Never did a by-election generate so much interest and heat as Hisar has done. It is practically a political ‘do or die’ for the three main contenders in the fray — Congress, INLD and the Haryana Janhit Congress-BJP alliance with the larger than life image of anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare looming large on the polls. For Congress, in particular, the outcome has implications which go beyond Hisar and Haryana and has the potential to impact national politics.
No stone is being left unturned by either of the parties to score over each other. Now Team Anna has also jumped in the fray with an appeal by Anna Hazare to vote against the Congress, which remains the only major party in the fray here whose candidate has not given an undertaking to support the Jan Lokpal Bill.
As Anna’s videos are being played out in the cyber world and the constituency and his team members start a tour to take his message to Hisar to not vote for the Congress, the two beneficiaries are obviously INLD candidate Ajay Chautala and HJC-BJP combine candidate Kuldeep Bishnoi. If corruption indeed becomes an issue and Anna’s appeal is able to sway a sizeable section of the voters, Bishnoi could benefit given the fact that Chautala was recently chargesheeted in a CBI court on corruption charges.
Voting would be only on October 13 and the result five days later, but politicians of all hues from Chandigarh to Delhi via the agricultural belt of Haryana are talking as to what would happen in the event of the likely win of any of the three candidates. Also, what happens if Anna’s appeal goes in vain and Congress indeed emerges victorious? A win or defeat for the Congress would undoubtedly trigger a serious brainstorming in the grand old party. I am sure the Congress Core Group has discussed the issue threadbare and would do again the moment the results are declared.
If Congress candidate Jai Prakash wins, the party would emphatically claim that Anna is a mere paper tiger, does not have any influence on the voters and at best can be good at fasting not in influencing the voters in the countryside. It would raise the stock of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in party hierarchy and in the eyes of the high command. His detractors within the party would be sidelined and he will have a smooth tenure till the next Assembly elections.
Also, the Jan Lokpal Bill will be dispatched to the cold storage of the parliamentary committee for some more months, if not years. The committee could take its own sweet time which could span the entire tenure of the UPA Government till 2014, in the eventuality of the party emerging as a surprise winner.
Hooda has been camping in Hisar for the last several days, clearly indicating how important the by-election is for him and the party at the national level. An advertisement blitzkrieg has been launched in the electronic media by the Congress with a parody of “Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle…” of the popular Manoj Kumar film Upkar, dominating the sound waves. Patriotic songs and flag waving, the trademark of the Anna movement at Ramlila Maidan has clearly being hijacked by the grand old party in the video being played out to seek votes for the hand symbol. Though the three star campaigners of the party — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi are not expected to campaign, the amount of effort and energy the party is expending has never happened before for a mere by-election.
Despite these, if Congress loses, the party would try to hide its embarrassment by saying that in any case it was not holding the seat and minimise the long-term political damage by coming out with an anti-graft Bill to the Anna’s liking in the Winter Session of Parliament. This would help prevent him campaigning against Congress in Assembly elections of Punjab, Uttarakhand and then Uttar Pradesh in early 2012, states where Congress has a huge political stake. The party is hoping to form governments in Punjab and Uttarakhand and Anna’s campaign could adversely affect the chances. In Uttar Pradesh, Congress wants to substantially improve its tally to boost the political confidence of Rahul Gandhi before he is projected as the prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 General Elections.
So Congress is taking Hisar as a test balloon. I don’t think the party would take chances with the Jan Lokpal Bill if it gets defeated in Hisar. After all Rahul Gandhi’s test as an election-winning leader hinges on improved performance in UP. Also the regional satraps in Punjab, Uttarakhand and then Himachal Pradesh would lobby for a Jan Lokpal Bill if Congress gets defeated in Hisar as they would realise that even a 3-4 per cent vote against them on the issue of Jan Lokpal would well mean being consigned to the Opposition benches for another five years. Congress is in Opposition in all these contiguous states which go to polls in 2012.
In the event of Chautala emerging victorious, the alarm bells would start ringing in the Haryana Congress as INLD is the main Opposition in the State and Hooda’s remaining term would be spent battling the party. In fact, if it does not win the seat, Congress would like Chautala to get defeated as the INLD is the immediate threat to its supremacy in State politics as Hooda had failed to get a majority on his own and, it was only after he won over the MLAs of the HJC that he managed a workable majority to form government.
Moreover, in the Jat-centric politics, both Chautala and Hooda are vying to consolidate the votes of the dominant caste (a term used by sociologist MN Srinivas), and whoever wins has a long-term advantage.
So silently, Congress would be praying for a win. If it doesn’t, it would prefer Bishnoi in the Lok Sabha instead of Chautala. It knows how to deal with Bishnoi as he too comes from the same political thought and was in Congress all his life till his father Bhajan Lal broke away when he was denied Chief Ministership of the State in 2004. However, Bishnoi’s victory would cement his newly-formed alliance with the BJP and a third pole in the bipolar politics of the State would emerge. (October 9, 2011)
(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)
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