VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Opinion and exit polls are to be
taken with a pinch of salt. What they reveal is crucial but what they conceal
is vital. They have gone horribly wrong on several occasions while
occasionally, they have been able to help gauge public opinion as to which way
the wind is blowing.
A recent survey shows the NDA
marginally ahead of the UPA. Even as the Congress is losing ground in a big
way, the gains for the BJP are not enough to catapult it to power in the
elections. But the opinion poll pertains to the present situation and has
several variables like the turn of events in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls
and also the NDA and UPA getting new allies.
BJP campaign committee chief
Narendra Modi is clearly helping his party get votes in several states and the
urban areas. Elevation of Modi coupled with the general disenchantment with the
Congress-led UPA is helping BJP get 30 more seats than the Congress in the
opinion polls.
Given the fact that either NDA or
UPA will be in a position to form government with the present allies they have,
it would all boil down to the mathematics of addition and subtraction after the
polls. It seems the winner would not be decided by the people but in the
drawing rooms of Lutyen’s Delhi . If
that indeed happens, there could be nothing more unfortunate for Indian
democracy. Remember, how the country fared with Prime Ministers like HD Deve
Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujaral, Chandra Shekhar and earlier Chaudhary Charan Singh.
All these leaders were selected as prime ministers through political
maneuvering in the drawing rooms of senior leaders in New
Delhi rather than by the people. Even VP Singh was
chosen on the political chessboard though he enjoyed popular support in 1989
when he overthrew the Rajiv Gandhi Government and became Prime Minister on the
crutches of the Left and the Right.
In BJP, there is an internal
debate raging ever since Modi was catapulted to the centrestage. Talk to some
leaders and they would admit after some prodding. BJP leaders admit privately
that Modi could take the party to the threshold of power, the way LK Advani did
in the Mandir days, but when it comes to enjoying the perks, he will be at a
natural disadvantage. They point out that there is many a slip between the cup
and the lip as far as Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions are concerned. They
say post verdict mathematics and internal dynamics could install either LK
Advani, Rajnath Singh or Sushma Swaraj in the chair in the name of “broader
political consensus”. And, it would be the post poll mavericks, moves and
realpolitik which will make or break Modi’s ambitions.
Look at a possible scenario where
NDA, which includes BJP, Akali Dal and Shiv Sena gets 180 seats, almost 90
short of power. From where will it get the numbers from? If JDU in Bihar
has say 20 seats but wants Advani on the chair, will the BJP have the
conviction to refuse the offer of support? Similarly, if BSP manages 25 seats
in UP and joins hands with JDU saying that they don’t want Modi as PM but
anyone else from the BJP is acceptable, will the saffron party be able to
resist such a pressure?
If NDA has any realistic chance
of forming the next Government at the Centre, it will have to do business with
its erstwhile allies like the AIADMK, JDU, Trinamool Congress, Biju Janata Dal
and also possibly BSP in Uttar Pradesh and the TDP or TRS in Andhra Pradesh.
Except AIADMK which would agree to Modi’s name, none of the other potential
allies have shown any such inclination and will seek their pound of flesh and
that would obviously be any other name not that of the Gujarat Chief Minister.
If BJP wants Modi on the chair and wants to reward him for bringing the party
close to power, it will have to single handedly get 200 seats and then the
remaining numbers could come without any problem or preconditions imposed by
other parties. If the people of the country indeed want Modi for the top job,
they will have to restrict Congress to below 125 seats and give over 200 to
BJP. Simply put, if the BJP wants to come to power, the difference with
Congress has to be around 75 seats. Anything less at this point of time will
not help its cause.
What is clearly discernible at
this juncture is that despite doing badly in its second term, Congress is
convinced that the moment it crosses 150 and keeps NDA in the region of 180, it
will be in an advantageous position. It won’t have to work hard to get the
allies given the fact that the secularism-communalism debate is turning
shriller and BJP is trying its best to get into the trap laid by the Congress.
Obviously, Congress would like the election to be a referendum on secularism so
that people forget the mega serial scams, mis-governance, inflation,
unemployment, lack of growth and general economic despondency.
While BJP has almost got into the
Congress trap of secularism, the grand old party has refused to take the bait
of BJP which wants 2014 to be a contest between two personalities — Modi and
Rahul Gandhi. Congress knows that the moment it is converted into a battle of
personalities, the way it is done in the presidential system of the United
States , it stands little chance. Rahul is
yet to show anything worthwhile or a successful model of governance, preferring
to be a man of the organisation. Modi, on the other hand, has a successful
track record in politics and earlier in the organisation.
Post polls, while BJP could be
burdened with the choice of the Prime Minister, I think in Congress the choice
would be rather easy this time — Rahul Gandhi. If Congress insists on retaining
Manmohan Singh, it will easily lose around three dozen seats in the country so
lacklustre has been his performance. Rahul, on the other hand, is an untested
commodity with apparently a committed though NGO type approach towards
governance. Though all his political ventures have failed — Assembly elections
in UP, going alone in Bihar , so called democratisation
of Youth Congress, etc but still Congress has USP of youth in Rahul. But given
the way Rahul functions, he would show any interest in the job only if the
party gets over 200 seats on its own, a distinct impossibility at this point of
time. Perhaps Rahul and his close aides would be ruing their decision in 2009
when Manmohan Singh became the Prime Minister for the second time in a row and
not the scion of the Gandhi-Nehru family despite Congress crossing the figure
of 200 on its own and running a comfortable Government for over four years now.
Some in the Congress now say that
Manmohan Singh could have been asked to “retire” on health ground during the
halfway phase of UPA II, sometime towards the end of 2011 and Rahul installed
in his place. That could have helped the party counter anti-incumbency and also
Rahul could have taken some pro-people vote catching decisions in the remaining
tenure. But that was not to be. It’s too late now for such a misadventure. (July 29, 2013 )
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