VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu
Prasad are old political enemies. Despite being together in the hastily formed
Janata Dal in the late 1980s, they never sailed together politically.
So it is a surprise that the two
Yadav leaders of the Hindi heartland, one from Uttar Pradesh and the other from
Bihar , have decided to take the lead and forge an
alliance against the BJP. Of course, the Congress is a sort of dead entity as
of now, so this ragtag, yet to be formed, coalition is not anti-Congress.
Historically, all such formation, the Janata Party in 1977 or the Janata Dal in
1989 had been against the Congress. Some of these experiments were born out of
the frustration of the Socialists of the Lohia brigade and lone rangers against
the Congress which dominated the political landscape then.
Mulayam Singh is losing the
battle of the minds very fast in UP where his son has ruled for the last almost
three years. He was hoping for a national role after the Lok Sabha elections but
the wave in favour of the BJP and Narendra Modi dashed all his hopes once and
for all. Now when Assembly elections in UP are just over two years from now, he
hopes that such a desperate exercise would help revive his dwindling political
fortunes.
Lalu Prasad is thinking like
Mulayam Singh. So he decided to marry his daughter with the grand nephew of the
UP patriarch. In the ancient and medieval periods, marriages took place between
two kingdoms to forge lasting ties for strategic reasons. Here too, the reason
looks obvious as the two warring Yadav leaders have joined hands after the
announcement of the wedding.
Of course, this nuptial tie-up
would mean that Lalu Prasad would have to call Mulayam an Uncle. In any case,
the former Bihar Chief Minister and a convict in the fodder scam, hardly has
any political option now. Ever since he became the Chief Minister almost 25
years ago, this is his worst political phase. He can no longer contest any
election after being convicted in the fodder scam. To make matters worse, no
one from his family managed to win in the Lok Sabha polls. His wife Rabri Devi
and daughter Misa Bharti lost the polls, making it a political nightmare for
the leader know more for his wit and sarcasm and not by governance.
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United
(JDU) is the third constituent of this fledgling alliance. As both Kumar and
Lalu Prasad have conflicting interests in Bihar and a
history of political oneupmanship, the only reason they are together is to
consolidate the Muslim-Yadav-Kurmi vote bank to take on a resurgent BJP in the
Assembly polls, a little over six months from now. Without its alliance with
the BJP, the JD-U has lost its social base completely and is heavily banking on
the RJD for a face-saving result in the Assembly polls. Of course, they will
fight bitterly for each and every seat if an alliance is ever stitched. They
will also tear each other out on who would be the big brother in the alliance,
who will fight which seat and who will be the Chief Minister if such an alliance
wins. Unless the leaders control their ambitions, the alliance is doomed to be
a failure for the Assembly polls. They did well together in the by-polls of Bihar
as they won 6 of the 10 seats in alliance with the Congress. But then, stakes
are high in the Assembly polls and to expect that they would stick together by
keeping aside their mutual distrust of decades is a tall exercise.
The Haryana-based Indian National
Lok Dal, another party, expected to be in the alliance, has already indicated
that it is not comfortable with the formation. Though its MP Dushyant Chautala
attended the first meeting, his party members now say that it was futile to
join such an alliance which has no impact in Haryana. Another partner, Janata
Dal (Secular) in Karnataka has been reduced to being a part of the father-son
duo of H D Deve Gowda and Kumarswami. They will go to any political platform
wherever invited given their political irrelevance even in Karnataka.
Ironically, these parties are
coming together without any promise, ideology or a vision for the future. They
have no economic policy, nothing for the youth, job creation or catering to the
aspirations of the people. All they are offering is an old outdated model of
caste coalition, something which the youth of the country has been repeatedly
rejecting. To counter the BJP, it will have to come out with an attractive
proposition with a new idea and philosophy. But then to expect something of
this sort from the tired and tiring Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad and Deve Gowda is
a tall order.
All these leaders have already
milked the formula of "social justice" to the hilt. I am sure, there
is nothing more left to milk from it. There is reason for skepticism. The
people of the two States of the so-called social justice experiment - Bihar
and Uttar Pradesh - have seen how the votaries of the idea have got neck deep
into corruption, nepotism and bad governance. For them social justice over the
years has been a theory to gobble the votes of the OBCs, Dalits and minorities.
After coming to power, they impose family rule with an inefficient Government
thrown in which lacks any idea or vision, neck deep as it is in corruption.
Interestingly, the Left is out of all equations at this moment.
Perhaps the Left is facing the
same dilemma like that of the Congress - failing to reinvent itself, steady
loss in support base, failure to connect with the youth and refusing to read
the ground situation. Even this Mulayam-Lalu-Nitish-Deve Gowda front sees no
potential in either the Left or the Congress as of now. Ironically, when it was
ruling West Bengal and Kerala, the Left Front was the
one which always took the lead in the creation of the third force in national
politics. Almost everyone conversant with national politics would remember
Harkishen Singh Surjeet of the CPI(M) who was always present at such meetings.
The Janata Parivar expects to rope in Biju Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress and
Nationalist Congress Party in due course as and when the need arises. However,
this rag tag effort would remain a compilation of regional parties if it ever
materializes without any purpose.
As days, weeks and months pass
following the May 2014 verdict and the Opposition gets more desperate, perhaps
more experiments to counter the BJP would be made. However, any anti-BJP front would
succeed only if the Congress and Left join it at some time or other making it
the Front versus the BJP. But Indian politics has never seen such a scenario in
the past due to multiplicity of parties, interests, conflicting personalities
and demands and peculiarities of one State as compared to other. That is a
silver lining for the ruling BJP at this point as it was for the Congress when
it was strong. (December 15, 2014 )
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