The Hindu Business Line : Will it be ‘Untied’ Progressive Alliance?

The manner in which the Congress has been treated by its allies in Bihar is an indication of the progressive shrinking of political space for India’s Grand Old Party.

Rasheeda Bhagat

After the body blow dealt on the BJP by Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal, now the Congress gets a shocker.

Its trusted allies in Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party have not left the Congress, but have conveyed to it the insignificance of its clout in their turf. On Tuesday, amidst much hugging and grinning, the RJD supremo, Mr Lalu Prasad, and the LJP chief, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, finalised the seat-sharing deal with the former taking 25 and the latter 12. All they have left for the Congress are miserable three seats, which the party finds “rather humiliating”. Last time, the Congress was given five seats, of which it won four.

If the two Bihar netas have buried the hatchet — in the last Bihar Assembly elections they had contested separately and were trounced by the BJP-led NDA — it is thanks to Mr Nitish Kumar, becoming a formidable force in this election. The NDA Chief Minister has provided a fairly decent government in the State and surely it was the self-preservation mantra that induced Mr Lalu Prasad and Mr Paswan to come together again.

Feeling terribly let down by Mr Lalu Prasad, considered a trusted ally of the Congress chief, Ms Sonia Gandhi, the Congress speedily responded by finalising seat-sharing with the JMM in Jharkhand where it will contest seven seats and the JMM five, leaving a mere two for the RJD.

Cong’s shrinking national space

This might change things, and the Congress may in the end wring out a couple more seats in Bihar, but the casual manner in which the national party has been treated by its Bihar allies is an indisputable indication of the progressive shrinking of political space for India’s oldest party. It must be a matter of shame for the Congress that in two of the biggest States — UP and Bihar — its allies are willing to offer it only nine out of the 120 seats. Of the 80 seats in UP, the Samajwadi Party has offered only six to the Congress.

Predictably, the BJP — itself recovering from the body blows dealt by allies and in tizzy over the damage caused by its Pilibhit candidate, Mr Varun Gandhi’s statements — was quick to latch on to the irony of the Congress’s plight in UP and Bihar. Addressing the media, BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad, said: “The UPA is in shambles and is disintegrating.” The Congress’s allies willing to give it only nine seats in UP and Bihar, he said, was “the ground reality” of the party’s influence in these States, and should be an eye-opener to the electorate.

“The Congress is no more a serious player on the national front; this is not our assessment, it is the assessment of its allies... The UPA was an opportunistic, incoherent congregation assembled post-2004 Lok Sabha polls and is in shambles before the 2009 elections. The façade of unity has been shed,” he said. This no doubt is like manna for the BJP-diehards, but none more than the party knows that the fight is far from over, and that its main opponent remains the UPA and not the as-yet uncertain entity called the Third Front.

But that does not prevent regional satraps across the nation — for instance, Messrs Lalu Prasad and Paswan — from entertaining in the their minds the possibility of migrating to such an alternative after elections if the UPA and the NDA cannot cobble together the numbers. While Mr Mulayam Singh’s entry into the third alternative is barred by the presence of Ms Mayawati, for the Lalu-Paswan duo there is no such block. Their main opponent is Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United), which is an integral part of the NDA.

Another headache for BJP

Even before the ongoing war between the BJP chief, Mr Rajnath Singh, and senior leader, Mr Arun Jaitley, could end, the BJP has been caught by another headache: Mr Varun Gandhi’s alleged use of some colourful language against Muslims.

“They (Muslims) have names such as Karimullah, Mazurullah; if you see them in the night you would get scared,” was apparently one line. Another was that his bearded rival from Pilibhit, Samajwadi Party’s Riaz Ahmed, looked like Osama bin Laden. Gleeful, the Shiv Sena said in its mouthpiece Saamna that “this is one Gandhi we like,” and urged him not to apologise. Mr Varun Gandhi now claims that the entire tape is doctored and that he never made such statements. But the BJP spokesman, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, was quick to point out that the party “disapproves and dissociates itself from the comments attributed to Varun Gandhi.”

When the great Indian political circus is replete with such entertainment, do we really need the IPL matches during the poll season?