NEW DELHI, 13 October 2004 — If the political fortunes of major alliances are at stake today in elections to the 288-member Maharashtra state assembly, credentials of several key politicians will be tested elsewhere in by-elections to three Lok Sabha and 39 assembly seats.
Though the Congress-NCP alliance and Shiv Sena-BJP combine are the main contestants, Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party and at least 1,000 independent candidates are in the fray in Maharashtra. While the BSP is contesting 272 seats, the SP is targeting 95.
Against the backdrop of the Congress leading the government at the center and party leader Sonia Gandhi gaining a significant boost to her stature, her active campaigning in Maharashtra is expected to yield favorable results. Yet, the Congress’ fate hinges mainly on which way the minority and lower caste Hindu votes swings.
Even though Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s ill health has prevented him from active campaigning, the saffron combine has tried to cash in on the Democratic Front government’s performance in Maharashtra. The Congress-NCP alliance countered this by accusing the previous BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government of having adopted a discriminatory approach toward the western state. Besides, they have harped on Sena-BJP “misgovernance” while in power in Maharashtra from 1995 to 1999.
Outside Maharashtra, keen contests are on the cards in by-elections to three Lok Sabha seats, including Madhepura in Bihar, Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh and Bidar in Karnataka. RJD supremo and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav vacated Madhepura when he won from Chhapra. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav gave up the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Bidar Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka fell vacant following the death of veteran parliamentarian Ramchandra Veerappa.
The Madhepura contest is being viewed as an acid test for the RJD, which has fielded Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav against former MP R.P. Yadav of JD (U). Bidar faces an interesting battle as the coalition partners, who formed the state government around four months ago — Congress and JD (S) candidates are facing each other and seven other candidates.
In the assembly by-elections, the prominent contender is Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. He is contesting election after 17 years from Pahalgam, the seat vacated by his daughter and PDP President Mehbooba Mufti after she was elected to the Lok Sabha.
By-elections to 12 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, five in Gujarat, four in Jammu and Kashmir, three in Nagaland, two each in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi and one each in Assam, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Uttranchal and Manipur would be held simultaneously today.
In Gujarat, even though with 128 seats in the 182-member assembly, the BJP has nothing to lose, by-elections in the five assembly constituencies are being viewed as a big test of Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity. In the Lok Sabha poll, the BJP won 14 out of 26 seats, sliding down from the 21 held earlier. Gujarat Congress chief B.K. Gadhvi maintains that there is a Congress wave in all the five constituencies.
No Talk of India Shining as Opposition Goes Rural
It was the party which boasted that India was “shining” — only to be rudely dumped from office by hundreds of millions of angry rural voters, reports AFP.
Five months on, the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have learnt the lessons from its shock defeat in May’s national elections by Sonia Gandhi’s center-left Congress party.
In Maharashtra, the BJP will be pinning much of its hopes on the rural and urban poor who it says have suffered from the failures of five years of Congress-led rule in the state.
In a bid to cash in on India’s traditional anti-incumbency vote, the BJP has promised to waive farmers’ debts, supply free power to villages and provide jobs to the unemployed, water supply in dry areas and homes for the poor.
At the same time it is trying to energize its traditional middle class supporters and woo the young.
“It has been a long and hard journey (for the BJP) because it lost power at the center,” said political analyst Uday Nirgudkar. “They have been in the process of identifying an additional voter segment — the young and first-time voters who are usually anti-establishment. But people have to come out and vote.”
Rural voters were largely blamed for throwing the BJP out of power in May, many of them angry that India’s economic progress was largely passing them by.
After that election, many BJP leaders also put the blame on what they saw as the party’s abandonment of its Hindu nationalist ideology, called Hindutva or Hindu-ness, in favor of a more moderate face.
But in Maharashtra the BJP has again focused on the middle ground, leaving its popular hard-line regional ally, the Shiv Sena, to attract the right-wing Hindu vote.
“Why do we need to talk about Hindutva? They (Congress) have given us issues on a platter,” said BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar.
Just a few miles from the bustling metropolis of Bombay, the country’s money and movie capital, hundreds of farmers have committed suicide under the burden of their debts and children are dying of malnutrition.
Unemployment and power shortages are also common complaints among the state’s voters.
Nevertheless, the Hindu parties have struggled to ignite their campaigns since maverick Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray fell ill with chest pains.
