SOROOR AHMED analyses the recent Assembly elections in half a dozen States, and hopes the UPA would increase its tally in the coming Parliamentary elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is certainly not feeling good. Not just because it lost elections in Rajasthan and failed to win back Delhi or barely managed to scrape through in Chhattisgarh, but because it has greatly lost the bargaining position within the National Democratic Alliance. In the last about five years it has already lost many friends and with the recent drubbing there is likelihood of more parties deserting it. The Akali Dal and Shiv Sena may be the trusted allies but they are not going to win too many seats for the NDA in the coming Parliamentary elections as Punjab has relatively small number of seats and the Sainiks are a divided lot in Maharashtra.
In contrast the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa and Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, the two important constituents of the NDA, which may appear somewhat powerful on the (news)papers, have their own quota of problems. However, even these two parties may now find the atmosphere congenial to arm-twist the BJP.
True, Assembly elections and the Parliamentary elections are fought on different plains. Therefore, to say that the recent Assembly election was a semi-final and the final is to take place in March-April is pre-matured. But surprisingly it was the BJP leaders, who were saying so before the Assembly elections. Now the same leaders are saying that there is nothing like semi-finals and final in elections.
Yes, one should not go by the result of the Assembly elections. In December 2003 the BJP won Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and failed just in Delhi. This notwithstanding the fact that the then chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Ajit Jogi, did relatively good work in his state during his reign. On January 10, 2004 the then general secretary of the party, Pramod Mahajan, in a state of euphoria, announced that the Parliamentary elections would be held in April and not in September-October the same year. It was only after the defeat in May that the BJP realised that this six-month preponement really proved dear to the party.
This time there is no scope for the Congress party to commit that mistake – that is to advance the date of Parliamentary elections – as the Lok Sabha election is now already due in April. However, a comparison of the 2003 Assembly elections in these states with those in 2008 reveals something else. True, the Congress was down in the dump till March 2004 and the NDA, according to then media reportings, was expecting to sweep the poll yet the NDA lost the elections.
What the BJP – or the NDA – leaders repeatedly fail to realise is that too much reliance on the media, exit polls, opinion polls, etc. often proves counter-productive. Slogans like Shining India and Feel Good factor seriously let down the party. Too much media exposure is equally devastating.
Besides, the BJP on its own has its limitations. It can never go beyond the figure of 180 to 190 in Parliament of 545. What happened in 2004 was that it was seriously let down by its alliance partners such as Telugu Desam, Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena, Janata Dal (United), etc. Today Telugu Desam and Trinamool Congress have distanced themselves from the party, Shiv Sena has got split and a new party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has come up. The Janata Dal (United) is not in a position to make any big change in Bihar, which sends 40 MPs to Parliament. The bureaucratic style of chief minister Nitish Kumar is most likely to harm the NDA in the way it has destroyed the BJP in Vasundhara Raje’s Rajasthan. Nitish has not only angered all the top BJP leaders of Bihar but also all his own party bigwigs in the state and at the Centre.
In Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 seats in Parliament the BJP is totally out of sync. The tussle is likely between Mayawati and Mulayam-Congress alliance. And if the unpredictable Mamata Banerjee fights elections in alliance with the Congress then the BJP would be a big loser.
Though the UPA is all set to increase its tally in the coming Parliamentary elections, what is worrying it is the stand of the Left Front. Last time the UPA got the outside support from the Communist parties in forming the government. But now Left parties have their own problems. In 2004 the Left did its best in its strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala. It is most likely that the Left Front’s tally is not going to reach 60 this time. So the prospect of Left-led Third Front is not so bright.
The UPA’s problem is that most of its constituents get bad Press. While the BJP leaders are the darlings of the media – for obvious reasons – the achievements of the Congress-led UPA have seldom been highlighted. Though the Manmohan Singh government has failed on several fronts and there are strong reservations in the minds of people over the nuclear deal with the USA, its overall performance was appreciable. Yet the media overlooked them. In several NDA-ruled states the regional media are giving credit for these centrally-sponsored schemes, such as NREGA, rural roads, rural health schemes, etc. to the state governments and not to the Centre. This shows the blatant partiality of the Press.
Apart from finance, rural development, health, human resources development, the railways is the other field in which the Centre did really well. Lalu Prasad has emerged as one of the most successful railway ministers of India, not only because it earned whopping profit but also because it witnessed lesser number of accidents. Yet in the Press of his home state of Bihar, Lalu continues to be the most maligned man. This notwithstanding the fact that he had brought projects worth Rs 65,000 crore to this state during the last five years.
Whatever be the media’s role, the assembly elections in half a dozen states, including Jammu and Kashmir, have stimulated the political activities in the country. Battle lines are being drawn and the parties are working overtime to sew up social as well as political alliances.