The Hindu Business Line : Have right alliances, win elections

The biggest lesson this election would teach the political parties is that gone are the days of big national outfits grabbing mostof the seats from all over the country to form a government virtually single-handedly. Alliances are the order of the day because people would rather trust their smaller regional parties to safeguard their interests. So, it is imperative to get the political alliances right.

A winning alliance.

REPEATING what seems to be becoming a habit, most of us in the media failed to see the outcome of this election too. Not even the most optimistic of psephologists — optimistic from the Congress(I)'s point of view, that is — poll pundits or media analysts could predict the Congress-I's spectacular come back. There is a good chance that the party itself is stunned by the impressive show it put up.

But more than the party coming out, literally from the cold, to prove horribly wrong those who had predicted that it might not even touch the double-digit mark in the 14th Lok Sabha, the story of this election is all about the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots.

It is about holding up the mirror to the dark, grim corners of this country which have seen no shine. It is about the well-heeled and highly educated yuppies of hi-tech metros reminding the abjectly poor, unemployed masses in the villages that they have no hope of making it to a call centre or a BPO office.

This election is also about the fuddy-duddies of the political process — who have been shouting from rooftops about social justice — such as the the Samajwadi Party Chief, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Rashtriya Janta Party Chief, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, and the Bahujan Samaj Party chief, Ms Mayawati, emerging with a good harvest of seats. And, about the Left parties, which too have been singing the social justice mantra, though in a tune, different from that of the Yadav duo, putting in their best ever performance.

But the biggest lesson this election would teach our political parties is that gone are the days of big national outfits grabbing most of the seats from all over the country to form a government virtually single-handedly. Alliances are the order of the day because people would rather trust their smaller regional parties to safeguard their interests. So, it is imperative to get the political alliances right.

The BJP fine-tuned the art of sewing up alliances way back in the days when the Congress(I) was still dreaming of returning to power on its own, as was declared at the AICC session at Pachmari. But this time around, the BJP made the Himalayan blunder of letting allies such as the DMK, the MDMK and the PMK in Tamil Nadu, Mr Om Prakash Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, and even a smaller ally such as Mr Ram Vilas Paswan drift away. Except for the INLD, all the others went into the open arms of the Congress(I), to help it march towards victory. In Tamil Nadu, particularly, the BJP will rue the day it got dazzled by the the AIADMK supremo, Ms Jayalalithaa, and dumped such trusted allies as the DMK, the MDMK and the PMK, only to find itself wiped out from this southern State. It was poll arithmetic that sounded the death knell of the BJP-AIADMK combine, as well as anti-incumbency at the State level.

The BJP has, of course, attributed the NDA's poor performance to the anti-incumbency factor, and has been rather quick to point in the direction of Andhra Pradesh, saying that the nine-year incumbency factor that hit the TDP, affected the BJP's fortunes too. But how come the anti-incumbency factor does not hit the likes of Mr Laloo Yadav? You may call him names, initiate any number of corruption cases against him, snigger at his rustic ways, antics and his sleeveless vest-dhoti ensemble, or scream from rooftops about the criminalisation of politics and corruption in Bihar as also its pot-holed roads.

And, yet, he manages to be on the winning side — sometimes doing well as he did this time around and, at other times, just managing to keep his head above the water as happened in the last general elections where he failed to get elected to the Lok Sabha. And despite all kinds of corruption charges against his party, it is the RJD that is ruling Bihar today. His opponent from Chapra, Mr Rajiv Pratap Rudy, was smart enough to produce enough evidence against the RJD chief to effect a repoll in Chapra. But, surely, Mr Laloo Yadav has had the last laugh, winning from Madhepura, the second seat that he contested from this time and is not going to need the people's mandate from Chapra now. The NDA's defeat becomes all the more puzzling to fathom because all said and done, and despite Gujarat, the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had provided a fairly decent government that was, by and large, free from major corruption scandals.

Of course, leaders accepting cash on camera, as exposed by Tehelka, did rock the nation and dent the image of the "party with a difference," but the nation did not witness the sight of the sleuths unearthing bundles of notes from the mattresses of any of the BJP leaders! Matters economic were handled with as much aplomb as efficiency and if Corporate India did bloom, it was thanks to political or bureaucratic interference in matters economic being kept to a minimum.

In some way, this election is also the revenge of the drought-stricken farmer... Not only in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where the ruling parties were made to bite the dust, but also in a State such as Gujarat, where the Hindutva juggernaut, Mr Narendra Modi was so confident of sweeping the polls, that he lent his services with great willingness for campaigning for the BJP in other States. The Gujarat farmers, it appears, hit back for the steep hike in power rates.

The venom he spewed on the Congress(I) chief, Ms Sonia Gandhi, and her son, Rahul, obviously boomeranged on the BJP. Mr Vajpayee's constant appeals to steer the election rhetoric away from personal attacks fell on deaf ears. Returning to alliances, credit must be given to Ms Sonia Gandhi for going all out to gather new allies into the Congress-fold. She greeted Ms Mayawati on her birthday, went to Mr Paswan's house, came down to Chennai to the DMK's headquarters, and tried her best to get Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav into the party's camp. But the UP leader proved to be a slippery customer, hoping that by some quirk of fate, he would be able to grab the topmost slot of prime minister for himself.

But on Thursday morning, as the leads began coming out and the Congress alliance established a clear lead, the Samjwadi Party General Secretary, Mr Amar Singh, was one of the first callers at the CPI(M) leader, Mr Harkishen Surjeet's house, obviously pledging his party's support to the `secular government'. As it became clear that with the Left parties' spectacular performance, and their committing to support a Congress-led government, other parties may not even be required for the magic 272 figure; Ms Mayawati declared by the afternoon that she had no problems supporting a `secular' government.

All this led one to wonder why both these votaries of `secularism' had such a problem in cobbling together an alliance or even an informal understanding with the Congress(I) in the first place before the polls! But, obviously, each thought it more prudent to be the cat-on-the-wall because this would make it that much easier to jump the way the wind was blowing; secularism versus national interest, stability, or whatever.

Coming to the issue of the next prime minister, justice and fair play dictates that it should be Ms Sonia Gandhi. It was her untiring work in sewing up alliances, holding the party together, navigating through some really rough times, and the relentless campaigning that have brought the party back to power. But the question remains if she should become the prime minister, when even allies such as Mr Sharad Pawar have grave doubts on the issue.

Much more than her foreign origin, it is her personality, her as-yet unproved skills in emotionally reaching out or connecting with the Indian masses, her ability to speak the Indian idiom, as an Indira Gandhi could... . that stand between her and the post.

But, then, even without becoming a prime minister she can be all-powerful, as the Shiv Sena chief, Mr Bal Thackeray, has demonstrated in Mumbai, where no BJP or Shiv Sena chief minister in a BJP-Sena alliance ever mattered more than him. Politically a lightweight (and, hence, not a threat), economically brilliant, administratively efficient and in all other ways mature, savvy and astute Dr Manmohan Singh would fit the bill. But will she be able to resist the temptation?

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in