VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
With the Assembly elections in
Haryana just a few weeks away, the existence or non-existence of a Narendra
Modi wave in North India would be tested for the first
time in an electoral battle after the Lok Sabha elections.
No one has even an iota of doubt
that it was the Modi wave which catapulted Bharatiya Janata Party to power in
May 2014. This was a “Modi wave” election in favour of the BJP which was
compared to the “sympathy wave” election in favour of the Congress in the wake
of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. Many a political analyst termed it a
“Modi Tsunami” which swept away all political parties and assiduously built
regional and caste equations in large parts of North and Western
India .
Now after the wave has subsided,
it is back to the basics in the Assembly polls. Here, local equations, issues
and caste factors matter more than the larger than life image of a personality
or a pan Indian issue. The bypoll results in Bihar have
already indicated how the BJP has to face new grass roots realities after a new
alliance and reduction in the intensity of the Modi wave.
In North India ,
Haryana would be one State which BJP watchers would be observing closely.
Expected to go to polls in October, the ruling party in the Centre has historically
always gone for an alliance here and this would be the first time that the
party would test its electoral prowess all alone. Even in the 2014 Lok Sabha
polls, the BJP fought with an alliance with Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC). It’s
a different matter that HJC lost both the seats given to it while BJP won seven
of the eight seats it contested.
Responding to the Opposition
emanating from the State BJP, the Kuldeep Bishnoi led HJC snapped its three
year old ties with it ahead of the Assembly polls. The alliance took shape when
BJP was a fringe player in the State and there were different set of leaders
calling the shots at the national level. Aiming to consolidate the non-Jat
votebank, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj and Dr Harsh Vardhan played important
role in getting the new alliance together after the party had snubbed Om
Prakash Chautala led Indian National Lok Dal. While Gadkari was the party
President in 2011, Swaraj was the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Dr
Harsh Vardhan was the BJP in-charge of Haryana.
After the generational shift in
BJP leadership, with Modi as Prime Minister and Amit Shah as party President,
Bishnoi was left with no sympathisers in New Delhi
who could influence the decision making. In the new dispensation, no one was
willing to honor the 2011 alliance which had offered as many as 45 of the 90
seats to Bishnoi-led HJC and Chief Minister’s post to him for the first two and
a half years if the alliance was voted to power. The Lok Sabha poll result
further proved that HJC had little standing in the State and Bishnoi was no
match to his mercurial father Chaudhary Bhajan Lal. Bishnoi himself lost from
Hisar, considered a family bastion, a seat which his father won in 2009 Lok
Sabha polls and he himself won in a by-election after the death of Bhajan Lal
in 2011.
Not realising that the BJP had
grown manifold in 2014 than what it was in 2011 when the alliance came into
being, Bishnoi kept on insisting for 45 seats and Chief Minister’s post — a
proposal considered “outrageous” and far removed from ground realities by
almost everybody in the State unit of his alliance partner. The BJP on the
other hand, sent feelers to him to either merge his party with it or settle for
around a dozen seats in the new scenario, which had emerged post the Lok Sabha
polls. Bishnoi was neither ready to accept the new reality not the proposal for
merger. It was a mere formality when he announced his unilateral decision to
snap the ties with the BJP. He had not attended either of the three important
rallies — one by Prime Minister Modi himself in Kaithal and two by the BJP
President in August, giving ample indications that the alliance was already
dead before the formal announcement.
At the height of its popularity
in 2009, when Chaudhary Bhajan Lal, the architect of the non-Jat political
platform was alive, HJC managed a mere six of the 90 seats in the Assembly
polls. Due to his political immaturity, five of the MLAs left HJC within days
of being elected and merged themselves with Congress, helping it form the
Government under Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Failure to keep his flock together in 2009 kept Bishnoi in the margins
of the political mainstream for the last five years despite his alliance with
the BJP. Now in 2014, failure to keep the alliance with the BJP will perhaps
badly haunt Bishnoi post the results of the Assembly polls.
Banking on the Modi wave and the
Modi charisma, the BJP will contest all 90 seats alone, giving it ample
maneuverability in the ticket distribution exercise now that the alliance with
HJC is formally over. It has formed a considerably powerful caste alliance too
with careful selection of those deserting other parties and is now a
conglomeration of all castes instead of the non-Jat castes with which it
started its political base.
The first important leader to
enter the party was Rao Inderjeet, the Congress MP from Gurgaon, now a BJP MP
from the same constituency and a Minister in the Modi Cabinet. He has
considerable influence in what is known as the Ahirwal belt in South
Haryana , in the districts of Gurgaon, Rewari and the nearby areas.
BJP did not have any significant presence in the area dominated by the Ahir
community before Inderjeet but now can easily make a dent here.
Short of important Jat leaders
having support at the grass roots, BJP got Dharambir Singh in its fold from
Congress before the Lok Sabha polls and fielded him from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh
constituency. He won defeating Shruti Chaudhary, granddaughter of Chaudhary
Bansi Lal, considered the architect of modern Haryana. The victory indicated
that BJP had made significant inroads in the Jat hinterland, areas in which it
never had any presence in the past.
This was followed by the entry of
another important Jat leader, Chaudhary Birender Singh, the Rajya Sabha MP from
Congress. Birender, a former member of the Congress Working Committee, has
influence in what is known as the Bangar belt of the State. But more than that,
the old theory that BJP is a party of only the non-Jats has now been
effectively demolished. It has now converted itself into an umbrella
organisation of different caste groups and interests, an important tool which
converts a party into election winning machinery.
It is practically now or never
for the BJP in Haryana. Ever since it was formed 34 years ago in 1980, this is
perhaps the best chance for the party to come to power on its own in the State
without piggy-backing on anyone. Except Congress, the party was in alliance
with almost everybody in the State since 1980 and this limited its expansion
and growth even when the NDA was in power at the Centre. Now that it has
removed the crutches, inducted leaders strategically and is raring to go for
the polls, the party should be focussing on candidate selection. This is the
most crucial part in an Assembly election as a minor miscalculation could
trigger discontent amongst the workers, particularly as a lot of them are new
to the party and have joined it recently.
The result of the 2014 Assembly
election would indicate whether BJP has been able to convert itself into
election winning machinery or not. It has the advantage of two-term
anti-incumbency of Hooda Government, Modi wave, high profile desertions to the
party and the promise of a good governance. It should consolidate on the
advantages in the run-up to the polls and should not fritter away the
opportunity it has. (September 1, 2014)
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/2014-08-31-63810.html
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