Assembly results blessing in disguise for BJP
Grievances of farmers, traders, urban middle class need urgent redress.
At one level, the outcome of the Assembly polls should have held no surprises. After 15 years of anti-incumbency, the loss in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh ought to have been anticipated. But the BJP became a victim of its own hype, creating an impression of invincibility. That would explain the over-the-top euphoria in the Congress. Probably, the Congress needs to exaggerate its immense good fortune in Madhya Pradesh, the centre-piece of the 11 December verdict, in its desperation, at long last, to be able to thrust the mantle of leadership on Rahul Gandhi.
Indeed, if anyone has emerged a greater leader in this election it is Shivraj Singh Chouhan. His performance is bound to elevate him higher in the BJP hierarchy, while it would make him the foremost leader from any party in Madhya Pradesh. Polling more popular votes but falling short of the half-way mark in the Assembly by a couple of seats is a quirk of the electoral system we have all come to live with. Yet, Shivraj has nothing to fear from the paratrooper from Delhi, who is set to replace him as Chief Minister. Time is on his side.
Chouhan’s loss despite his success in large measure in addressing rural distress, especially through the novel Bhavantar scheme, is not easily explained. The BJP won half the rural seats, though he had disbursed thousands of crores in difference between the market realisation from the sale of farm produce and the minimum support price fixed by the government for each commodity. No other state had performed better than Madhya Pradesh in the agriculture sector in the last decade. Maybe actual performance matters less than other factors. Complacency also contributed to the BJP loss.
For sure, BJP would have done far better had it not given cause to its traditional constituencies to feel aggrieved. GST had angered the trading classes, demonetisation had sucked out cash from the rural households, prices of petrol and diesel were ruling high all through the elections, hurting both the middle class and the tube-well owners in the farm sector. Paradoxically, lower food prices too meant unremunerative yields on farm produce. Putting one’s finger on a single factor for voter behaviour is always difficult, but had Narendra Modi devoted a little more time to Madhya Pradesh, the outcome would have been different. Shivraj and Raman Singh were left to spearhead the campaign on their own.
Both Modi and Amit Shah, instead, devoted extra attention to Rajasthan. Vasundhara Raje, who was widely believed to be fighting an already lost battle, needed to be bailed out. Modi’s lastminute burst in Rajasthan helped make the contest much closer, with the party polling a mere half- a- per cent fewer votes than the Congress. The feared wipeout of the BJP did not materialise. Instead, the voters denied the Congress a clear majority. Vasundhara survived a fright to give battle to the Congress yet again.
However, discounting the loss in three states, quite a few BJP leaders believe that it could prove a blessing in disguise. The party had become too arrogant, too Modi- Shah- centric, ignoring not only the ordinary workers, but even veteran leaders. Less arrogance would be reflected in the revival of the consensual decisionmaking process, which was the norm till the heady success in 2014, with the ModiShah duopoly marginalising everybody else. The two became the party high command. With faith in the much-vaunted Amit Shah election machine diminished by the 11 December verdict, the BJP president is bound to come across less arrogant and more accessible and accommodative towards party members.
The warning from the voters could not have come at a more propitious time for the BJP. Ahead of the electorate is wise enough to distinguish between a state election and an all-India election. Notwithstanding the setback to the BJP in the recent state elections, one hopes that Prime Minister Modi gets a second term. One can only hope that he will be allowed to do his good work. parliamentary polls due a few months from now, the leadership can begin to allow ordinary workers and mid-level leaders a sense of participation in party affairs. It can address the simmering discontent in its traditional vote- banks of traders and upper castes, the latter unhappy at the reversal through an ordinance of the Apex Court decision prescribing minimum precautions before invoking the full fury of the SC-ST anti- atrocity law. At the same time, it can address the misgivings of the SCs-STs who were misled to believe that the impugned Supreme Court order was a conspiracy. In sum, the Assembly outcome gives an opportunity to the BJP for a course correction.
What steps will the government take to arrest the fall in farm incomes might prove crucial ahead of the parliamentary poll. Unremunerative prices for farm produce antagonise rural voters. This will have to be addressed on a war footing. A universal scheme to pay landowners a fixed sum per acre ahead of every crop season a la the Telangana government, seems to be a sensible solution until long-term farm sector woes can be resolved in a holistic manner. Kneejerk solutions such as farm loan waivers merely buy time without tackling the real crisis.
Meanwhile, buoyed by the Assembly results, the protagonists of Mahagathbandhan will renew effort to try and field one Opposition candidate against the BJP in most constituencies. The ruling party has to be prepared for a one-against-all challenge. However, the BJP is fortunate to have in Modi Bahujan Samaj Party. Most of the crimes that had happened in the past were sponsored by these parties. a leader whose connect with the ordinary voters is still strong. An overwhelming majority wants to see him continue as Prime Minister for a second successive term. This alone goes a long way in extinguishing the challenge a Mahagathbandhan might pose to the BJP. A host of welfare schemes, virtually free housing, subsidised cooking gas to millions of rural households, village electrification, Mudra loans to self-employed small businesses, etc., cannot go unrewarded. The voters are not ungrateful, politicians often are.
For sure, the control of three Hindi heartland states gives the Congress a certain boost in its effort to woo the voters with populist goodies, and for raising funds for the party. But thanks to an ever growing awareness about the difference between a state and a parliamentary poll, ordinary voters can be expected to prefer Modi to any of his challengers, including an untested and inexperienced Rahul Gandhi. Besides, the lack of clarity on prime ministerial candidate will hobble any Mahagathbandhan, whose sole objective is to oust Modi. Without an alternative programme, or ideology, the Rahul Congress cannot defeat Modi’s BJP by merely latching on to the tail of a cow. The near- collapse of the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, which triggered a crisis in the wider mutual fund sector, was man-made. Its top brass treated the company as a gravy train, helping itself to grossly obscene pay packages, living in the lap of luxury, travelling firstclass and hiring offices and homes at highly inflated prices. Some 150 cars, mostly BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, etc., were at its disposal. The swanky guesthouse in Delhi’s Sunder Nagar boasted of half-a-dozen luxury cars. Chauffeurs of top managers enjoyed pay packages of Rs 25 lakh, that is, higher than what a secretary to Government of India earns. Ironically, quite a few mangers were former IAS officers. With Rs 95,000 crore of public money at stake, it will be a miracle if even half of it can be recovered. But, rest assured, none in the top management will be penalised. They will all move on to the next gravy train. It did not surprise that a businessman under investigation by a government agency had hired on rent Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi’s farmhouse. This is a standard practice when you are trying to buy influence. Long years ago, the house in a cooperative society in Gurgaon was rented out by the then President of India to a businessman, though it was hardly occupied. Why, in the same colony an editor had rented out his house to an airport concessionaire, which ensured that no reports of wrongdoing against the tenant—and there was plenty of wrongdoing—ever featured in the newspaper. Come to think of it, several years ago a former Union Cabinet Secretary took a huge sum in advance from a public sector bank against the future rent to be paid when the house was ready. Moral: why single out politicians? Hum sab chor hain. election sloganeering, some hard action against the corrupt would have been welcome. The outcome of the Telangana Assembly elections has proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the Congress made a huge mistake by aligning itself with its one time archrival—the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). In fact, the association was suicidal for both, and facilitated the easy return of K. Chandrashekar Rao for another term of five years, in a state which was founded because of the Congress fixation to spite Jagan Mohan Reddy, son of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy after the latter’s mysterious death in September 2009 in a helicopter crash. YSR had led the Congress campaign against the NDA and it was due to his immense contribution that the party came to power in 2004 and 2009, winning 29 and 33 seats respectively.
However, soon after his passing away, the party high command, for reasons best known to it, started hounding Jagan, resulting in his exit, and hastily announced the formation of the Telangana state, 20 minutes before midnight on Sonia Gandhi’s birthday, 9 December 2009. This controversial declaration was made by P. Chidambaram.
The debacle in Telangana ruined the otherwise superlative performance of the Congress, which in a straight faceoff with the Bharatiya Janata Party in three Hindi speaking states, wrested control of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The celebrations would have been more jubilant had the party won in Telangana, but an alliance with the TDP proved to be its undoing. Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who had extended an olive branch to Rahul Gandhi in order to firm up the pre-poll arrangement, was positioning himself for bigger things, but the defeat obviously has been a massive setback for him. His ambition of being the king or at least the kingmaker, post the 2019 Parliamentary elections has been put on hold, for the time being. In addition, Naidu’s standing amongst top Opposition leaders has been certainly affected.
The Congress-TDP alliance was as untenable as the Congress tie-up with the Samajwadi Party was in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections of 2017. In UP, the Congress would have certainly performed much better on its own steam and this would have been true of Telangana as well. In fact, in UP, the Congress virtually decimated itself in more than 325 constituencies where it allowed Akhilesh Yadav to field candidates of his choice, including some who contested on the Congress symbol. This was the primary reason for the super showing by the BJP since the Congress votes shifted towards the saffron brigade in these 300-odd constituencies, with the workers and activists preferring Modi’s party to the SP and BSP, which for the past 25 years they had been opposing. The unprecedented victory of the BJP was thus not on account of demonetisation, as it was made out to be, but because the 6% Congress vote that gravitated towards it.
The lesson to be learnt from the Telangana and UP mistakes is that the Grand Old Party must not be in any hurry to forge alliances, but should utilise its experienced leaders to first test the waters. During the Shimla Conclave in July 2003, when the Congress for the first time decided to enter into association with other secular parties, to dislodge the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, it had a well thought through strategy. This political game plan was crafted by Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh, Makhan Lal Fotedar, amongst other stalwarts. The deliberations at the Peterhoff Hotel were extensive, and the blue-print ensured that Sonia Gandhi emerged as the principal leader of the proposed coalition.
Since then things have changed drastically. The Congress organisation is both weak and vulnerable, and there are not too many leaders who have the same kind of experience and political acumen of those who at the time were advising the Congress president. Thus the present leadership has to take into account its own shortcomings and limitations before shaking hands with one time foes, without properly pondering over the ramifications of the entire exercise.
The victory in three states has put the Congress on a sound wicket, and it would be from a position of renewed strength that it would be able to cobble up alliances. Simultaneously, it has to be wary of political mavericks whose aim is to use the party to further their own ambitions. In 2004, after Sonia Gandhi declined to be the Prime Minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav, a key component of the UPA flexed his muscles and wanted the PM to be chosen by the allies. At this point itself, Fotedar told him bluntly that the PM’s position was non-negotiable, and it was for the Congress to figure out who was to be the PM nominee. When Sonia Gandhi decided on Dr Manmohan Singh and stated that he should be elected by the Parliamentary Party, it was Fotedar again who cautioned and advised her to review her decision. He said that it would be better if the Congress Parliamentary Party would authorise her to nominate someone of her choice as the PM since it would send a clear signal on who was the boss.
Therefore, it is for Rahul Gandhi to seek out clear-headed political strategists from amongst the party’s organisation to counsel him on how to handle the critical question of alliances. His miscalculations and oversight had cost him dearly when he engaged a political mercenary like Prashant Kishor ahead of UP and Punjab Assembly polls, and thus such erroneous decisions should not be repeated. Between us.