VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
As the battle for 2014 unfolds,
the bitterest battle would perhaps be fought in the Gangetic belt of Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar .
The prevalent electoral mood in
these States seems to be similar to what existed in the post Babri Masjid
demolition days — combination of anti-incumbency and polarised voters,
something which helped catapult BJP to power then.
At the grassroots level,
polarisation is taking place gradually but surely ahead of the polls. Ask any
politician who moves about in his constituency in these two States and they
will tell you that polarisation is indeed there and this is taking place after
a decade-and-a-half.
Communal trouble in parts of
north and central Bihar early this year, large-scale
violence in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh and serial bomb blasts in Patna
at the time of Narendra Modi’s rally may be the prime factors for increased
polarisation. Pollsters would say that when polarisation takes place, issues of
development or non- development, governance, performance and even caste
identity, which is a hallmark of the two States, takes a backseat. The main
political parties of UP and Bihar —Congress, Samajwadi Party, BSP, JD(U) and
RJD — would argue that BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi himself is
a polarising figure given his track record in Gujarat and this was bound to
happen. But I see this differently. Take for example Uttar Pradesh, which was
first ruled by BSP for five years and then by the Samajwadi Party for the last
one-and-a-half years. Ask even the staunchest of SP supporter what the party
has done after promising so much when Akhilesh Yadav became Chief Minister and
they would stare at you blankly, not knowing what to say. Known for firing at
the Kar Sewaks in the heydays of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, the
same Samajwadi Party simply failed to do anything to check raging communal
violence in Muzaffarnagar. Can the Government answer a simple question as to
what did the administration do when large-scale violence was taking place and
people from both communities were being killed?
In fact, the SP Government failed
not once but repeatedly. So much so that violence in Muzaffarnagar has taken a
cyclic form and taking place every now and then, even when this column was
being written. I was talking to a friend who happens to be a Muslim, now
settled in the United States
as a Law academic. He argued that failure of the State Government was
“deliberate” so that Muslims in rest of Uttar Pradesh would be gripped by fear
psychosis and vote for the ruling party in the Lok Sabha polls so that its
chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has some chance of putting his hat in the ring when
there is a hung House next year and a motley bunch of the so called Third Front
comes into the picture. I am not sure about the fairness of the argument but
definitely surprised how communal violence can still take place in this era and
cannot be controlled when battalions of paramilitary forces and Army can be
moved anywhere in the country within two-three hours. If a major communal
violence does not lead to polarisation, then what else will in a State which is
far away from 100 per cent literacy? In such a polarised situation, obviously
the BJP would benefit. More so, as Modi is the Prime Ministerial candidate and
Amit Shah is the General Secretary in-charge of the biggest State.
Besides polarisation, what is
working in favour of BJP in UP is the poor performance of three parties —
Congress, BSP and SP — over the last decade or so. People of UP gave Congress
over one-fourth of the seats in 2009 polls but they didn’t see anything
positive happening to them or for that matter in the country. They trusted BSP
for five years, gave it reasonable seats in Lok Sabha polls as well but
Mayawati continued with the decades-old politics of patronage and money. When
SP showed hope in the form of the young Akhilesh Yadav in 2012, they again
voted for him, only to be betrayed as the Government proved to be worse than
that its predecessor BSP. So here, the TINA (There Is No Alternative) factor
could be working for BJP. It remains the only party which has not been
tried-and-tested for the last 10 years. Fed up with the style of Congress, BSP
and SP, the floating votes and the new voters could be considering it even if
they have nothing to do with polarisation and are least affected by it.
In Bihar
after the JD(U) broke up its 17-year-old alliance with BJP, communal trouble
took place in Bettiah and in Nawada in August this year. But unlike the SP
Government in UP, the Nitish Kumar Government checked these with an iron hand
and did not allow the situation to flare up. Kumar, however, bungled
subsequently when his administration and security establishment did not make
foolproof arrangement for Modi’s Hunkar Rally in Patna ’s
Gandhi Maidan. The serial bomb blasts which killed Modi’s supporters vitiated
the atmosphere and now has led to polarisation. What made matters worse and
further polarised the situation was the Asthi Kalash Yatra of the BJP. Modi
again came back to Bihar to meet the victims of the
blast and undoubtedly, the entire sequence of events from the rally, to the
blasts, the Asthi Kalash Yatra and Modi’s visit led to division on communal
lines. Only the poll results would show to what extent this has taken place but
the events and circumstances point to it.
Apart from the polarising factors
in Bihar , politics there has taken a U-turn in recent
months. The RJD chief Lalu Prasad is back in jail as a convict in the fodder
scam and his Muslim-Yadav combine, assiduously built for over two decades, is
on the verge of collapse. While Muslims have started the process of shifting to
JD(U), a section of the Yadavs are looking for new political opportunity
outside RJD, in BJP. Moreover, after the end of JD(U)-BJP alliance, the Nitish
Kumar-led party is now bereft of a solid support base in terms of caste or
social dominance. So, 2014 would be, in a way a churning of the political
process in Bihar where caste, religion, social base and
a host of micro factors would all play a role to decide the winner. In such a
situation, polarisation helps and this is what goes in favour of the BJP at
this juncture. With UP and Bihar sending 120 members to the Lok Sabha and
polarisation taking place just ahead of polls, besides the shoddy performance
of the two State Governments and the rival contenders over the months and
years, BJP is smiling. Some of the party leaders with whom I spoke to are
pegging the figure at 60 in
both the States. But they argue that with still a few months to go for the
polls, the figures could go up. The SP, BSP, JD(U) and RJD vehemently deny any
such formulation and the surge of BJP. But what they agree with the BJP is the
scenario of Congress biting the dust in UP and being reduced to 3-4 seats from
22 it has in the present Lok Sabha and completely wiped out in Bihar if it does
not enter into any alliance. (November 11, 2013)
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