End of road for Team Anna

VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA

Forcing the government to bring in a Lok Pal Bill, whatever its defects, and making the people of the country take note of rampant corruption, Team Anna is finally battle ready. As the first step of its new political avatar, Team Anna faces two elections – Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat later this year.

Taking a cue from Jai Prakash Narayan who was the father figure of the anti-emergency protests who steadfastly refused to contest elections, Anna Hazare too has decided not to contest and instead provide political direction to the team he heads.

While members of team Anna compare the former army man turned Gandhian and anti-graft crusader with JP and are looking to recreate the same magic, clearly Anna is no JP. Any comparison would be a farce as the situation is not the same and there is no political backing for him. JP could channelize the anger of the people triggered by emergency, unemployment, corruption and the economy of shortage into a mass movement which dislodged Congress from the seat of power in New Delhi for the first time since Independence. Team Anna does not inspire that kind of confidence and there would be few takers for the theory that it could repeat such a show.

JP was practically disowned by the power hungry and warring leaders of the Janata Party even when he was alive. It was a similar situation when Mahatma Gandhi found himself isolated after the country’s freedom and had started a debate on disbanding the Congress to convert it into a social service organization saying its role was over. While Congress leaders perched on seats of power, refused to heed to the Mahatma, so did the warring leaders of Janata Party who betrayed not only JP but also the people of the country as they could not even fulfill the mandate to rule for five years.

Much water has flown down the Ganges since then. Team Anna has already realized that people of the country do not take things for granted. It saw a dwindling crowd support first in Mumbai and then in New Delhi and obviously saw the futility of hitting the streets every now and then on Lok Pal and corruption triggering the decision to form a political party.

With no grassroots structure, minimum resources and dwindling support base, Team Anna would enter the poll arena in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat where elections are scheduled in November. These two elections will be ‘make or break’ for the fledgling political party which is yet to be named.

Interestingly, both Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat have a lot of similarities. Both have practically a two-party system and both are ruled by the BJP. Both the states have some breakaway groups of the BJP – the Himachal Lokhit Party in the hill state and Keshubhai Patel’s new party in the Narendra Modi ruled state.  Team Anna intends to be the fourth or fifth player in this quagmire if at all it contests the polls.

The team hardly has a couple of months to build a structure, spot honest candidates to contest the polls, look into the possibilities of entering into alliance with likeminded parties, find issues to corner both the Congress and BJP and then emerge as a credible alternative to the two seasoned parties.

Talk to any Congress or BJP leader and they are amused about Team Anna entering politics. Team Anna had mocked at politicians during its campaign at Ramlila Maidan last year. The same politicians are now mocking at Team Anna for its decision of becoming one of the 1300 odd parties registered with the Election Commission.

So far, the Team seems to have a single agenda that of Jan Lokpal through which it wants to end corruption. For making any serious bid at power, they will have to come out with their economic policies and take a position on myriad issues ranging from social, educational, farmers’ problem, land acquisition, naxal problem, reservations, etc. to reach out to the people. Nothing is known about the stand of the Team Anna on these issues as so far it has been a single agenda organization.

As Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat go to polls, there would only be a handful who would vote for Lokpal or corruption. People would judge the state governments or their opponents by their performance or non-performance, development, economic growth etc. The performance or lack of it of every candidate would be under the scrutiny of the voters. Caste and regional considerations as usual will play a role. Local and state level issues would dominate the polls and definitely not Lokpal. Corruption would obviously be an issue but the fact is that it has remained an issue for the last few decades and Team Anna cannot bank on it as the sole issue which can get it votes in the polls. Dominating the air waves on television and contesting polls are different ball game altogether. This is what Team Anna would realize as it stares at the two assembly elections this year.   

Now the performance of Team Anna would be judged from the number of votes its candidates get in each of the assembly segments. If the Team manages to open its account in the assembly polls of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat and gets at least 5 per cent of the popular votes in each of the two states, it may be counted as a political player with potential for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. If it doesn’t and gets 500 to 1000 votes in each of the segment in contests, it will simply fade away to oblivion and few tears would be shed. (August 6, 2012)
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