Advantage BJP, but final outcome might be closer

This election will confirm BJP's position as a major force in Indian politics, writes Amulya Ganguli.

Elections in India have come to signify not only a routine change of government but also delineate new political trends. The 1996 poll, for instance, saw the inauguration of the coalition era. The 1998 and 1999 elections marked the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) emergence as the leader, for the first time, of a non-Congress, non-leftist ruling alliance.

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The forthcoming electoral contest is generally seen as one that will confirm the BJP's position as a major force in Indian politics, keen on replacing the Congress, the Grand Old Party that has dominated the Indian scene from well before independence of the country in 1947.

The BJP, therefore, can be said to have come a long way from its earlier position on the fringes of politics, as was evident in the mere two seats which the party won in 1984 in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, and 7.4 per cent of votes it secured.

In contrast, the Congress, which won a massive 415 seats and 48.1 per cent of votes in that year, is now a shadow of its former self. However, these changes represent much more than the ups and downs of two parties. Instead, they underline India's emergence from a kind of politics that was heavily dependent on the memories of the independence struggle and dominated by a few social groups to a new era when other aspirations favoured by new social groups have come to the fore.

The process had begun way back in 1967, when the Congress's loss of influence first became visible. But now it can be said to be assuming some kind of an identifiable form with new parties - the BJP, caste-based outfits like the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Bahujan Samaj Party of the scheduled castes, state-level organisations like the Telugu Desam filling the vacuum created by the Congress's decline and establishing themselves on the centre-stage of politics.

The Congress itself has split into several groups - the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, the Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal - adding to the confusion on the electoral scene. The former is aligned with the Congress and the latter with the BJP. The final shape, therefore, of the two main contending alliances cannot be predicted. There will also undoubtedly be a number of parties that will wait for the final outcome before deciding on which side to support.

A cluttered electoral field and ideological uncertainties are not the only complications. The growing competition seems to have persuaded the two protagonists - the BJP and the Congress - to change themselves. The BJP is no longer the party of the urban Hindu trader of north India while the Congress can no longer bank on its traditional supporters belonging to the upper castes, the minorities and the scheduled castes and tribes. Not only have new claimants to the loyalties of these groups appeared, the BJP has become more moderate in its attitude towards the minorities to broaden it appeal while the Congress is no longer averse to forming alliances with other parties, a process which it resisted till recently.

What is more, though crucial in the matter of seats, the political changes are not much where the percentages of votes are concerned, emphasising an essential stability of voters' preferences. The Congress, for instance, has remained the largest party in this respect despite its decline. It secured 28.8 per cent in 1996, 25.8 in 1998 and 28.3 in 1999, all of which are more than the BJP's 20.2 per cent in 1996, 25.5 in 1998 and 23.7 in 1999. Clearly, no party is an outright winner.

How volatile the situation is can be gauged from the fact that while the BJP is expected to return to power at the centre, it will not be a solo victory. As before, the BJP will lead a coalition, but it will be a smaller one than the one which assumed office in 1999. There have been a number of defections from the BJP's ranks, suggesting that the glue which held the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) together for the last five years has become thinner.

Among the parties that have left the BJP's company are the Dravida Munnettra Kazagham (DMK), the Marumalarchi DMK and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) from Tamil Nadu, the Indian National Lok Dal of Haryana, the Lok Janashakti (mainly of Bihar), the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Uttar Pradesh and the National Conference of Jammu and Kashmir. These departures are a sign that not all constituents of the NDA were pleased with the policies of 'Big Brother', although their grievances may have varied.

The DMK, for instance, was unhappy with the BJP's growing proximity to the ruling All India Anna DMK in Tamil Nadu while the MDMK was upset by the use of the draconian POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) against its leader by the Tamil Nadu government while the centre looked on helplessly. The Lok Janashakti, on the other hand, left the NDA following the Gujarat riots.

The BJP, however, does not appear to be too perturbed about these withdrawals. That the party is a lot more confident than when it cobbled together the alliance at the beginning of its stint in power is evident from the inclusion in the NDA election manifesto of the controversial Ram temple issue, which did not figure in the 1999 document.

The confidence is apparently born of its conviction that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's widely acknowledged popularity and the positive signs about the economy will enable the party to ride back to power. The BJP also expects to derive benefits from its policy of reaching out to the Muslims and seeking friendship with Pakistan, initiatives which bear the stamp of Vajpayee's moderate approach which has put the hawks in the BJP and the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar fraternity on the defensive.

The BJP's another advantage is that the Congress hasn't been able to galvanise itself into action because of its dependence virtually only on Sonia Gandhi for campaigning. Besides, the Congress took an unconscionably long time to firm up its policies, especially those relating to economic reforms. Even then, the outcome may be closer than what the opinion polls suggest.

(The writer is a leading political commentator)