The Hindu Business Line : Will it be a hung Lok Sabha?

Successive exit polls showing the NDA slipping and the Congress(I) gaining ground point to a hung Lok Sabha. This should get the regional parties and smaller outfits rubbing their hands as they are sure to be wooed to form the government, never mind that they may be disowned at a later date, as one BJP ally is now finding out, says Rasheeda Bhagat.

What will be the voter's choice?

IF THE exit polls are a true indication of the way the wind is blowing, the elections will result in a hung Lok Sabha. With successive phases of elections, according to the exit polls, the NDA and its allies appear to be slipping, and the Congress(I) and allies improving upon the gloom-and-doom picture that was painted for India's oldest political party before the hustings.

But even while slipping, the BJP-led NDA may yet be best placed to form a government at the Centre, on several counts. For one, the BJP has long shed the image of the untouchable party of the mid-1990s. The times of a Vajpayee government remaining in office for just 13 days because not too many regional parties were willing to support it belong to a bygone era. On the contrary, after two terms in office — the first truncated to 13 months following the withdrawal of support by the AIADMK, led by Ms Jayalalithaa, in 1999, and the second a full term — today, a plethora of political players will surely be waiting to join the NDA bandwagon.

The most probable of them is the Samajwadi Party, which has come to centre-stage and is most likely to play the role of kingmaker in the coming weeks — unless, of course, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, would want to be king himself!

The manner in which the SP leadership turned up its nose at the overtures from the Congress(I) in the run-up to the elections when alliances were being firmed up, was indicator enough that Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav had his political antenna turned to another direction. And with the man who cannot even be sure of his gaddi in Lucknow contesting the Lok Sabha election, it became evident that the SP chief had other plans. With the NDTV-Indian Express exit poll projecting for the NDA 235-255 seats and the Aaj Tak poll giving it 266 seats — both well short of the magic number of 272 — the SP is no doubt sharpening its claws.

That it is moving closer to the BJP even while mouthing the mantra of secularism could be seen from the SP General Secretary, Mr Amar Singh, holding forth at a press conference on Tuesday — after the exit polls had made clear the SP's bargaining position in the immediate post-poll scenario — that his party was willing to withdraw its candidates from Madhya Pradesh as urged by the Congress(I), if the latter reciprocated by withdrawing its candidates in UP.

To add insult to injury he added: "The condition of the SP in Madhya Pradesh is the same as that of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and if the latter can do the same here we will oblige them in Madhya Pradesh."

Describing the BJP as an "expert in spreading rumours", he denied the possibility of his party propping up an NDA government or joining the NDA in the event of the BJP-led coalition falling short of a majority. Reiterating that it would strive to provide a "secular alternative" at the Centre after the elections, he said that to explore this possibility the party's leadership was in constant touch with the CPI(M) General Secretary, Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet.

Not too much political acumen is needed to figure out that this statement is directed at whatever Muslim vote bank the SP still has. Mr Amar Singh and his mentor, Mr Mulalyam Singh Yadav, are only too aware that even a whiff of the SP's aligning with the NDA after the polls, and the SP's Muslim supporters will jump the fence and land in the outstretched arms of either the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Congress(I).

While Mr Amar Singh's statements will be taken with a large pinch of salt, another group that might do the `poll vault' after the elections is the DMK-led DPA (Democratic Progressive Alliance), which is expected to do rather well.

Almost all pre-poll surveys have given a thumbs-up to the DPA, which is likely to mop up 30-32 seats in the Tamil Nadu. Even if the Congress(I) gets five of these, that leaves the DMK, the PMK and the MDMK with some 25 seats. There is expectation in political circles that after the elections, if the NDA is within sniffing distance of power, these three parties will jump the fence in the interest of "national stability" and a host of other reasons.

There is a section of opinion in Tamil Nadu that even if the NDA gets a simple majority, Mr Vajpayee might invite the DMK chief, Mr M. Karunanidhi, as well as the PMK and the MDMK to join the NDA government. After all, how difficult would it be for both the camps to make a scapegoat of the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP, which was so desperate to woo the same Ms Jayalalithaa who had so ruthlessly pulled the rug from under Mr Vajpayee's feet in the April of 1999?

Then there is the possibility of the Nationalist Congress Party leader, Mr Sharad Pawar, lending the NDA a helping hand if there are number compulsions. So what if the Shiv Sena supremo, Mr Bal Thackeray, frets and fumes at this possibility? After all, is not politics all about strange bedfellows?

One strong message from this election, if the exit polls have got it right and both the IT icons of India — the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Chandrababu Naidu, and the Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr S. M. Krishna — get a drubbing in this election is the importance of Rural India.

A shining Hyderabad or Bangalore or any other mega city cannot by themselves work magic on the political arena. A robust stock market, smart IT professionals, proliferating call centres, preening corporates, a hugely successful divestment exercise, and the limited feel-good factor can only change the lives of a small segment of Urban India.

The parched brown fields of the severely drought-hit areas of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan, the farmers who have no other resort but to take their lives when their crops fail, the millions of unemployed in both urban and rural India, the victims of brutal communal carnage and economic discrimination, the masses whose primary health and education needs go unfulfilled — all these form the underbelly of this vast country. Rural India may be soft, weak and vulnerable during the major portion of the electoral cycle. But it can kick back with lethal vengeance when the time comes to vote.

The knee-jerk response of the stock market following the exit poll results after the second phase, when the BSE Sensex cracked by 200 points on Tuesday, is indicator enough of the hit the NDA government was with India Inc. Prima facie, even the mere projection that the "market- and reforms-friendly" NDA may not return to power with a clear majority, seems to have given the equity market the shivers. With public memory being extremely short, it is all but forgotten that the economic reforms were kick-started by the P. V. Narasimha Rao government of the Congress(I) in the early 1990s. It is the Jaswant Singhs and the Arun Shouries who are remembered; if they disappear from the scene in the next government at the Centre, the heavens will fall, or so the equity market has decided.

But above all else, a disturbing image that emerges from the exit poll projections after the second phase is of one BJP leader after another appearing on television channels and proclaiming that they knew all along that Mr Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP would do badly in Andhra Pradesh. Obviously, he has been dumped even before the final results can be declared. Till yesterday was he not the blue-eyed boy of the NDA government? But just like the equity market, the political theatre too has place only for winners.

(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)