Secular-communal debate will do no good

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Narendra Modi is the toast of the BJP, the flavour of the election season and the Gujarat Chief Minister realises it like no one else. He is travelling the length and breadth of the country, addressing sadhus and the corporate honchos alike along with election rallies in Karnataka and in the process his acceptability is gradually increasing even in those sections that would prefer not to touch him with a barge pole in the public.

His main competitor in the BJP for Prime Ministerial candidate, LK Advani, on the other hand, is like Sachin Tendulkar these days.

The form has deteriorated, the fans are deserting him and discovering new cricketing stars, he is past his prime but he still insists that there is more cricket left in him and needs to play not only for Mumbai Indians but also for India. In 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of the country and also the Prime Ministerial candidate of the party. BJP lost the "India shining campaign" and the election which it was widely expected to win. Down with poor health, he retired to his Krishna Menon Marg residence in New Delhi after playing a stellar role in national politics for almost half a century. In 2009, Advani was the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP. The party lost again this time with a bigger margin as compared to 2004 and finally Advani too acquired a semi-retired status when he did not become the Leader of Opposition and instead it was Sushma Swaraj who assumed charge. Advani became the Chairman of the NDA, a position which confirmed his semi-retired status as there is hardly any work profile for the ceremonial position he holds. He will turn 86 this November and when the premium is on youth, the BJP workers are gradually veering to the idea of a party with Advani being only an elder statesman and not the Captain of the ship.

Termed the perpetual yatri, the grand old man of rath yatras, Advani rode on the rath half a dozen times, starting with the Ayodhya Rath Yatra in 1990 to make the party really big in the subsequent polls. His last rath yatra was in 2011 and there is no immediate plan to launch another rath yatra in the near future. Fatigue, both in the leader and also the supporters, has prevented Advani from mounting another rath and looking for another cause.

Some in the BJP compare Advani with Tendulkar insisting that there is a sell by date of any sportsperson and a politician. In the case of a sportsperson, it is the body which starts showing the symptoms and the sportsperson cannot make runs, score that goal or defend the goal or simply cannot run the distance in the scheduled time. Newer and younger bodies have taken over, who run faster, score more runs, field better and bowl faster. In the case of politics, it is the idea which gets affected by fatigue with no new thoughts coming and one becoming the prisoner of the past. For the BJP, it is actually a choice between Dhoni and Virat Kohli on one side and Tendulkar on the other. It is not a difficult choice to make after all. In Modi, they see hope and are inspired and motivated, in Advani they see status quo and political uncertainty. A similar situation prevails in the Congress as well with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh past his sell by date and Rahul Gandhi, despite all his limitations, emerging as the new hope of the party with fresh ideas.

While Advani's rath has not moved in the last almost two years, Modi has been moving and addressing the business tycoons in Confederation of Indian Industry and also sitting with the saffron clad sadhus in Haridwar after the victory in Gujarat Assembly polls last year in December.  He is at ease with Cyrus Mistry of the Tata group and Mukesh Ambani of Reliance and also with Baba Ramdev of Patanjali Yoga Peeth and at Dharm Meemamsa Parishad in Kerala.

Post Godhra violence has been often cited by the Congress and Modi's critics of the secular fundamentalist brigade to pin him down. Perhaps, raj dharm was neglected for a while as the then Prime Minister Vajpayee aptly reminded Modi then. But Congress has far worse record on communal riots be it the numerous riots all throughout the 1960s, 70s and the 80s in various parts of the country when the party was in power in most of the communally sensitive states like Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra where violence broke out and the minorities were repeatedly targeted. Then how can Congress brush aside 1984 anti-Sikh riots when the genocide was carried out after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in the national Capital and elsewhere?

Many won't remember and intentionally forget which party was ruling Maharashtra in 1992-93 when the worst communal riots took place post the Babri Masjid demolition. It was Sudhakar Rao Naik of the Congress who played the politics of masterly inactivity by failing to act against the rioters. Why doesn't the Congress remember that it presided over the killing of a thousand people and did not follow the raj dharm ten years before Gujarat riots? Has anyone in the Congress apologized for the Mumbai riots ever?  I agree that unlike the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, Congress workers and cadres were not involved in Mumbai. But then, if you want Modi to be accountable and held guilty for post Godhra violence, you should also accept accountability for Mumbai riots and the anti-Sikh riots. You do not have a better record on that front.  A pot cannot call the kettle black and that too repeatedly. This is what the Congress has been trying to do all this while and instilling a sense of fear amongst the minorities by making a demon out of Modi in all these 11 years.

"My manifesto is everyone should be healthy and welfare for all. In Gujarat (where) riots happened every other day and innocents were killed, today after 12 years there is not a sign of riots," Modi said in Haridwar. I am not an ardent admirer of Modi's style of dictatorial politics, but there is an element of truth in what he said. I remember in my years of growing up, every alternate month I used to hear about "clashes between two communities" in the All India Radio. Invariably, these clashes led to death of innocents from both communities. Punish all those who are found guilty of the post Godhra riots, including Modi, if there is evidence, but do not condemn the person forever. Look ahead, do not dig the graves and open the wounds time and again. Perhaps the Congress wants to keep the wounds fresh to reap electoral dividends and play the insecurity card amongst the minorities. You have been doing it repeatedly, time and again. It was time you fulfilled the aspirations of the minorities for economic progress, education, giving them an equal role in opportunities rather than perpetually create fear and play on that.

Senior columnist and journalist Swapan Dasgupta argued in this newspaper that "Modi is an idea whose time has come". Undoubtedly, Modi promises to break status quoism in governance with his model of development, successfully implemented in Gujarat and it was time he got a wider canvas for implementing his developmental ideas. In the Congress, I believe that Rahul is also an idea whose time has come. Instead of inner party debates and machinations, let the voters decide who is a better idea and whose time has come and for how long. Move away from the decades old secular-communal debate which started over 100 years ago in early 1900. It has not done any good to the country nor will it ever do. (Monday, April 29, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/2013-04-28-6017.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/secular-communal-debate-will-do-no-good.html

FULFILL ASPIRATIONS OF PEOPLE, DON’T BRIBE THEM

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

In the game of electoral populism, no one wants to be left behind. You name the party-regional or national-populism is the punch-line in the electoral manifestos of almost all of them.

Instead of offering good governance, economic prospects, a vision for the future and meeting the aspirations of the youth, offering freebies is being increasingly considered as an election winning formula.

The latest is the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka. Fighting a losing battle due to five years of indifferent performance plagued by indecision, corruption, blackmailing by the Reddy brothers and removal of a well-entrenched Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, BJP has come out with what it thinks is its trump card. This is offering of rice at Rs 1 per kg to the poor families of the State. In addition, the party will give laptops or tablets free of cost to pre-university and graduate students.

Frankly, I haven't been to Karnataka in recent months but prima facie, it looks difficult for the BJP to return to power in Karnataka-the first State in south India where it came to power on its own and ran a Government for a full term. Freebies won't help here when your record of five years is before the people to judge. Remember in 2008, Congress had offered rice at Rs2 per kg and also a colour TV for all families living below the poverty line but still the party lost the polls and remained in opposition. In addition, Congress had offered houses to 15 lakh families and made a host of other promises but it cut little ice with the voters then. In the era of competitive populism, what if Congress offers rice at Rs25 paise per Kg and 32 inch LCD Television with DTH connection to every home in rural areas?

The logic is not difficult to deduct. No one is bothered about populism any more. Even if you offer free rice to everyone and give a laptop and mobile phone to every soul passing on the streets, they will not vote for you unless you have a sound policy and programme and they are completely fed up with the existing government. The greatest blunder which is being done is that instead of meeting the growing aspirations of the people, you are simply trying to bribe them and cater to their base instincts. Competitive populism has swept the thinking process of the election managers rather than judging and then formulating a strategy to meet the aspirations of the younger generation.

UPA Government has mastered the technique of offering direct and indirect bribe to the people at the cost of public exchequer. NREGA, a big drain on exchequer, gives guaranteed employment for 100 days. I am not opposed to the scheme per se. It has indeed helped the poorest of the poor in several states where there are hardly any opportunities for employment. But for heaven's sake aren't the people and tax payers entitled to know what kind of work was being done with the massive amount which goes under NREGA. Having travelled extensively in the so called backward areas of the country-Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand-I have failed to see any difference brought about from the work undertaken with the scheme. For how long would you dig an imaginary pond and then fill it? At the end of the day in most of the areas, it has turned out to be a bribe to the voters. You rob Peter to pay Paul.

Why can't NREGA work include long term infrastructure creation — highway construction, making of bridges on rivers, laying of new railway tracks? Why can't NREGA funds be used if an Industrialist wants to set up a venture in the rural areas and wants to give permanent employment to the people?  The industrialists and entrepreneurs will get incentive in terms of free labour as government is providing funds from NREGA and this will benefit the area concerned for a long time. Obviously, no one is thinking on those lines-of creating lasting infrastructure-as it is not as populist and NREGA continues to bleed the finances of the country without commensurate benefit for the current and future generations.

In any case, whatever you offer as bribe, voters are wise and becoming wiser by the day. They would take what you offer and want more. Instead of 100 days of guaranteed employment, the demand is now of 200 days. Similarly, the amount of money being given per day, is being increased every year and the demand is for increasing it more. If NREGA were not enough, you want to give Guarantee to Food to everyone through the proposed Right to Food Bill as if people are not getting their food. They will buy food at Rs2 per kg from NREGA funds, don't bother about Right to Food. The aspirations of the people have grown and it is not limited to having a free food.

But, as offering bribe is becoming common by the day, the scheme of giving subsidy money directly in your bank account has been started. Obviously, the indirect subsidy given so far was not visible and people did not even realise that they were getting subsidy. Now, the Government wants everyone to realise that it is the mai-baap and gives them money as well. How long will this populism continue? You do not want to fulfill the aspirations of better life for the people but instead want to cater only to greed.

Regional parties too have acquired the habit of their big brothers at the national level. The Shiromani Akali Dal promised free laptops with data cards for class 12 students in government schools and 10 lakh jobs in their manifesto released in 2012. One year down the line, no one knows what happened to the laptops and the promised jobs. The Government came down to tablets and has now forgotten even that. I wonder, how the cash-strapped Punjab Government can fulfill its promise when it repeatedly delays the payment of salaries and pensions. It does not talk on the issue any longer and would promise something more bizarre like a two-wheeler to the voters next time when it contests the polls in 2017.

In Uttar Pradesh, it was Samajwadi Party which offered free laptops. It gave some of the laptops in a well-publicised function. Perhaps it helped the cause of the manufacturing company as I wonder how giving laptops would help in the empowerment of the students and youth. There is an old saying that instead of giving fish, you teach how to fish. Instead of giving food, you teach them how to grow food. This is what is lacking. You just want to give them freebies forever and make them dependent. What will UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav do in the next election? Promise a free seven-day trip to Switzerland or to the relatively cheaper Singapore and Thailand to every family in the state!

This business of bribing voters practically started in Tamil Nadu in 2006 when DMK offered colour television to the voters if it was voted to power. In the last election, it virtually became a war with competitive populism gripping both the parties. The Dravidian parties, DMK and the AIADMK announced bizarre offer to the voters one after the other-free laptops, kitchen appliances, fans, mixies and grinders, even 4 gram gold mangalsutra for the poor, monetary help for rural households, free rice and what not. These parties really would have to become extremely innovative in future elections as they have offered almost everything they could and people would want more and more, the frugal finances of the states and the inability to fulfill the promises notwithstanding. Perhaps a trip to the moon would be a better idea.

As the election season year progresses, we would see more and more of such offer to the voters from the ruling parties in the states as well as the Centre. The Opposition would indulge in a similar competitive populism. Perhaps there would be proposals for legislation on Right to breathe, Right to walk, Right to drive a car so on and so forth. There is no full stop there. (April 22, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/fulfill-aspirations-of-people-dont-bribe-them.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/fulfill-aspirations-of-the-people-dont-bribe-them.html

DON’T PUSH PUNJAB TO THE BRINK

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Almost two years ago, the then President Pratibha  Patil rejected the mercy petition of Khalistani terrorist  Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, accused of killing a dozen people on Raisina Road in New Delhi. This led to breast beating by a section of hardliners as well as liberal leaders in Punjab who wanted their place in the sun for a while. The Akali Dal also did lip service and demanded the customary clemency but never pushed the issue beyond a point.

Then it was the Beant Singh assassin Balwant Singh Rajoana who hogged the limelight last year, days after the SAD-BJP government came to power in March 2012. A lower court fixed the date for the hanging and asked Punjab government to comply with the orders. There was frenzy all over the state with the same police officers known for their “bullet for bullet” theory, making all attempts to save Rajoana who wanted to be hanged and called a “martyr”,  has no remorse or has never challenged the orders of the court convicting him.

Now, it is back to Bhullar as the Supreme Court has rejected his plea challenging the rejection of mercy petition and claiming that he has been in jail for too long a period and this is a ground not to give capital punishment. Akali Dal is back demanding that the government save Bhullar, whose name has been prefixed by Professor. No one knows what kind of Professor Bhullar was but the resolution of the Core Committee of Akali Dal described the rejection of the petition by Supreme Court for commuting the death sentence of  “Professor”  Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar as “deeply painful, unfortunate and worrying”.

Ironically, the statement of the Akali Dal comes at a time when no one wants to remember the dark chapter in Punjab’s history in the 1980s and the early 90s. Terrorism only led to misery for every Punjabi and 20 years after it has come to an end, politics on periodic mercy pleas and raking up the issue could play with the sentiments of the younger generation.

Recently, former Punjab DGP, KPS Gill was in Chandigarh to deliver a lecture and he advocated need for a law which makes sympathy with such causes an offence, something which was done in post Nazi Germany. Gill, credited for uprooting terrorism from Punjab along with his officers, would surely say that SAD coming to defence of Bhullar, is an act which should have at best been avoided.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and party president and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal will soon meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and urge them “to operationalise the post-judicial   mechanism  of statesmanship in order to avoid even at this stage  any steps that may pose a threat to peace and communal harmony in the country in general and Punjab in particular.” What is troublesome is that whenever execution becomes imminent, there are petitions and counter petitions for the condemned militants. Perhaps that could be the reason why Ajmal Kasab and then Afzal Guru were hanged in secrecy. I am not a champion of death sentence nor do I endorse it, but certainly I am against politicizing the issue which is being done right now. Thankfully, the case of Kasab was not politicized because he hailed from Pakistan and Guru only got lip sympathy in Jammu and Kashmir.

Bhullar and Rajoana should be punished as per law. But then, the legal system has to act swiftly and decisively in other cases also. The perception in Punjab is that the legal system could not punish those accused of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the Delhi and rest of the country. Can anyone defend the fact that Jagdish Tytler’s case is still in the courts 29 years after the riots. You either acquit him or punish him. Similarly, is the case of Sajjan Kumar—still going on. Then, no one knows if anyone has been convicted for the 1984 riots in rest of the country.  Tytler’s case lingers on--almost 3 decades have passed and no one knows how many decades more are required to reach a logical conclusion. This is a travesty of law — doing injustice to both the victims and even the accused.

Referring to the apex court decision on Bhullar and the delay in Tytler’s trial, Akali Dal observed that the decision “is bound to invite parallels with the failure of the Delhi and Union governments to ensure exemplary punishments to those guilty of cold-blooded massacre of thousands of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of the country in 1984. Killers in fact are not only roaming free but have even by rewarded with plum political posts. Against this back-ground, the rejection of petition in Professor Bhullar’s case will strengthen the perception among the Sikh masses that two separate sets of  laws operated in the country and that they have been subjected to discriminatory treatment even in the courts of justice.”

Police officials who fought terrorism throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s say that all the ingredients of radicalization and militancy exist in the State even today.

They cite mixing of religion and politics, increasing relevance of the radical groups and their new role as lobbyists for the radical cause and a hostile neighbour as factors which could help revive the embers which were doused after great efforts.

Unemployment on a large scale, drug abuse, diminishing returns from agriculture and the failure to bring in the second green revolution could be the other contributory factors. What has added fuel to fire in recent months and years is the reach of social networking sites and the new media through which radicalization is taking place at a much faster place.  Such a powerful medium did not exist in the 1980s and early 90s and clearly intelligence and police officials are worried about its impact.

There are hundreds of websites, blogs and facebook pages which extol the terrorists of yesteryears and carry their pictures, life sketches and glorify their acts of terror, portraying the government in extremely poor light.

The Government can do little about it as they are hosted from foreign countries and even if you ban one, they change the domain name and appear again. There are websites which ask for donations for the cause of a separate state and even ask for as little as $5 as contribution. The case of Rajoana and Bhullar was fought not only through official channels but also through the cyber world where a few thousand “liked” the page on the assassin and added their comments on it.  There were several incidents in the recent past which clearly suggested that the radicals can mobilise the people of Punjab with little or no effort. Controversy on the voting rights of the Sehejdhari Sikhs, killing of Sant Ramanand of Dera Sachkhand in Vienna in 2009 and before that the controversy involving Dera Sacha Sauda’s Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim in 2007 led to widespread disturbance.

The radical elements are waiting on the fringes as the Shiromani Akali Dal occupies the main political space in the state. But overlooking the warning signals could prove to be counterproductive and it is here that the ruling party in Punjab will have to be on guard. (April 15, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-04-14-4284.html

Three power centres in Congress--Sonia, Manmohan and Rahul

  

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

  

It seems AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh is setting the political agenda for the Congress with one remark or the other every six months. He is the only leader of the party to take a stand on a given issue, often ambiguous, which only creates further confusion all around. At the end of the day, after several rounds of the party disassociating itself from Singh’s statement, it is back to square one. No one gets any wiser.

When the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister on a “electoral sanyas” for 10 years ever since the Congress lost the state to BJP’s Uma Bharti in 2003, decried the concept of two power centres—Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi—and advised heir apparent Rahul Gandhi that the model should not be emulated, there has been a storm in the party.

Another General Secretary, Janardan Dwivedi, who is also the head of the media department and considered a miser with words, comes in the picture and claims what he says is the “official stand” of the party and what Singh says is “unofficial” and personal remarks.  Dwivedi, the Rajya Sabha member from Delhi, says the dual power centre has worked well for the party and could be a model for the future also.

Now, the problem is whom should the people and the Congress workers believe—Singh or Dwivedi. Had the party snubbed Singh and suspended him from the party for taking a stand which is contrary to that of the official stand, people would have believed Dwivedi. But nothing of that sort happened. In fact, Singh went on and stated that he has not taken back his words. So you now have two versions on the model of dual centres of power—one of Singh and the other of Dwivedi.

It is now upto party President Sonia Gandhi or Vice President Rahul Gandhi to clear the stand as only these two leaders are senior in party hierarchy than Singh or Dwivedi. But given the ambivalence of the Congress on a lot of issues, it is extremely unlikely that they would ever clear the stand. While the Congress President hardly speaks and never addresses a press conference except in the rarest of rare case, Rahul has deliberately kept himself aloof from nitty gritty of politics as he has more or less emerged as a social theorist rather than a politician which he actually is.

Or is it a case of floating the proverbial test balloon? Singh theorises on something, floating the balloon to test the political impact on the bidding of someone. His statements on handling of Maoist violence, taking up the case of terror accused from Azamgarh or dubbing the Batla House encounter as fake came in the recent past. After the statements, the party big wigs watch the reaction carefully, let the debate continue endlessly and witness  the confusion spread all across the political spectrum.  Often, it is Dwivedi who disassociates the party from the statements of Singh. At the end of it, no one is wiser, neither the party nor the people who are following the politics of the party but a new theory gets into the political vocabulary.

Juxtapose it with the recent statements of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and you get a clearer picture of the deliberate attempts to create confusion. The PM says he is neither in nor out of the prime ministerial race in 2014. "I am not ruling it in, I am not ruling it out," he said. Obviously, you cannot draw any meaning or sense out of the statement and it is simply status quoism and stating the obvious.  He also describes the debate on dual power centres as the creation of media and a useless debate. Is there any clarity anywhere? Isn’t there more confusion? Will anyone in Congress ever stand up and answer in a simple yes or no.

Even Rahul Gandhi, neither commits or denies anything. Interacting with the industry leaders in a much publicized event, he said the question of his becoming prime minister was irrelevant. "It is irrelevant...all smoke," the 42-year old Amethi MP said. But again, why don’t you say that you won’t become Prime Minister ever or would become one day. No one can decipher what he means from the statement made at the CII.

 I remember the press conference at the AICC headquarters in 2009 when the Congress was releasing its manifesto. Both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi were present. But it was only after a series of direct questions that the Congress President said that Singh would be the prime ministerial candidate of the party. Remember, he had completed five years on the trot in the job and the party was practically forced to take a stand on the issue. Never had the party ever committed itself on declaring a prime ministerial or a chief ministerial candidate in the elections.

Even as there is enough fodder for the debate to rage on for the next few months, Minister and party’s face in TV debates, Manish Tiwari coined a new phrase saying that the "trinity" of Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will lead the Congress in the next Lok Sabha elections. "We will go to the people with this 'Trimurti', the Ludhiana MP and Information and Broadcasting Minister said in an interview.  For nine years, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given us good governance and Congress president Sonia Gandhi has held the party together. Now, Rahul Gandhi has breathed life into the youth and invigorated the grassroots, said Tiwari.

So has the debate on two power centres in Congress, started by Digvijay Singh become infructuous? Instead of dual power centre, now there is the third centre also which is equally important and Rahul has got into the role effectively after becoming Vice President in the party’s Jaipur conclave early this year. Or will Dwivedi again say that what Tiwari said was his personal opinion and the party had nothing to do with it. Obviously, Dwivedi would not say anything of that sort as Tiwari, also a lawyer by training, stated the de facto position in the Congress of three power centres ever since Rahul joined politics and became an MP from Amethi a decade ago.

Coming back to the official stand of party, reflected in Dwivedi’s statement that the dual centre of power can be a model for future also, do we believe that the dual centre could be Sonia Gandhi as party President and Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister if the party is voted back to power in the next Lok Sabha polls, whenever it is held in November this year or in April-May 2014. Or does Dwivedi mean that the Sonia-Manmohan model would continue beyond 2014 if fortune indeed favours the grand old party.

I also wonder what would happen if the Congress loses the Lok Sabha polls and sits in the Opposition. In that case, clearly Manmohan Singh would be out of equation as he cannot become an office-bearer in Congress and would no longer remain a power centre. There would be only two centres of power in that eventuality—the Congress President and the Vice President. (April 8, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/three-power-centres-in-congress--sonia-manmohan-and-rahul.html

Early Lok Sabha elections on the horizon

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

The inevitability of an early Lok Sabha polls, probably in October-November this year has increased manifold with statements of various leaders flying thick and fast all over the country, particularly in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh, the State which holds the key to the survival of the Manmohan Singh government.

Mulayam Singh Yadav is not the only loose cannon who blows hot and cold and hot again. He criticises the Congress on any given day, threatens it with "dire consequences" the next day, but refuses to withdraw support on the third day. He has company in Union Minister and fellow leader from UP, Beni Prasad Verma, who shoots from the mouth at the slightest pretext, triggering speculations that SP could withdraw support any moment. He keeps badmouthing and abusing the SP and keeps repeating them till some spokesperson of Congress in New Delhi plays the old but predictable trick and dissociates the party from the statement of Verma.

The difference between Yadav and Verma is too stark and they are not comparable except for their verbal spat and ability to get headlines in the media. Yadav is aiming for the top most post of Prime Minister of the country and this could well be the last chance for the 73-year-old leader who willingly gave the chair in Uttar Pradesh to his son last year so that he could concentrate on the bigger political game-plan.

Verma is simply trying to become important in the eyes of his immediate boss Rahul Gandhi, who has given him a lot of importance in UP despite being an import from the SP. Rahul perhaps thought that Verma could emerge as the fulcrum of the consolidation of the Kurmi caste along with other Most Backward Classes who have been left out of the scheme of things of the Samajwadi Party. Congress has been unsuccessfully trying to revive the Bihar formula of Nitish Kumar while promoting Kurmi leader Verma, formerly in SP. But unlike in Bihar which had a space for the consolidation of Most Backward Castes (MBCs) under Nitish, UP does not have such a possibility as Bahujan Samaj Party is firmly ensconced in that space.

Congress knows that its revival in the Hindi heartland would remain a distant dream unless it does well in Uttar Pradesh. It did exceptionally well last time emerging as the largest party in terms of Lok Sabha seats in the State but lost steam in the Assembly elections in 2012, where it was thoroughly routed despite a hectic and aggressive campaign by Amethi MP and now party vice president Rahul Gandhi. Perhaps it has put its bet on the wrong candidate in UP as Verma neither has the charisma nor the popularity to take on the father-son duo of Mulayam and Akhilesh.

Political dynamics in the biggest State of UP with 80 seats in the Lok Sabha dictates that unless SP gives complete divorce to Congress-led UPA, it cannot hope to improve its performance. Party supremo Mulayam Singh also knows that only if he crosses the figure of 40 and comes close to 45 and the political situation becomes fluid, he would have a chance of consolidating the regional parties and emerge as the sole champion of the so-called Third Front to have a go at the chair for which he has been longing for long.

People no longer believe in friendly matches being played on the political arena and SP has played nicely along with Congress for five years ever since it supported the UPA-I on Indo-US nuclear deal after the Left withdrew support. So, it is certain that SP would pull the rug from under UPA, take an aggressive posture against it and only then will enter the electoral arena of UP.

Both SP and Congress are eyeing the same vote bank in Uttar Pradesh. Obviously the Yadav community is still solidly behind SP but the rest of the vote bank of the party and Congress is practically the same. If one party does well, it will be at the cost of the other. They realise it well. No wonder, both Mulayam Singh and Beni Verma are spewing fire at each other as a prelude to the break-up which could be anytime in the next few weeks.

Perhaps the break-up would take place before the Monsoon session of Parliament so that the Election Commission could take a call to hold the next parliamentary polls sometime in October or November, six months before the schedule. Add the statements of UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and other SP leaders in the equation and you get a clear message that a divorce is very much on the cards. The only question is, when.

The third party in UP-BSP-is watching the game unfold, silently. This is the typical style of party chief Mayawati. Given her vacillating approach in the past, both in the State and at the national level, she would go into the polls alone and open her cards only at the appropriate time and that will be when the results are declared.

Despite the evolving situation, it now seems certain that Congress has run out of allies for the next Lok Sabha elections. In all likelihood, the party will go alone in Tamil Nadu where the DMK withdrew support from the government in March and the possibility of tying with AIADMK looks quite remote. For decades, Congress has been the junior partner of either DMK or the AIADMK which has reduced its political space and presence in the state. Testing the political waters on its own strength would help it assess its strength and weaknesses and then it can take steps to strengthen the party.

In West Bengal, its ally Trinamool Congress has broken away-the first big party in the UPA to do so and unless something dramatic happens, Congress will contest the polls alone without an alliance. The triangular contest which seems likely in Bengal, could help revive the Left as both TMC and Congress would be fighting for the same political space.

In Bihar, Congress' alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party broke in the last Lok Sabha elections and there is no possibility of its revival now in the next elections. Without any alliance, Congress won 2 seats in the State out of 40 and even if it had entered into the alliance as a junior partner, the seats would have remained the same. Going alone helped the party assess its strength and weaknesses and this would come good in the general elections now when the party contests all seats alone.

Perhaps Maharashtra will be the only State where Congress will have an alliance- with the Nationalist Congress Party as usual. But here, the seats are more or less divided between the four main parties — Congress and NCP on one hand and Shiv Sena BJP on the other.

The results too have been rather on the predictable lines in the last few elections with all the parties getting in and around 25 per cent of the seats each, plus or minus a few seats here and there. So, it seems that Congress is perhaps looking only at post poll alliances and no significant pre-poll alliance except in Maharashtra.

Talk to the political leaders now whether from the ruling Congress or other parties and they are practically sure that elections cannot stretch to April-May 2014 given the dynamics in UP and the compulsion of SP to pull down the government and then contest the polls. The poll bells have started ringing loud and clear. (April 1, 2013)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/early-lok-sabha-elections-on-the-horizon.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-04-01-2681.html

Congress stares at early Lok Sabha polls

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

The political churning at the national level and in some of the states point to a fact which may not be music to the ears of the ruling Congress led UPA. The next Lok Sabha elections could be held earlier than April-May, 2014. The political battle for the Congress in its remaining term will now be to prevent an early Lok Sabha election even as the Opposition will press the accelerator and try to pin down the government in the next six months.

Exit of DMK at a time when the UPA is counting each supporting MP on its finger tips, has sent signals to the two most important parties supporting it from outside - Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Obviously, they would be more assertive now as they know that if one of them goes, the government would be reduced to minority.

DMK, with 18 Lok Sabha members, did not withdraw support when CBI was breathing down the neck of its top leaders in the 2G scam and one of its key ministers, A. Raja was languishing in jail and so was the daughter of the party supremo Karunanidhi, Kanimojhi. It withdrew support on the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils, an emotive issue in the State which has potential to help the party electorally. Clearly, the DMK does not want to face the polls in Tamil Nadu as an ally of the ruling Congress as it perceives that the law of diminishing returns would apply on its poll prospects.

DMK knows what anti-incumbency did to the party two years ago in 2011 when arch rival Jayalalitha was swept to power in the Assembly polls. It also knows that 9 years of anti-incumbency at the Centre means that Congress more or less has become a liability in Tamil Nadu and it would perhaps be a better idea to fight AIADMK alone with its regional allies rather than with the ruling party at the Centre. Party chief Karunanidhi read the situation, used the Sri Lankan Tamil issue as an excuse and dumped the UPA, leaving it limping for support.

It is no secret that both BSP and the SP are supporting the UPA from outside due to the potential of the CBI to wreck havoc on them in a series of cases registered against Mulayam Singh Yadav as well as BSP chief Mayawati. What surprises me is that none of these cases have come to a close or a verdict announced even after years and years of hearings, affidavits and arguments. The CBI goes slow like a tortoise whenever the situation warrants or tightens the screw whenever these parties and their leaders go truant and make them fall in line. After all, Sanjay Dutt is not the only one who does not want to go to jail.

CBI raids at the residence of Karunanidhi's son M K Stalin soon after the party withdrew support is a clear indication how the agency has been working for a while under the UPA. Almost everyone in the government and the party, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, dissociated themselves from the raids. No one knows the truth in Stalin's case but the past conduct of CBI nevertheless had the fingers pointed at the government.

Even if we do not go deep in the past, the last example of CBI acting against political opponents was in Andhra Pradesh. CBI used its might and discovered that Jagan Mohan Reddy was involved in shady financial deals only when he was no longer a Congress MP and had floated a regional party. As long as he was in the Congress, Jagan Mohan was virtue personified, the moment he left the party, he became a persona non grata, fit for CBI action. Not only the CBI, a host of other central agencies come into picture with all sorts of cases, ensuring that Jagan languishes in jail.

The DMK withdrawal of support has clearly opened windows of opportunity for the SP and BSP. They are the two crutches on which the UPA walks and the moment, even one is removed, the government would fall on its face. They know that CBI cannot be brought in the picture now as withdrawing support would reduce the government to a minority. If the government comes to a minority and the elections announced, no investigating agency would act against them. So the Damocles Sword no longer hanging over their heads, UPA is in too vulnerable a situation at this point and may force it to rethink that advancing polls by a few months could help it forge new alliances and come back with a comfort of numbers, the way it did in 2009.

Like the DMK in Tamil Nadu, for SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, a situation is emerging where he cannot go to the polls in Uttar Pradesh with the baggage of being a Congress supporter. Remember, when SP bailed out the Manmohan Singh government in UPA I on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal and supported it, its tally in the Lok Sabha was drastically reduced in the 2009 polls. It was the Congress which benefited from the misery of the SP, becoming the largest party in terms of seats in the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.

Yadav's entire politics is based on Congress Opposition and if he is perceived to be close to the party, his support base would shift in no time and Congress is waiting to cash on the opportunity. Aggressive anti-Congress and anti-BJP stance has to be Mulayam's USP again and being a wily politician, I suspect, he would withdraw support keeping an eye on the prospects of SP in the State which sends 80 members to the Lower House of Parliament.

Yadav had once missed the chair of Prime Minister when United Front was in power and H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujaral became prime ministers in quick succession. This time, he would like to have as many MPs as possible so that he can claim the position as the head of the Third Front or a confederation of regional parties in case there is a fluid political situation and neither NDA nor UPA is in a position to stake claim to form the next government. If SP gets over 50 seats in UP then nothing could be impossible. But for that the party will have to choose the right time to say goodbye to the UPA government and have the polls at a time of its choice.

SP warming up to the BJP, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress warming up to the Congress and the overtures of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar towards the Congress indicate the churning of the political process with the target being the next Lok Sabha polls. The posturing of these parties may have nothing to do with their possible electoral tie-ups but indicate that in politics, positioning before an important election and sending mixed signals does help. (March 25, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/cong-stares-at-early-lok-sabha-polls.html

Civil Services Exams: Time for an overhaul

VIEWPOINT 

AMITABH SHUKLA

A well intentioned move to revamp the pattern of civil services examination has been put on hold. Predictably, cutting across party lines, the politicians played spoilsport as the government had to beat a hasty retreat and revert back to the 34-year old pattern of examination in which many loopholes have emerged over the years.

It was the steel frame of the British raj, to some extent it still is in the UPA raj but over a period of time, it has lost some of its sheen. Still, it remains the most coveted job in the government sector. But the examination pattern in practice since 1979 left a lot to be desired and an overhaul was the need of the hour keeping in mind the changing needs of the country, the globalised environment in which the bureaucrats are supposed to work and the flaws which had crept in the existing system. 

The flaws could be several. I will just point out a few. I know of an Electrical Engineer from IIT, who abandoned his subject of graduation (Electrical Engineering) for the Main examination and opted for Sanskrit and Geography. He mugged both the subjects in six months flat and got a decent ranking making it to the IPS. I have nothing against Geography or Sanskrit, but the flaw here was that one could simply mug the syllabus and get through forgetting the basic subject in which you did your graduation. There could be many such cases.

Then when I was studying in Delhi University, I remember students making a beeline for taking Pali language as an Optional to write the main examination. For several years, the subject was considered quite “scoring” and it was believed that if one studied it meticulously for three months, one could get above average marks and make it to the coveted service. The flaw could be detected only later when it was found that a lot of aspirants with Pali language getting in though the language itself was taught in less than half a dozen universities of the country.  

For several years, there was an unusually high percentage of aspirants opting for subjects like Public Administration and Anthropology. Coaching institutes claimed that they will take 2-3 months to make a candidate mug enough to crack the civil services with these optional provided they were good with their primary optional. Ironically, there were a handful of colleges offering these courses at the graduation level but as optional papers in Main examination, there was a time when almost half the candidates chose one of the two subjects.

So flawed was the system for several years that it saw an unusually high percentage of engineers in the civil services. A lot of them opted for Physics which they are taught in their course along with the subject of engineering. So much so that in one year, 19 of the top 20 in the IAS were engineers and in the top 100, over 85 had engineering background. One heard of “moderation” of marks which meant that if aspirants are getting too much marks in a particular subject, the marks were reduced in some proportion. No one knew how it was done and it remained a mystery. All throughout this phase, those from the social sciences found themselves at the receiving end, barely managing to get into the coveted list and eventually when they got through, it was in the Group “B” Services.

When the changes for the Main examination were notified by the government, there were basically two objections. Regional leaders immediately jumped in the fray saying that those from rural background will have a disadvantage as marks in English would be counted and the practice of taking the exams in some the regional languages would be stopped if they had less than 25 candidates.

I would again differ here on making marks in English count in the ranking and this is by personal experience. When I was studying for my post graduation in Delhi University, I remember a brilliant student from Motihari in Bihar who had passed all his exams in Hindi medium and he knew whatever was expected to crack the civil services exam. He cleared the preliminary exams and appeared for the Mains. Later on, instead of the result, a letter came from UPSC that his papers were not evaluated as he could not get pass marks in English. Getting pass marks in English and a regional language was mandatory and only if one passed in these that his other papers were evaluated. After failing in the only attempt, he opted out and instead settled for a job in Bihar through the BPSC. There must have been a lot of such aspirants whose answer sheets could not be evaluated as they could not get pass marks in English.

In the pattern which was announced and now put in abeyance, 100 marks were allocated for English, triggering protests from political quarters. At least, this is better than the system prevalent as even if you get poor marks in the Queen’s language but are good in other subjects, you could get there. And mind, you this is less than 5 per cent of the total marks of 2075 in the exams and the paper is supposed to be of matriculation standard.

I agree with some critics that the medium of examination should not be tampered with and one should be given the opportunity to take the exams in the regional languages of one’s choice till a consensus evolves. Also, the language of essay should be optional and all Indian languages should be included instead of just English and Hindi.

But I fail to understand the knee jerk reaction of the government, keeping in abeyance all proposed changes. It could have easily put on hold the controversial changes like making the marks obtained in English count and proposal which allegedly discriminated against the regional language. But what prevents it from introducing other changes which no one is criticizing like enhancing the importance of General Studies having four papers instead of two earlier and going for only one optional subject instead of two for the Main examination.

Keeping on hold the debatable changes and going for the new pattern should have been the way out. The reform measures which no one is questioning should have been implemented. Ever since the British evolved the civil service, they changed it several times depending on the needs of the raj. It was time, we changed it keeping in view the needs of the new millennium. (March 18, 2013)
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/civil-services-exams-time-for-an-overhaul.html
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-03-18-1327.html

Rahul, the bachelor who doesn’t want the PM’s chair

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

So Rahul Gandhi has sort of decided to remain a bachelor like Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This is what he recently indicated saying, “if I get married and have children, then I will become a status quoist and will be concerned about bequeathing my position to my children.”

There could be thousands and millions of bachelors in the country but don’t be surprised at the comparison because both Rahul and Vajpayee are intrinsically connected with politics. For both of them, the bread and butter and their respective career was only politics, nothing else. Though Vajpayee might have retired, but in his heydays, he commanded a large following in his party like Rahul does in his own party now. Also, the comparison is because one became the Prime Minister though after a long waiting period in the opposition benches while the other was born with a silver spoon and has been consistently hailed in his party as “Prime Minister material” and “Prime Minister in-waiting”.

But the similarity between Vajpayee and Rahul ends here as the Congress vice president is also contemplating not to become Prime Minister which Vajpayee eventually became for six years and again wanted to become in 2004 when the BJP lost the polls. “Asking me whether you want to be Prime Minister is a wrong question,” he said on the same day when he spoke about his intentions of not getting married. In fact, Rahul has repeatedly spurned offers from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to join his Cabinet and has never said that becoming the PM was his main objective in politics.

In fact, the role model of Rahul, as he claims, in not nurturing any ambitions for the top political job of the country, is the Father of the Nation-Mahatma Gandhi. But unlike Rahul who does not want to marry, the Mahatma married Kasturba, remained in wedlock for the better part of his life till he became a widower, had children but did not bequeath his position to his children nor did he become the Prime Minister of the country.

No one perhaps seriously asked Vajpayee why he remained a bachelor but by doing so, he did not bequeath his name or status to anyone. It is a different matter that his foster son-in-law was quite influential when he was the Prime Minister of the country. But he has the surname of Bhattacharya and not Vajpayee.

Rahul would turn 43 in another three months. Chroniclers of the family history point out that none in the Nehru-Gandhi family, right from the days of Moti Lal Nehru married so late and there is little chance of the Doon school and St Stephen’s College student and Congress vice president to tie the knot now. Going by the current norms, most of the weddings take place when the bride and groom are in their mid or late 20s and we find rare instances of people marrying in their 40s and 50s unless it is a second or a third marriage for the person concerned. Even his younger sister, Priyanka married almost a decade and half back when she was in her 20s.

But given the fact that Congress is a unique institution of the world, a parallel of which can never be found in modern history, where a dynasty has been running the party for the last almost eight decades, what will happen to the glue which keeps the party together if Rahul does not marry and bequeath his legacy? This is what bothered me last week and I asked a leader of Congress after the statement of Gandhi counting on the virtues of bachelorhood and showing indifference to power. The reply was instant. “Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has two children”.

So, if Rahul Gandhi does not marry and have children, he would not have to bother about bequeathing his position to anyone. It will go to the next generation without him even asking for it. Congress leaders and workers would crown one of them given the fact that only a Gandhi can keep the party united. Remember, how a reluctant Sonia Gandhi was made Congress president by the members of Congress Working Committee, several years after the death of her husband Rajeev Gandhi. The answer given by the Congress functionary explained a lot, making me speechless.

Coming back to what the Congress vice president said, perhaps he has read Mahabharat, like most Indians, and is also inspired by Bhishma Pitamah who vowed not to marry but to protect the throne of Hastinapur. Finally, he found himself on the wrong side of virtue as the protector of the wily Kauravas who were out to negate the rightful claims of the Pandavas. Here, Rahul has the Congress to protect as no party leader has known the party without a Gandhi at the helm. Or does the arrangement which the party has presently, which is enjoying power without being responsible for it, suit the style of Rahul.

As far as bachelorhood in politics is concerned, BJP’s yet to be declared PM candidate, Narendra Modi too is a bachelor though some Congress leaders believe otherwise and have often gone to the extent of inventing the name of his wife and even her profession. But one thing is sure, like Gandhi, Modi too apparently believes that marriage and having children makes one status quoist though he has never said so from any forum or even informal discussions. He too does not have children so there is no question of bequeathing his legacy to anyone.

Of course you have some other famous bachelors in Indian politics like Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu who are heading the governments there and Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh who has been in and out of government for the last almost two decades. But none of them are the competitors of Rahul in national politics.

The only serious competition which Rahul faces in 2014 will be from a fellow bachelor Narendra Modi. If Rahul indeed thinks that bachelorhood is a virtue in politics, then obviously Modi too has this virtue. If Congress makes bachelorhood as the basic qualification for prime ministership, Modi will get in while his rivals in BJP would have no chance as most of them, including LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley are married. But like Vajpayee, bachelorhood is the only common thing which Modi shares with Rahul. Unlike the Congress vice president, Modi has so far never expressed his abhorrence for the post of Prime Minister. He has been the Chief Minister of Gujarat for over a decade and obviously would want to climb higher in the political journey and considers the desire for prime ministership as legitimate.

So in the run-up to 2014, we may perhaps see a reluctant prime ministerial candidate (Rahul) and a candidate who wants this post (Modi). As both of them are bachelors, none of them have an advantage over each other on that count unless Rahul does a

U-turn in the next 12 months as the campaign for Lok Sabha elections build up. Over to the voters of the country. (March 11, 2013) 

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/132463-rahul-the-bachelor-who-doesnt-want-the-pms-chair.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/132654-rahul-the-bachelor-who-doesnt-want-the-pms-chair.html

Bajwa in, Amarinder shown the door

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

Politically suffocated by the Shiromani Akali Dal and consistently on the back-foot, Congress finally found an alibi for successive defeats in Punjab and removed Capt Amarinder Singh from the post of state unit President.

With an aim to make Congress fighting fit for the Lok Sabha elections next year, party President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi chose 56-year old Partap Singh Bajwa whose electoral record has been better compared to the 72-year old Capt Amrinder who is on a losing spree ever since the party first lost the 2007 assembly polls and then the 2012 polls which it was widely expected to win. Capt Amarinder was the mascot of the party in both the elections.

The defeat in the Moga by-polls and the accompanying turf war between the state party leaders proved to be the proverbial last straw to break the Camel’s back—the nemesis of the Maharaja of Patiala. Soon after the defeat, he issued notices to some of the MLAs like Brahm Mohindra and Kaka Randeep Singh blaming them for not working for the party candidate in the Moga by-poll. The MLAs retaliated, triggering a full blown war in the state Congress which threatened the façade of unity assiduously built for the by-polls. Senior state Congress leaders rushed to Delhi to appraise the high command that the fratricidal war could have devastating electoral outcome. The high command acted swiftly and Bajwa was appointed with the Captain having no inkling of what was about to happen till the statement issues by AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi in New Delhi.

The countdown for the Captain began soon after the defeat in the Assembly polls in March last year. For the first time in 46 years, an incumbent government won the polls and the blame went to the Captain for his autocratic style, faulty distribution of tickets, two dozen rebels and also underestimating the Manpreet Badal factor. He resigned from his post but was asked to stay put for a while. It took a year for the Congress High command to take a decision which it could have taken just after the defeat in the assembly polls. 

A double whammy awaited the Captain as the Congress badly lost the civic polls in major cities of the state soon after the assembly polls. The cities and urban areas were supposed to be Congress stronghold but here also the BJP and Akali Dal pipped Congress and took away its urban vote base.

Apart from the style of functioning, electoral results too played a role in the removal of the Captain. While Bajwa, the MP from Gurdaspur, managed to get his wife Charanjit Kaur elected in the Assembly polls from Qadian, Amarinder could not ensure the victory of his son from Samana which is part of Patiala, considered for a long time as the pocket borough of the Maharaja. Earlier Raninder had lost from Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency in the 2009 polls. The Captain’s brother, Malwinder also parted company on the eve of the 2012 polls, raising doubts about the former Chief Minister’s ability to keep his own family and the party united.

Given the demographic arithmetic in the state, only a Jat Sikh fitted the space of Capt Amarinder at this point and in such circumstances, Bajwa was hardly a surprise. He is relatively young at 56, has been through the thick and thin, was the President of Punjab Youth Congress and comes from a political family of the Majha (border) region of the state.

This is perhaps the end of the political road for the scion of the erstwhile Patiala princely state as the premium is on youth under Rahul Gandhi and the party is unlikely to make him the chief ministerial candidate for the 2017 polls when he would be 76. As his wife, Preneet Kaur is the Patiala MP and Minister of State in the UPA government, it is again unlikely that he would contest 2014 Lok Sabha polls, relinquishing his Patiala Assembly seat. At best, he could hope to become a Governor or an Ambassador, posts given to retired politicians. (March 7, 2013) 

Roadmap 2014 becomes clear

 VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

In the National Council meet of BJP, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the “Night Watchman”, who is only warming the seat for Rahul Gandhi as and when the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty decides to assume office.

Though it is difficult to fathom the logic as no one can actually be the “Night Watchman” for almost nine years, the remark nevertheless triggered uproar as everything related to Modi does, with Congress giving it back to Modi in the same language.

Even as the two parties were targeting each other, the sane counsel of LK Advani got drowned in the cacophony and Modi hype. Now, more or less in the role of a patriarch with Prime Ministerial ambitions behind him, Advani counseled the party to reach out to the allies and the minorities apart from zero tolerance towards corruption. In its enthusiasm to project Modi as the undeclared prime ministerial candidate of the party, BJP leaders of late seem to have forgotten how to reach out to the potential allies, something which Advani has suggested and given a timely reminder. It was the USP of Vajpayee who led a 23-party coalition successfully. As Advani was the Number 2 and the man behind many of those decisions, he knows it better. At this point of time, the allies of BJP could be counted on finger tips and in the past several years, it has got no new entrants except little known Haryana Janhit Congress with one member in the Lok Sabha. Those who have walked out are in double digit.

At a time when the vote share of both Congress and the BJP is more or less stagnant with little or no chance of it going drastically up or down, it is the allies who will matter the most in 2014. Whoever gets the maximum allies and support of the regional parties will have a fair chance of getting its nominee as the Prime Minister. If BJP gets most of the regional players in the NDA fold, it could have Modi or whoever it wants as the PM; if not, Congress would surely have Rahul Gandhi this time given the regional arithmetic it has assiduously worked in the past almost nine years ever since it came to power in the 2004 elections.

In the last quarter of a century, ever since the Mandir issue catapulted the BJP as an alternative power Centre and the Mandal issue paved the way for emergence of powerful OBC satraps in North India, the power has decisively shifted to the regional parties and their chieftains. The two national parties have just become the cementing factor whom these parties support for their own regional aspirations and to get their demands met from the Centre.

Even as the BJP has sounded the poll bugle in its Delhi meeting, it has so far not attempted to get Trinamool Congress, AIADMK and Biju Janata Dal in National Democratic Alliance. All the three parties were crucial for the formation of the Atal Bihari government and provided valuable support as allies. Telugu Desham Party too has so far been out of the NDA scheme of things even though it still has a sizeable following in Andhra Pradesh.

Just consider the fact that on its own, BJP does not matter in any of these States —West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Odisha which are headed by Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalitha and Naveen Pattnaik. Add Andhra Pradesh to this list and you get four States which together send almost 140 members to the Lok Sabha where BJP hardly has any presence and so far it has failed to stitch an alliance even when the polls are a little over a year away. Perhaps it wants to do well in the northern States and places where it is strong so that the parties who are watching it from a distance could come to it and join the NDA after the results. But this is not as simple unless the groundwork is done before the polls for a pact or the party gets an assurance of support after the polls.

Then there are States like Uttar Pradesh where none of the two main players — SP and BSP — would support the BJP and on its own, the party cannot repeat the magical numbers it got when Vajpayee formed government.

The BJP meeting in New Delhi, which followed the one of Congress in Jaipur, has clearly set the tone of political discourse in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. While Jaipur catapulted Rahul Gandhi practically on the throne as the Number two of the party and the prime ministerial candidate, New Delhi did a similar thing to Narendra Modi. It has paved the way for Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions like never before with no serious challenger emerging so far from the party.

Modi played to the gallery well. In his speech, he hit the Congress hard and pointed how it has become a dynastic party. Already, a lot of the leaders and ministers owe their position to their dynasty and now there are several sons of these leaders and ministers who are set to make a political debut. This includes sons of AICC General Secretaries Oscar Fernandes, Digvijay Singh and Janardan Dwivedi. Also the sons of Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh are set to follow the footsteps of their father anytime now.

Opposition to dynastic politics could perhaps be the USP of BJP in the run up to the elections as so far the party hardly has any leader whose son or daughter is in serious politics.

Corruption could be another issue which the BJP would hope to bank on with something or the other tumbling out of the cupboard of UPA Government every now or then. But it depends on the Congress how well it defends its scams and on the BJP on how it finds chinks in the armour of the ruling party.

But these are macro issues which are crucial, but not all important when a person goes out to cast his vote. His or her regional aspirations, local issues and factors too count a lot and it is here-in the management of the micro issues where the BJP has found to be lacking.

Getting allies on board on a consistent basis in the run-up to the polls is micro poll management and the BJP will have to show its skills here. Congress has an advantage as apart from the Trinamool Congress it has consistent allies who have been through thick and thin.

It will be Micro poll management which holds the keys for the prime ministerial chair in 2014 as both Congress and BJP are evenly matched so far in the Macro issues on which polls are generally fought. (March 4, 2013)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/130887-roadmap-2014-becomes-clear.html

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/130976-roadmap-2014-becomes-clear.html