, the RJD is gradually managing to learn while out of power. What is shocking about the BJP, the party with a difference, is that unlike the RJD, which hardly enjoys any middleclass support, is that it is in a pitiable position in spite of the firm backing of the media, the corporate bosses and the bureaucracy. This is the party on whose pay-roll are a number of eminent columnists of the country, who can twist all the facts for serving the political ends of the Hindutva or Moditva forces.
If the two successive defeats can reduce the so-called well-disciplined party into a bunch of loose cannons, nothing should be said about the other parties. Notwithstanding all the shortcomings, the truth is that the incumbency factor played a key role in the defeat of the CPM and RJD. The Left parties have been enjoying 32 years of non-stop rule in West Bengal. They have been in and out of power in Kerala as well as in Tripura. Similarly, the RJD had been in power since March 10, 1990. Though in 2005 assembly election it lost yet it had considerable presence in the Lok Sabha till last May.
This long period of being in power made the leaders as well as cadres of the CPM and RJD either corrupt and complacent, or both. A lot of contradictions started emerging from within. But the problem with the BJP is quite different. In alliance with some smaller parties, it remained in power for just six years and yet it seems to be withering away. Though most of the BJP bigwigs spent a large part of their life in opposition and political wilderness yet six years in power has made them power-hungry. It seems that just like a fish out of water they cannot survive without power for too long.
The irony with the CPM and RJD is that they lost when they changed gear and adopted a different approach. The West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattarcharya suddenly became the darling of the middle class and the media after the Left swept the 2006 assembly elections. His party won 235 seats in the House of 294. He announced the opening up of its economy. The media praised him profusely when he gave land for setting up a small car factory and Special Economic Zone. It was another thing that the whole move backfired.
Similarly, the RJD lost when it tried to shed its image of being anti-development. Whether it was really opposed to development or whether it was just a canard spread by the Press is a different issue, but the truth is that in the period between 2004 and 2009 the RJD leaders did everything possible for the interest of Bihar. As the railway minister its leader Lalu Prasad brought investment worth Rs 55,000 crore and the railways earned the profit of Rs 90,000 crore. He himself ended up as one of the better railway ministers of India. Yet from 22 seats out of 40 in the last Lok Sabha (29 with alliance partner LJP and Congress), its share reduced to just four. Lalu himself lost from one of the two seats he contested.
Another interesting point is that the CPM and RJD lost while trying to become the beloved of the urban middle class, whereas the BJP lost in spite of always championing the cause of the same class. The irony lies here.