The Hindu Business Line : And now, for the final act

Once the election results are out and hard numbers have to be put on the table, all the sloganeering will recede to the background. And while nobody can guess the final outcome, the winners will face a much tougher challenge than a display of lung power at TV studio debates, says RASHEEDA BHAGAT.

The NDA put up a grand finale in Ludhiana, the high point of which was getting the Bihar Chief Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, to share the stage with his Gujarat counterpart, Mr Narendra Modi.

We have come to the end of our dance of democracy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi dashed to Tamil Nadu to soothe the ruffled feathers of the DMK chief, Mr M. Karunanidhi, after Congress General-Secretary Rahul Gandhi made friendly overtures to Ms Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK as a “like-minded party”.

Obviously the DMK, on the back-foot and fighting a huge anti-incumbency factor in Tamil Nadu, was greatly upset by this remark. There were reports of DMK cadre refusing to work for Congress candidates in Tamil Nadu, giving the latter the jitters. Thrilled by Ms Gandhi’s decision to address a rally in Chennai, despite the security threat to her from the LTTE, an ailing DMK chief made it to the rally, recalled Sonia’s sacrifices, and praised her political acumen.

While the Congress was busy patching up cracks in its coalition with allies like the DMK, the NDA put up a grand finale in Ludhiana, the high point of which was to get the Bihar Chief Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, to share the stage with his Gujarat counterpart, Mr Narendra Modi.

Nitish’s presence at that rally was very important to the BJP as the JD(U) leader, who enjoys a great deal of support from Muslims in Bihar for his secular credentials and inclusive politics, had been maintaining a clear distance from Mr Narendra Modi. He had said in interviews that he would not share any election plank with Mr Modi, made it clear to the BJP that he did not want the Gujarat CM to campaign in Bihar and repeatedly refused to answer questions endorsing Mr Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate in the future. But the Bihar polling is over now!

So, when Mr Kumar agreed to join the Ludhiana rally and shook Mr Modi’s hand, the BJP got a shot in the arm that gave it a greater boost than weaning away the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao from the Third Front to the NDA camp did.

Formidable show

The Ludhiana rally was a formidable show of strength indeed. While Rahul Gandhi caused tremors in the UPA alliance by wooing Nitish Kumar, upset Trinamool Congress by saying Congress would do business with the Left again and rattled the DMK, the NDA was able to show that even while losing one ally — Mr Naveen Patnaik of the BJD — it had managed to keep together the others, and even find some new ones — Ajit Singh’s Lok Dal, the TRS, etc.

Against this, the UPA has lost allies like the RJD, the LJP and the SP in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh; that all the three will not do well is not the point. In lieu of these parties the Congress has failed to find other allies, and its overtures to the JD(U) have been spurned.

The missing two

But on May 16, when the results come out and hard numbers will have to be put on the table, all the sloganeering and handholding will recede to the background. While nobody has a clue on the final outcome, the bad news for the BJP is that the Congress continues to have an edge when it comes to casting its net wide and deep to fish for new allies/numbers. Sure, the NDA does have some allies still in purdah — two strong women leaders from the north and south in Ms Mayawati and Ms Jayalalithaa. The BJP will be more comfortable with the latter than the former and can expect its Gujarat strongman, Mr Modi, to bring Ms Jayalalithaa into the NDA fold. He enjoys her confidence and friendship.

Ms Mayawati will be a trickier and far more demanding customer to tackle; the BJP has tasted her bitter medicine in the past in Uttar Pradesh. Remember the pledge of revolving chief ministership with the BJP, which she ended as soon as her term as CM was over? And recently, the NSA slapped against Varun Gandhi?

But the compulsions of coalition politics and the allure of power always makes for strange bedfellows. And hence there was Mr L. K. Advani, reacting with horror at the demand of the SP chief, Mr Mulayam Singh, that he would support any formation at the Centre that gets rid of Bahenji’s government in UP. How could such an unconstitutional demand be made in a democracy, he wondered, sending the first feeler to Ms Mayawati for possibly joining an NDA government.

Returning to Ms Jayalalithaa, who was supposed to be BJP’s ally in Tamil Nadu but suddenly took a left turn toward the third Front, she hasn’t exactly been an ideal, undemanding ally either. Rewind to April 1999, when she had withdrawn support to the Vajpayee government, triggering a vote of confidence and the fall of the government.

Here is a recap from Frontline magazine of her famous trip to Delhi for the dagger act. “She told mediapersons that she had come to take the final step of withdrawing support to the Vajpayee Government. She regretted the decision to align with the BJP in the last Lok Sabha elections, and remarked that she had wasted a whole year, which was marked by non-governance and lack of proper administration. She said that she would meet leaders of “like-minded secular parties,” including Congress president Sonia Gandhi to evolve a viable alternative government.”

One has to wish any combine that comes to power with the support of these two political divas the best of luck!

Post-poll concerns

By next Monday, we should have some idea of the government that will be formed in New Delhi. And its principal players will face a much tougher challenge than a display of lung power at TV studio debates. There is no good news yet on the economic and job front. Thousands of people are continuing to lose jobs, new jobs are impossible to find, and employers are missing from campuses, even of premier institutions turning out bright and hopeful qualified professionals.

If this is the story of urban India, rural India is even worse. The most cheerful story you hear in villages, be it in Bihar, UP or elsewhere, is about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme putting at least Rs 40-50 in the hands of labourers — the rest goes to middlemen. This is just adequate to put some food in the bellies of family members.

This time, there is no claim of “India shining”, nor is there any evidence of “Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath” or its badhtey kadam making Bharat buland. Outside high-voltage media debates, for the poor, the unemployed, the farmer who has no guarantee of adequate water and other essential inputs for his land, the Kosi flood victim who still waits for the house that was washed away, and millions of others whose best hope is to dig a ditch here, or break stones there, for a paltry daily wage of Rs 50 under the NREGS, there appears to be little hope, leave alone guarantee, that the party they have voted for will change their lives in any meaningful way.

And yet it is these people who turn out in large numbers to cast their votes, even while well-heeled Mumbaikars, who had raved and ranted against politicians after the 26/11 attacks, mouth lame excuses for not bothering to cast their votes. Oh, it was so hot; or the three-day weekend was too tempting not to take a holiday... or whatever.

(Response maybe sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

Related Stories:
End of the voting marathon
Post-poll fight: Who governs best?

More Stories on : Politics | Rasheeda Bhagat

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