NEW DELHI, 9 May 2004 — The real answers will come next week; this week we must console ourselves with real questions. Top of the list: Has the BJP bitten off more than it can chew? Every election is an opportunity for a political party to increase its political space. The BJP targeted four states where its partners were unreliable, weak or non-existent: Karnataka, Assam, Jharkhand and Haryana. The BJP had once paid a heavy price in Karnataka for its equation with the JD(U); this time it positioned itself as the central element and left a satellite corner for its old ally. The strategy has paid dividends. The switch of seats in Karnataka could mean the difference between stable ground and a swamp for the NDA. In Assam, Jharkhand and Haryana the party decided to live alone. Hermits are not fetching any returns in this election. In these states the Congress has gained from fissures. The BJP can console itself that it now has a base and an organization in constituencies where it did not exist before. Purchasing the future at the cost of the present is a luxury that you can afford when you have excess seats in your baggage. It looks wasteful in a tight race. The BJP became a victim of early optimism. It lost touch with the ground in the glare of its self-generated shine.
Question 2: Why did the race tighten up?
Any alliance is only as strong as its weakest links. The center of the NDA is safe. The BJP has increased its own share of the vote, and its seats will also rise from 182 to perhaps 195 or even 200. The props have tottered. The perceptible NDA drop is in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where Chandrababu Naidu has taken losses and Jayalalitha is facing formidable foes. The one visible compensation is in the Punjab harvest that the Akalis will reap: The NDA is likely to take 12 or even 13 of the 14 seats in Punjab and Chandigarh. The BJP thrives because the Hindi heartland has returned to the party courtesy Atal Behari Vajpayee: the Congress could end up with less than 10 seats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh together. Add another 15 or so for the Congress from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana and you have a pretty dismal northern tricolor.
Question 3: Why hasn’t the Congress revived after five years of BJP rule?
An opposition party should normally be healthy after feeding off the mistakes of government for five years. But by January this year the Congress had lost all confidence in itself. The Congress strategy for this election was the inverse of the BJP gameplan. If the BJP purchased a headache by increasing its political space, then the Congress sought survival by deliberately ceding territory. In Bihar Laloo Yadav insulted the Congress by leaving only four seats for the party, and in Tamil Nadu Karunanidhi gave it 10 fragile constituencies. The Congress said nothing. Perhaps that was the wise thing to do, because, apart from Assam and Haryana, the Congress is either losing or being wiped out wherever it is contesting alone: Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bengal, Karnataka. It cannot walk today without a crutch. It is not the enemies of the Congress but its friends who stress how lame the party has become. In Maharashtra “traitor” Sharad Pawar has bailed out the Congress; it would have won less than five seats without an alliance with a man Sonia Gandhi expelled for six years. The Congress got five irreplaceable years to rebuild itself at the expense of the BJP. Instead the party has debilitated.
Question 4: Why? A one-word question gets a one-word answer. Leadership. This is the critical difference that has defined this general election. The NDA is a weakening alliance that is being saved by the popularity of its leader. Even those opinion polls that are most hostile to the NDA admit that between 70 to 80 percent of the voters want Atal Behari Vajpayee to remain prime minister. This is significantly higher than the BJP or the NDA vote. In contrast, acceptance for Sonia Gandhi is low. Uttar Pradesh is the political “home state” of the Nehru-Gandhi Family. In UP even Mulayam Singh Yadav is ahead of Sonia Gandhi in all PM-preference polls. Her foreign origin is part of the problem, but not the whole of it. More important is the fact that her communication skills are ordinary. Nor does she have any strong ideological convictions. Claiming to be secular is quite different from proving to be secular, as the Congress tactics of me-too Hindutva in Gujarat proved. Much of the Congress campaign consisted of calling the BJP communal and Vajpayee unfit. The personal attacks on Vajpayee were counterproductive. Five years in power can leave any political outfit drained, for power is not an easy horse to ride: It buckles too much. The BJP was vulnerable. The Congress, in contrast, is a potentially strong party weakened by its leadership. Hence, irrespective of the fate of alliances, the BJP is rising above 182, while the Congress dips toward another nadir.
Question 5: What about the glamour of the Nehru-Gandhi family? Glamour always gets a crowd, but I am not personally persuaded that glamour is equally effective in getting votes. If you are on the right side of the prevailing political view, glamour helps; if you are on the wrong side, it rarely rescues you. Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi understood this election once they entered the lanes of UP, and so they stuck, by and large, to their family estate in Amethi and Rae Bareli. Rahul did tour a few other constituencies, but the much-awaited national blitz by the two never materialized. Congressmen, always energized by the thought of family intervention in their destinies, waited, but in vain. Instead of a blitz they got a sprinkle. There is a very good reason for this. The family was intelligent enough to protect the two children from failure. If they had campaigned in Gujarat, Rajasthan and MP and been unable to swing the voter, they would have been dismissed as ineffective. Glamour, as noted, adds to success, but can’t change defeat.
Question 6: But if the NDA does not reach 272, what stops the Congress from collecting everyone else and forming a government?
Theoretically, nothing. Reality might be a different matter. The politics of elections is quite different from the politics of power. In theory, any alliance should be easy, because there is very little ideology left in politics. An alliance is a compromise and excludes strong ideological commitments; it is always built on a common minimum program rather than a common maximum program. The drawback is an ideological vacuum, individuals rather than ideas become the dominant influences of political behavior. The parties outside the NDA are deeply divided by individual likes and dislikes. Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, for instance, cannot sit at the same table, irrespective of their differences with the BJP. If the NDA falls short by say 10 seats, Mayawati will happily make up the difference, if only to prevent Mulayam Singh Yadav from doing so. Similarly, the DMK’s problem is Jayalalitha, not the BJP or Vajpayee. The scars of electoral battles are easily put aside if options open up in New Delhi. Since Karunanidhi is not going to become prime minister of India irrespective of which alliance he joins, he would be tempted by the familiar. I have no idea who has been appointed general manager of the Venkaiah Naidu Fractured English Joke Factory, but he came up with a relevant one recently when, speaking of prime ministers, he said that the TINA factor (There Is No Alternative) was backed up by the TITA factor (There Is Terrible Alternative). The NDA would find matters difficult only if it dropped below the 250 mark. I have no idea what lies hidden inside those electronic voting machines, but this seems unlikely.
Question 7: So what seems likely?
The trouble is that what we call one general election is a whirlpool consisting of at 20 general elections. Different states vote upon different impulses; and very often, regions within a state can offer separate trends. Even the most seasoned politicians make critical mistakes. Loyalty to the DMK for instance might have served the BJP far better. The BJP must also be assessing the damage that its allies like the Janata Dal (U) have done in stray seats of Jharkhand and Rajasthan. Similarly, if the Congress had been more accommodating toward Mulayam Singh Yadav, the results could have changed significantly in UP ensuring a new government in New Delhi. The voters of Andhra and Tamil Nadu in the south, and UP and Bihar in the north are going to be decisive. And when every plus has been silenced by every minus, the mathematics of UP will control the calculus of New Delhi.
Question 8: Why are you a chicken?
Sorry. Quite right. If everyone else can predict why can’t I? So here goes — knowing full well that by Thursday I might have not just egg but a full omelette in my face. It will be an ‘ek-do-paune teen’ election. Between 100 and 110 for Congress; circa 200 for BJP and circa 275 for NDA.
