VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
The countdown for the big battle
of 2014 has begun with the BJP constituting a massive team to help the party
come to power after a decade in wilderness. Constitution of as many as 20
committees with 98 leaders clearly indicates that this is a “please all”
formula which the Congress has been practicing for decades.
Apart from the all inclusive
mammoth team, what is clear from the overhaul is the fact that Narendra Modi
had his way in the constitution of the committees and their role in the run up
to the Lok Sabha elections. Now there is hardly any doubt that he would be the
unannounced prime ministerial candidate of the party and even a coup, possibly
by LK Advani, would not change that equation.
As per the scheme of things in
BJP, only two leaders—Advani and party President Rajnath Singh—would not report
to him. All others, including Leaders of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya
Sabha, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley would report to him in the all powerful
Campaign Committee. While Modi is the President of this Committee, other party
leaders, some of whom were thought to be his challengers, are mere members.
This includes not only the leaders of opposition in the two Houses of
Parliament but also former BJP Presidents and heavyweights.
While BJP would not admit that
the new team has a stamp of Modi and would insist that it believes in
collective leadership, Congress has no such qualms. It went gaga last month
when a reshuffle was carried out in the AICC and said with much fanfare that
this has the stamp of Rahul. Obviously, if anything happens in the Congress, it
has to have the stamp of Rahul or party Chief Sonia Gandhi. Nothing happens
without their approval. Congress may be crying hoarse that it is for internal
party democracy, holds internal elections, so on and so forth but ask any
leader—big or small—and they would tell you that the hierarchy in the party
begins and stops at Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
With Modi taking a centre stage,
BJP would have to guard against this authoritarianism which has existed in
Congress since the days of Nehru and Indira. Congress may have won successive
elections and claim that people’s love brought it to power but the fact remains
that except when Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister, the party for all
practical purposes was family owned, managed and controlled. Simply put, the
party cannot imagine itself without the family. BJP would be better served if
it manages to keep away from authoritarianism of a person (Modi) or an
organisation (RSS) and continues in the philosophy of collective leadership to
distinguish itself from the 127 year old Congress.
This is important as the people
and electorate of the country are maturing and have shown tremendous maturity
while electing their representatives and the Governments—both at the
State-level and Central Government. You simply cannot take the voters of the
country for granted given the tremendous skills they have employed to judge who
is better to govern them for the next five years. They have set aside all
conventional theories, giving a tough time to the pollsters and the
psephologists.
Take the largest State of the
country—Uttar Pradesh—which gave a clear verdict for the Samajwadi Party in
2012 and earlier the BSP in 2007. There was no confusion in the minds of the
voters as to who was better suited to run the state government for two
successive terms after a rag tag of coalitions ruled them for several years.
Similarly, when the Congress led UPA formed the Government at the Centre in
2009, the party managed a remarkable 22 seats in the State—it’s best ever
performance in two decades. But as the Congress was nowhere in the picture in
the Assembly polls to form a Government, all it managed was 28 seats in the
2012 polls. This shows the maturity of the voters and their preferences as to
whom they want as head of the Government.
In Punjab ,
which has never seen the repetition of the same Government ever since 1966, the
Akali Dal-BJP Government came to power again in 2012. For the first time in
four and a half decades, there was a pro-incumbency vote in the State in favour
of SAD-BJP.
In the first term of the UPA
(2004-09), Congress did reasonably well and brought in policies like NAREGA and
loan waivers and was catapulted to power for the second time in a row. It is a
different matter that in its second avatar, fatigue has set in and it has
mismanaged almost everything and derailed the economic policies, affecting
every section of the populace.
If we go to each State and
analyse the voting pattern in the last 10 years or so, we see a pattern of
maturity amongst the Indian voters. They elected Sheila Dikshit in Delhi
for three consecutive terms and Narendra Modi in Gujarat
for an equal number of terms along with Tarun Gogoi in Assam .
The same voters in Gujarat voted overwhelmingly for Modi
in Assembly elections but in Lok Sabha elections, they gave a respectable 12 of
the 26 seats to Congress indicating that they differentiate between a local and
a national election and vote accordingly.
In Madhya Pradesh, Congress was
rejected twice in a row and it could well be a hat-trick of rejections later
this year in favour of BJP’s pro development agenda. People in the state still remember how the Digvijay
Singh led Congress government empowered the local self-Government while
crippling all development and economy. Madhya Pradesh could be repeated in
Chhattisgarh as well. The voters rewarded Congress in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana
and Maharashtra for good governance and also lack of
unity in the Opposition ranks. They also recognised how the Left parties had
misruled West Bengal for decades and brought in Mamata Banerjee though she
might not have lived up to their expectations. Naveen Patnaik has been going
strong in Odisha on the ruins of the Congress for a while now. In Bihar ,
backed by good performance, JDU-BJP came to power. Obviously the equations have
changed after BJP withdrew support to JDU and it is a three cornered contest in
the State in the next Lok Sabha polls.
Also the voters changed
Governments in five years wherever they saw that their aspirations have not
been fulfilled and wherever they expected more from their elected Government.
Karnataka brought Congress back to power after five years and so did Himachal
Pradesh. Tamil Nadu brought in AIADMK while in Kerala the see-saw continued
with Congress led UDF coming to power though the margin was wafer thin. In Goa ,
BJP’s Manohar Parrikar having a clean image got a clear mandate overriding all affiliations
and he has managed to deliver since then.
For the 2014 elections, voters
are in the process of making their mind. A lot of them must have already done
so. They have shown tremendous maturity in the last few years in choosing who
would govern them. If any political party takes them for granted, it would be
at its own peril. (July 22, 2013)
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