AMITABH SHUKLA
In the National Council meet of
BJP, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
the “Night Watchman”, who is only warming the seat for Rahul Gandhi as and when
the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty decides to assume office.
Though it is difficult to fathom
the logic as no one can actually be the “Night Watchman” for almost nine years,
the remark nevertheless triggered uproar as everything related to Modi does,
with Congress giving it back to Modi in the same language.
Even as the two parties were
targeting each other, the sane counsel of LK Advani got drowned in the
cacophony and Modi hype. Now, more or less in the role of a patriarch with
Prime Ministerial ambitions behind him, Advani counseled the party to reach out
to the allies and the minorities apart from zero tolerance towards corruption.
In its enthusiasm to project Modi as the undeclared prime ministerial candidate
of the party, BJP leaders of late seem to have forgotten how to reach out to
the potential allies, something which Advani has suggested and given a timely
reminder. It was the USP of Vajpayee who led a 23-party coalition successfully.
As Advani was the Number 2 and the man behind many of those decisions, he knows
it better. At this point of time, the allies of BJP could be counted on finger
tips and in the past several years, it has got no new entrants except little
known Haryana Janhit Congress with one member in the Lok Sabha. Those who have
walked out are in double digit.
At a time when the vote share of
both Congress and the BJP is more or less stagnant with little or no chance of
it going drastically up or down, it is the allies who will matter the most in
2014. Whoever gets the maximum allies and support of the regional parties will
have a fair chance of getting its nominee as the Prime Minister. If BJP gets
most of the regional players in the NDA fold, it could have Modi or whoever it
wants as the PM; if not, Congress would surely have Rahul Gandhi this time
given the regional arithmetic it has assiduously worked in the past almost nine
years ever since it came to power in the 2004 elections.
In the last quarter of a century,
ever since the Mandir issue catapulted the BJP as an alternative power Centre
and the Mandal issue paved the way for emergence of powerful OBC satraps in North
India , the power has decisively shifted to the regional parties
and their chieftains. The two national parties have just become the cementing
factor whom these parties support for their own regional aspirations and to get
their demands met from the Centre.
Even as the BJP has sounded the
poll bugle in its Delhi meeting, it
has so far not attempted to get Trinamool Congress, AIADMK and Biju Janata Dal
in National Democratic Alliance. All the three parties were crucial for the
formation of the Atal Bihari government and provided valuable support as
allies. Telugu Desham Party too has so far been out of the NDA scheme of things
even though it still has a sizeable following in Andhra Pradesh.
Just consider the fact that on
its own, BJP does not matter in any of these States —West Bengal ,
Tamil Nadu and Odisha which are headed by Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalitha and
Naveen Pattnaik. Add Andhra Pradesh to this list and you get four States which
together send almost 140 members to the Lok Sabha where BJP hardly has any
presence and so far it has failed to stitch an alliance even when the polls are
a little over a year away. Perhaps it wants to do well in the northern States
and places where it is strong so that the parties who are watching it from a
distance could come to it and join the NDA after the results. But this is not
as simple unless the groundwork is done before the polls for a pact or the
party gets an assurance of support after the polls.
Then there are States like Uttar
Pradesh where none of the two main players — SP and BSP — would support the BJP
and on its own, the party cannot repeat the magical numbers it got when
Vajpayee formed government.
The BJP meeting in New
Delhi , which followed the one of Congress in Jaipur,
has clearly set the tone of political discourse in the run-up to the Lok Sabha
elections. While Jaipur catapulted Rahul Gandhi practically on the throne as
the Number two of the party and the prime ministerial candidate, New
Delhi did a similar thing to Narendra Modi. It has
paved the way for Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions like never before with no
serious challenger emerging so far from the party.
Modi played to the gallery well.
In his speech, he hit the Congress hard and pointed how it has become a
dynastic party. Already, a lot of the leaders and ministers owe their position
to their dynasty and now there are several sons of these leaders and ministers
who are set to make a political debut. This includes sons of AICC General
Secretaries Oscar Fernandes, Digvijay Singh and Janardan Dwivedi. Also the sons
of Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and
Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh are set to follow the footsteps of
their father anytime now.
Opposition to dynastic politics
could perhaps be the USP of BJP in the run up to the elections as so far the
party hardly has any leader whose son or daughter is in serious politics.
Corruption could be another issue
which the BJP would hope to bank on with something or the other tumbling out of
the cupboard of UPA Government every now or then. But it depends on the
Congress how well it defends its scams and on the BJP on how it finds chinks in
the armour of the ruling party.
But these are macro issues which
are crucial, but not all important when a person goes out to cast his vote. His
or her regional aspirations, local issues and factors too count a lot and it is
here-in the management of the micro issues where the BJP has found to be
lacking.
Getting allies on board on a
consistent basis in the run-up to the polls is micro poll management and the
BJP will have to show its skills here. Congress has an advantage as apart from
the Trinamool Congress it has consistent allies who have been through thick and
thin.
It will be Micro poll management
which holds the keys for the prime ministerial chair in 2014 as both Congress
and BJP are evenly matched so far in the Macro issues on which polls are
generally fought. (March 4, 2013)
http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/130887-roadmap-2014-becomes-clear.html
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/130976-roadmap-2014-becomes-clear.html
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