Regional
parties have become experts in sensing the political climate by switching sides
at the slightest possibility of a better electoral outing and negotiating a
relevance for themselves
Amitabh Shukla
The
Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) may be the latest ally to desert the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, introduced
in the last session of the Lok Sabha recently, but by no stretch of the
imagination can the party be termed as a “political weather scientist.”
Similarly, the tag should also not be passed on to the Telugu Desam Party
(TDP), which parted ways with the NDA last year. Compulsions of state politics
and scouting for better opportunities at the national level forced these two
regional parties to break away from the NDA rather than their potential to gauge
trade winds.
In
that sense, the bellwether status should go to Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
For long, he has been described as the ‘mausam vagyanik’, who can assess which
way the political wind is blowing or which party would reap the electoral harvest
and form the next Government.
Many
have even appreciated his ability of being “accurate and correct” with his
political moves over a period spanning three decades. Both his admirers and
critics believe that he has got so much of expertise in reading “people’s mood
and pulse” that he always supports the winning cause — the coalition which
rules the country.
Paswan
has been a part of all national coalitions. He was first elected as an MLA in
Bihar way back in 1969, though he has always preferred to be in Central
politics after the Emergency when he first won the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat by a
record margin in 1977. Be it the Right (NDA led by the BJP) or the one in which
the Left had a major role (Third Front led by VP Singh) or the Centrist party
(Congress-led United Progressive Alliance), one factor which has always been
common is the 75-year-old Paswan. No ideology is anathema to him as long as it
takes him to the treasury benches.
He
was first inducted in Union Cabinet by VP Singh in 1989 and since then the
Dalit leader has never looked back. Of course, he lost one election in 2009 to
an old rival in Bihar —Ram Sundar Das — from his stronghold of Hajipur and had
to remain out of power for five years. His followers, however, term that period
as an “accident” and an “aberration.”
When
he decided to stick to the NDA in Bihar for the 2019 polls, successfully
bargaining a healthy six seats for his Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and one Rajya
Sabha seat for himself, many in his home state wondered if he had lost his
ability to predict the political climate with the same perfection and
astuteness.
Many
in Paswan’s home state say that Upendra Kushwaha, the former junior HRD
minister in Narendra Modi’s Government and the first one to jump ship in Bihar
from NDA to UPA, has now developed the knack which Paswan possessed at one
point of time. Kushwaha, as president of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP)
and a Koeri himself, joined the grand alliance (mahagatbandhan) of the Congress
and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the Hindi heartland, hoping to have a
role in the next Union Government.
Kushwaha
knows for sure that his utility in NDA ended the moment Nitish Kumar and his
Janata Dal United (JDU) joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to
retain power in the State and oust the RJD with which JDU had fought the
Assembly elections in the first place. Kushwaha and Kumar share a similar caste
support base and he realised he would be more useful to the mahagathbandhan in
Bihar than the NDA. So Kushwaha’s ouster was a foregone conclusion. In fact, it
helped Paswan get a better deal with the NDA in seat-sharing as whatever
incremental votes his party gets in Bihar helps the latter’s cause in its bid
to do well in the State.
Bihar
will be an important battlefield in the 2019 general election with 40 seats, a
State where both the UPA and NDA are firmly entrenched. Hence, this is one
State where the battle is largely between the two and not the constituent
parties as such.
Besides
RJD, the Congress and now the RLSP, the grand alliance in Bihar also has former
Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s party, Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and
Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) founded by Sharad Yadav, who broke away from the
JDU. Then there is Mukesh Sahni, who had floated his political outfit Vikasshil
Insaan Party (VIP) and joined the grand alliance, aiming to get votes from his
Nishad community spread across the State. In addition, there is a possibility
of even the Left parties becoming a part of the grand alliance, which could
leave a couple of seats for them to show it is an umbrella alliance of all
castes, groups and ideology.
On
paper, the alliance looks really ‘grand’
given the various caste combinations it carries with it, but on ground it is
difficult to visualise how competing castes, parties and groups would jell, and
whether one community would be able to transfer its vote to the other. Also,
the sharing of seats is still a mystery and several conflicts, claims and
counterclaims could emerge.
Ironically,
it is in Bihar where the BJP had to concede to its allies in a big way, which
many see as the end of the road for its expansion in the State. It won 22 seats
in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, and along with its allies LJP (6) and RLSP (3), the
NDA won 32 seats even though the combined Opposition then on paper was quite
strong — RJD and JDU. The BJP would be contesting only 17 seats, forcing it to
part ways with five seats which it won last time, clearly a set-back for the
party cadres who were hoping for expansion and some day form the State
Government on the party’s own strength like it did in Maharashtra, breaking
from the Shiv Sena and contesting Assembly polls alone.
As
of now, Bihar is the only State where the battle lines have been drawn and
demarcated firmly with alliances in place. Many see this as a microcosm of
India — emergence of a two-alliance formation where the BJP would head one
polarity and the Congress the other with regional parties siding with one or
the other depending on their state politics, perceptions at a given point of
time and crass opportunism, of course.
It
is now gradually becoming clear that it will be the regional parties which
would become the new weather scientist of the Indian politics —switching sides
at the slightest possibility of better electoral outing and reviewing their
decision every now and then according to their convenience and smell of
opportunity. Bihar is a perfect example where you do not find any permanent
political friend or enemy.
Every
single regional party of the State has a history of deserting either the NDA or
the UPA in the past several years ever since the days of Mandal and Mandir
politics which peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Both
Paswan and Nitish Kumar are sailing in the same boat — changing sides
seamlessly, that too repeatedly, without the baggage of ideology or any other
factor. Paswan may be the expert on this but others are quickly playing
catch-up. Kumar has almost caught up with Paswan, changing from one extreme to
the other — first NDA to UPA and then back to NDA — without batting an eyelid. (January 15, 2019)
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