With the
low-key election year Budget over and done with on February 28,
the political positioning and shoving began with a vengeance. The last few days
have seen a flurry of activity from the leading prime ministerial hopefuls.
Narendra Modi did his usual grandstanding routine at the BJP national council
in the capital last weekend, and gave a speech that was too shrill and mocking
in tone to be appreciated by anyone other than his most hard-core followers.
More interesting than his speech, I thought, were the sullen faces beside him
on the dais and also the undisguised attempt by LK Advani in his speech
afterwards to compare Sushma Swaraj with Vajpayee. And as if that were not
enough to remind us of Modi’s polarising nature, hours later came news of the snub
by Wharton Business School revoking his invitation to speak at their event
under pressure from students and faculty. Unless the Gujarat CM starts to show
some dexterity and modulation in his political discourse it may prove to be
that his prospects have peaked too early in the electoral cycle, a shooting
star instead of a rising star. The media spotlight on him is bound to dim with
time and then he’ll have to fight it out in the trenches with the rest of the
BJP leaders for the party leadership. Modi will require a much thicker skin as
well, because it is becoming apparent that the effortless coronation he
expected is not coming to pass.
Meanwhile, Mulayam Singh Yadav was
having an even worse time of it, confronted by a perfect storm in the Kunda
stronghold of his favourite Thakur leader, the infamous Raja Bhaiya. What
precisely happened there is unclear but when the violence ended a Muslim police
officer and a village pradhan as well as his brother, both Yadavs, were dead.
The Muslim-Yadav electoral combination has formed the bedrock of Mulayam’s
ascent to power and it was Raja Bhaiya, after Amar Singh’s departure, that gave
an upper-caste face, however controversial, to the Samajwadi Party, which
gained them the extra vote share that took them over the majority mark in the
last assembly election. Three dead bodies, one powerful don, and three
political constituencies to assuage. The end result was that Raja Bhaiya would
have to resign and the CBI brought in, but jailing him was out of the question
for now. Political calculations and an impending general election would not
allow it. If and when the CBI arrest Raja Bhaiya the Samajwadi Party can say it
was out of their hands and I’m sure the former jail mantri will be placed in
the cosiest of accommodations.
And then we come to Master Rahul
Gandhi, the ultimate non-aspirant, who spoke off the cuff, and hidden from
cameras, in Central Hall on Tuesday and left everyone scratching their heads.
Calling himself a parachute, by which I suppose he meant he was a parachute
artist who gained power by taking advantage of dynasty, qualified as my
favourite line in his otherwise pointless and self-defeating testimony. If Modi
seems grasping for power, Rahul baba is the political yogi of our times who
thinks power is poison and he will have nothing to do with it—as long as, I
imagine, he gets to stay comfortably ensconced in his SPG bubble. Rahul may be
right in signalling to the voter that he is not yearning for the PM’s chair and
only interested in selflessly fighting for their welfare, but this spiel may
get old rather quickly, especially if repeated too often. I suspect Rahul knows
the next election is an upward climb for his party and would be perfectly fine
donning the role of Opposition Leader in the next Lok Sabha, gaining experience
and stature against a third front government with a short life expectancy. A
fatigued Congress Party certainly looks like it could do with a rest from
government after a decade in power.
In last week’s pre-Budget blog post I had
asked the question about who would be Rahul’s Manmohan if the crown prince did
not wish to take office. At the time I confess I never assumed that Rahul’s
Manmohan could also be, well, Manmohan himself. If Chidambaram was put forward
by Outlook magazine in its most recent issue as a prime ministerial prospect, it might have been just the spark needed to awaken our dear
incumbent PM from his customary inertness in the Lok Sabha chamber on Wednesday to give his
most effective parliamentary performance thus far, humbling the entire BJP
front bench with a mixture of poetry, suitably self-serving statistics, and a
fire in his belly that made everyone sit up and take notice. He even got in a
nice jab at Narendra Modi. Could it be the old fox wants another go around, age
and health permitting of course. I see no reason why the Gandhi family would
protest. Dr Singh’s exuberance even went as far as predicting a third election
victory for his government a year in advance of the elections. Too bad it took
him nine years and two Lok Sabhas to find his footing. Or maybe Rajnath Singh,
outshining the consistently lacklustre Sushma Swaraj, was right to mention in
his reply to the PM’s speech that a flame that is about to extinguish always
burns brightest in its dying moments.
Such was the drama of the week in
Lutyens’ Delhi, where personalities and their ambitions dominated issues and
events. But the reality is that the next elections may have nothing whatsoever
to do with the qualities of the individuals aspiring to be PM, and may just be
decided by accretion of seats in state electorates voting within their own
narrow polities on local issues, only marginally keeping in mind the national
context. The strength of parties, national and regional, in their areas of
influence could determine the result. So it is imperative that we first and
foremost lay out the electoral map of the country. In other words we must
ascertain the state of play, Lok Sabha-wise. Naturally, my knowledge and
understanding of states in northern India will be better than states further
away from Delhi, so if any of you readers would like to add your views on a
state with which you are closely acquainted I would definitely look forward to
reading your comments. Let’s begin setting the electoral table, region by
region, state by state. What follows is my best analysis and prognostication
about the current position of the major parties in each state. So here goes.
Beginning in the north, Jammu and
Kashmir is a state where governments normally align with the ruling alliance in
Delhi, explaining it to their voters as a compulsion since a good rapport with
the centre is necessary because of the sensitive security situation prevailing
in the state. This time around the Abdullahs look like they are on shaky ground
in the valley, especially after the Afzal Guru hanging, whether the PDP or more
extreme elements will gain from it is unclear. The results of the 2 seats in
Jammu are a good barometer of how the BJP and Congress are going to perform
nationally and need to be closely watched. In Himachal Pradesh we recently had
an assembly election where the Congress triumphed, and the edge has go to them.
On the other hand, in Uttarakhand the first hints of anti-incumbency have
already begun to surface after a tight assembly election result and the new
Chief Minister putting up his son as the Congress candidate in the by-election
to fill his vacated parliament seat and losing to the BJP. The Bahuguna
government has not started its term on a good note at all.
In Punjab the Akalis have been through a torrid time with law and
order-related bad new after bad news, but they seemed to have turned a corner
with a recent by-election win last week in Moga after the sitting Congress MLA
defected. The reverberations of the loss could be felt in the last couple of
days when Capt. Amarinder Singh was replaced as President of the Punjab Congress. Mutinous murmuring
from the Maharaja’s supporters could mean the defection of another Congress MLA
or two and would further demoralise the party workers. The Badal family performs like a finely-tuned machine when it comes to fighting elections but,
conversely, is anarchic in the realm of administration with the state treasury
just about running on empty. In Haryana it looks like the hold of the Hooda
government on the state seems finally to be weakening with anti-incumbency,
real estate scams, dissidence, and sympathy for the jailed Chautala father and
son combining to put the Congress Party’s 9-seat haul from the last election in
jeopardy. The Aaam Aadmi Party too could play a role with two of its leaders
Arvind Kejriwal and Yogendra Yadav from Haryana and expending a lot of energy
in the state to build on the result of the Hisar by-election result in 2011
when the Congress candidate lost his security deposit in large part due to
Kejriwal’s exertions. Not to be forgotten, and possibly entering the fray too,
is former army chief General VK Singh who could stand from his home district of
Bhiwani, unless he decides on Jhunjhunu across the border in Rajasthan.
Speaking of which, a far worse fate awaits the Congress government in Rajasthan
where the alternating pendulum of voter support is set to swing back towards
the BJP, with Vasundhara Raje looking to oust for a second time the hapless Chief Minister, Ashok
Gehlot, in assembly elections later this year. The Raje-RSS rivalry within the
state BJP unit could be a spoiler were it to boil up again.
The polity of Uttar Pradesh is so vast
and complex that it may as well be categorised as a nation with its many and
varied regions as provinces in their own right. If the rumours are true and
Narendra Modi fights from a parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh, the
state will be front and centre in the 2014 campaign in a way not seen in many a
general election. Rahul vs. Modi vs. Mulayam vs. Mayawati. I’m sure the
political pundits are salivating at the prospect. The voters of UP have an
opportunity to choose a PM if they decide to overwhelmingly back one of these
leaders over and above the others. Mulayam is the veteran and it could possibly
be his last bid for the top job, which could resonate with the voters from an
emotional standpoint. As for Rahul, he will be a far more effective factor in
the general election than the assembly poll because he will actually be contesting
himself, and possibly with his sister as a candidate as well, and that always
rallies the troops. But the Congress has 22 sitting MPs from the state and
anti-incumbency in those constituencies will be a factor. As always Modi is the
wildcard, capable of changing the entire race with his mere presence. As the
poster boy for Hindutva and also an OBC, he needs to replicate what Uma Bharti
managed in Madhya Pradesh. The difference, however, between the two Hindi-belt
states is, of course, the significant size of UP’s Muslim electorate. The
question is, whether the Muslim voters will consolidate in response to Modi,
and if so, in whose favour. Will they back the man they affectionately call 'Maulana Mulayam' or will they overcome their residual distrust of the Congress
and throng to Rahul’s flag. Many, many questions and all fascinating. An early
election in 2013 would favour Mulayam because a breakdown of law and order in
the state, especially communal flare-ups, could be incrementally eating into
the gains his son Akhilesh made in the 2012 assembly election. On the positive
side Mulayam’s vehement opposition to the constitutional amendment for
reservations in promotions during the winter session of parliament earned him
considerable goodwill with OBC and upper-caste voters. But a year still remains
till polls are scheduled, an eternity in politics, and there could be many more
ugly surprises in store for the rulers of Uttar Pradesh.
Shivraj Chauhan, the BJP Chief
Minister who is the antithesis of Modi, appears to be quietly popular in Madhya
Pradesh, as best we can tell, and holding his own against a Congress party that
is as faction-ridden as it has ever been. The situation could alter slightly if
Digvijay Singh returns to the electoral mix after keeping his vow of staying
away from elected office for ten years. His return to the field could give a
much-need emotional fillip to the Madhya Pradesh Congress. Raman Singh in
Chhattisgarh appears rock solid as always but can he repeat his stellar
performance in 2009 of winning 10 out of 11 seats. What role will the Maoists
play this time around. Naveen Patnaik in Orissa suffered dissident problems
last year but has recovered confidently from that trying experience. Coal scams
and increasingly violent protests against the Posco land acquisition could still be
important election issues, though. The BJP and Congress have no state leader to
match the stature of Patnaik and the state assembly election will take place
simultaneously with parliamentary elections, which normally provides a boost to
the Lok Sabha tally of the party with a strong chief minister like the BJD.
If the BJP and Janata Dal (United)
maintain their alliance in Bihar there is little doubting their chances to
increase their already large share of the state’s 40 seats. Even if they do
sweep, there is no guarantee Nitish Kumar will stay with the NDA thereafter,
bolting if the BJP insists on a Prime Minister Modi or tempted by the prospect
of joining a third front government. The Congress is waiting with open arms to
seal a pre-election alliance with the JDU, but is in no position to make up for
the loss of the BJP’s crucial upper-caste voting block that would ensue.
Whether the resulting increase in vote share among Muslims, after the BJP’s
departure, will deliver Nitish Kumar the number of seats he so desires is the
dilemma. Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan wait in the wings marginalized and
hoping against hope for Nitish to make a misstep and provide them an opening.
The Bihar CM, a trained civil engineer, is not known to take gambles,
calculated risks perhaps.
Jharkhand is an electoral nightmare as
usual, and currently under President’s rule. BJP is confident but they will
need to do well to defend their tally of 8 seats from 2009. With the jailed
Madhu Koda and his record of uninhibited corruption as Chief Minister still in
the news, the Congress is less sanguine. Shibu Soren’s JMM and Babulal
Marandi’s JVM are always a force to be reckoned with thanks to their tribal
support base. The alliances will make the difference. In West Bengal, despite
her chaotic approach to governance, Mamata rules supreme after having won the hard-fought ground war in Bengal’s rural areas. The recent underwhelming by-election
results have got to be a worry, but nobody doubts that come 2014 she will at
the very least improve on her performance from the last general election. On
the campaign trail she is a force of nature and no other Bengali leader can
compare. Whether the Congress will survive her electoral assault in its last remaining bastions of North Bengal will also be interesting to see. The Gogoi government in Assam looks vulnerable
after last year’s sectarian clashes showed the Chief Minister and his
administration in an extremely poor light. He is now making overtures towards
the AIUDF, a Muslim-dominated party with whom he had earlier vowed never to
ally, which could either turn out to be a shrewd gambit or a move that
backfires with his own base. Whether the AGP and the BJP can take advantage of
Tarun Gogoi’s vulnerabilities is not certain, especially after their poor showing in the just concluded violence-marred panchayat polls.
To the west, Gujarat should go with
Modi in support of his aspirations, gaining seats for the BJP in a more
convincing fashion than the surprising stalemate with the Congress in 2009.
Maharashtra is anybody’s guess with Raj Thackeray giving strong signals of
making peace and allying with his estranged cousin Uddhav Thackeray, thereby
uniting the Shiv Sena in spirit if not in body. This will make a decisive
difference to seats in Mumbai and neighbouring regions and cost the
Congress-NCP crucial seats. Whether anti-incumbency affects the Cong-NCP in the
rest of the state is hard to say as the alliance has been so resilient in past
elections even when they seemed to be facing a wave of anti-incumbency.
However, with much of Maharashtra stricken by drought and the state government
bearing the blame after the uncovering of an irrigation scam that stunned the
nation because of its scale and cold-blooded venality, this may be the final
straw. Or could the much publicised shenanigans of Nitin Gadkari hold the BJP-Shiv
Sena alliance back from effectively using corruption as a poll plank. And what
impact will Anna Hazare have in his home state if he decides to campaign in the
election. A great many variables to wrestle with in Maharashtra. Manohar
Parrikar is a safe pair of hands for the BJP in Goa and its 2 seats.
In the south, Andhra Pradesh is a
train wreck happening in slow-motion for the Congress and with a current tally
of 33 seats, YSR’s electoral legacy, they have a lot to lose. An imprisoned
Jagan Reddy, like Mamata, has vowed vengeance and he will get it. Congress did
respectably in recent cooperative society elections but these polls are hardly
a genuine indicator of the electoral mood in the way the impending local body
elections will be. There is a school of thought, a very short-sighted one, in
the Congress that thinks granting statehood to Telangana will save them at
least from a whitewash in the region’s 17 Lok Sabha seats. Possibly, but it
will let loose demands for statehood across the country in regions ranging from
Gorkhaland to Vidarbha to Harit Pradesh to Bundelkhand and beyond that will be
an electoral headache many times worse than Telangana is currently. Divine
intervention may be the only solution for the Andhra problems of the Congress. The
BJP is in an equally desperate condition in their southern bastion of
Karnataka, with Yeddyurappa’s revolt likely to cause them grievous electoral
damage and resulting in a loss of seats to the benefit of the Congress and Deve
Gowda’s Janata Dal (S).
It will be tough for the Congress to
repeat its stellar general election performance in Kerala with its state
government mired in one scandal after another, whether related to sex or
corruption. As for Tamil Nadu, you will
be hard pressed to find a single soul who believes the DMK is in any position
to recover from it dire performance in the 2011 assembly elections, and
therefore has little chance of maintaining their currently healthy seat total
in the Lok Sabha. P Chidambaram’s re-election hopes are also in jeopardy here,
with Chief Minister Jayalalitha targeting him for defeat.
New Delhi’s 7 seats should swing back
in a substantial way to the BJP, with the urban vote clearly moving away from
the Congress and the electoral strength of Mrs Dikshit on the wane. Arvind
Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party appear to have taken up the opposition space
in the last few months, pressuring the Dikshit government in a way the BJP has
failed to do during her terms in office. If the Kejriwal experiment is to
succeed anywhere it would probably be in Delhi which was the epicentre of the
Anna Hazare movement against corruption. But realistically the damage being
done to the Congress by the Aam Aadmi Party is likely to help the BJP win
seats. We’ll find out if that supposition holds true in assembly election later
this year. Of the North-Eastern states, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura
recently voted with the NPF, Congress and Left governments being re-elected, a
voting pattern that should be replicated in the general election. Maybe Purno
Sangma’s party will do better in a national election, especially if he himself
chooses to stand from his old seat of Tura in Meghalaya. The Outer Manipur seat
could also give the Congress some problems because of the recent increase in
strife between Nagas and Kukis that led to duelling blockades of the valley
districts. The North-East has some dominant chief ministers in office at
present like the NPF’s Rio in Nagaland, Congress’s Ibobi Singh in Manipur and
Lalthanhawla in Mizoram, the Left’s Sarkar in Tripura, and SDF’s Chamling in
Sikkim. Parliamentary elections in smaller states like these with one or two
seats are like single-ballot referendums on the state government, the quality
of the chief minister the crucial variable. Every seat will matter in the 16th
Lok Sabha.
I did not make an exact count of seats
as we went from state to state in our journey criss-crossing the political
landscape of India, but if you piece together my state by state approximations into a whole you will find
one glaring trend. The diminution of the two major national parties. In a
recent column for rediff.com Mr TVR Shenoy, the veteran journalist whose career
and political memory stretches back half-a-century, terms it the ‘Bay of Bengal
Problem’ for the Congress and the BJP. He posits a realistic scenario where the
two parties are wiped out from all the states along the Bay of Bengal coast
stretching from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu that together constitute a sum total
of 145 seats, of which the Congress alone won 54 and the UPA tallied 91 in
2009. The BJP doesn’t exist in these states anyway—ignoring the aberration of
Jaswant Singh in Darjeeling—having committed hara-kiri in Orissa last time
around and parted ways with the BJD, its last ally in the region. Going by
current trends the Congress is faced with the real possibility of being left
with a mere handful of seats in this arc of states which provided so
plentifully and decisively for the UPA in the last two elections. Demolished in
Andhra, their ally DMK equally battered in Tamil Nadu and no Mamata to fall
back on for support with her bounty from West Bengal, it would spell the end of
re-election hopes for the government. I should underline, however, that though
the Congress would lose seats it will not be to the BJP’s gain. The chiefs of regional
parties are set to be the main beneficiaries in the coming election from the
look of things. Not to mention President Pranab Mukherjee, who will decide
which individual to swear in as Prime Minister after what could very likely be
a fractured verdict. The man who once waited for the call in vain will now make
the call. I guess you live long enough and anything is possible.
Thus our electoral table is set. It
was exhausting to write it, and no doubt to read as well, so I can’t even
imagine what stamina it must take to plan a general election campaign that has
to reach every last polling booth in the most distant and diverse
constituencies. May the best campaign win!
Stay tuned for my next blog post: The
Communal Conundrum
Very well written. You summed up the situation for someone who had not much clue about the political scenario.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting option is suggested by Rajdeep Sardesai in his blog in the "Post Scrip" which may provide an acceptable option for an NDA Coalition to work... Modi being perceived as a Polarizing leader & without a broad based consensus on either Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley , The chances for NDA may look good if Mr. Advani throws his hat in the ring.... Check out the link below for Rajdeep's Blog...
ReplyDeletehttp://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rajdeepsardesai/1/64379/bjps-modi-dilemma.html
Good stuff! Want you to take this deeper and look for the unexpected also! Timing of the election and any incident that takes place in the close lead up will be of paramount importance. The electorate is set for some sort of a wave, either this time or two years from the first election if a very fractured verdict comes through. If the INC loses two elections fought so close together a lot of the allies will also be ready to flock to the other side, the second time around less allies would be required. Look for a parallel in what happened in 1996-98. UP needs to turn around for sure and if the Mulayam honeymoon is over the second time around, the state might vote differently at the national level. The first time around a lot of people might just set out on their own and not have any pre poll alliances. BJP needs to project a strong leader for Delhi to turn the assembly and the lok sabha results around in Delhi, Dixit is a spent force, maybe Sushma needs to be put up here. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgargh will stay strong to the BJP. Punjab 4-5 seats, Delhi 6 seats, Bihar should be ok, not sure if alliance will go through so cant but a number on the seats.(They won 90% of contested seats in the assembly elections). Haryana would be a better performance 5 BJP,3 INLD/OTHERS ,2 INC. Numbers should be better in Maharastra too, here again alliances need to be clear to project seats. BJP will come through in Jammu. Uttaranchal BJP will come through. HP split the first time. Goa 2-0. Orrisa they should get 7-10 seats the first time around. Big trouble in Karnataka the first time around. Big problems for them are: Cannot really open account in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal which is 153 seats!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Aman
Wow! Such an amazing and helpful post this is. I really really love it. It's so good and so awesome. I am just amazed. I hope that you continue to do your work like this in the future also Anganwadi Recruitment 2019
ReplyDeleteHi buddies, it is a great written piece entirely defined, continuing the good work constantly.
ReplyDeletedata science coaching in hyderabad
betmatik
ReplyDeletekralbet
betpark
mobil ödeme bahis
tipobet
slot siteleri
kibris bahis siteleri
poker siteleri
bonus veren siteler
A8RM