Going nowhere

The three dominant political parties ? the Congress, the BJP and the CPI(M) ? appear to be in a state of flux. Confusing and conflicting signals are emanating from all three parties.

The three dominant political parties — the Congress, the BJP and the CPI(M) — appear to be in a state of flux. Confusing and conflicting signals are emanating from all three parties. The common man’s perception is that none of the principal characters in the Indian polity knows its immediate or next move, nor its long term goal. Political expediency, bereft of any ideology, is determining the actions of the parties — the key instruments in the nation-building process.

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The Congress, which had begun its innings well as the dominant partner of the UPA, suddenly finds itself at the receiving end on a host of issues, mainly from its crucial ally, the Left Front.

The Left’s tactics may appear to be a case of ‘shadow boxing’ to deny the saffron brigade the space of ‘Opposition’. But such acts have been at the expense of the Congress’s image. In the process, the Left Front, a partner in governance, is seeking to acquire and reinforce the impression that it stands for the aam aadmi.

The President’s decision to return the Office of Profit Bill, the issue of reservation for OBCs in professional institutions and the hike in the prices of petrol and diesel have pushed the Congress into a corner. The decision of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to collaborate with the BJP on getting industrialist Rahul Bajaj elected to the Rajya Sabha, too, speaks poorly of the party’s coalition management.

Even on the reservation issue, the Congress has based its political strategy on incorrect assumptions. Reservation for OBCs in professional institutions already exists in UP and Bihar. The OBCs have a dominant voice in leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar. Can the Congress action alter ground realities? Can it win UP on the OBC plank? Certainly not. The upper castes in the Hindi heartland, which had shifted their allegiance from the Congress to the BJP, resulting in the decimation of the Congress in UP, is now turning towards Mayawati’s BSP. Finally, realpolitiks apart, the Congress’s exalted image as a progressive force has nosedived.

As if this weren’t enough, a section in the Congress is actively creating an impression that the party, per se, does not subscribe to all the decisions of its own government. We are back to the gimmicks of the BJP-led NDA days, when the nucleus of the coalition would tell its constituency that it could not pursue its core Hindutva agenda because of the compulsions of coalition politics.

Now look at the BJP. The party seems to have lost its moorings. It is in a pathetic, near comatose state. During the last two years, the party has picked up a host of issues but none has caught the fancy of people. It does not appear to have any coherent strategy or issues. Leaders who had some base, like Uma Bharati, Madan Lal Khurana and Babulal Marandi, have begun to desert the sinking ship. The party is now grasping at straws.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje sends a team to West Bengal to understand how the Left manages to win successive elections there. The BJP president, Rajnath Singh, goes to an obscure corner of Delhi in Moti Nagar (which happens to be expelled leader Madan Lal Khurana’s constituency) to launch a chakka jam to protest against the hike in petrol and diesel prices.

Even on an issue like the Rahul Mahajan case, the BJP has been vacillating. Was he a BJP member or not? The party had to wait for former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to make his statement on how a youth can go astray and how a compassionate view should be taken. Once Vajpayee uttered these words, BJP leaders ignored Sushma Swaraj’s statements to make a beeline for the Tughlak Road police station to meet Rahul. Just the other day, Rahul was a star attraction outside the BJP’s national executive meet.

Look at the issue of reservation: no one will be able to tell you the BJP’s official position, which continues to be as ambivalent as that of the CPI(M). The party may parade ST and OBC leaders in its ranks, but the reality is that it has to abide by the diktats of the RSS, where Sangh supremo K.S. Sudarshan has made it clear that caste-based reservation will only divide the Hindu society.

In its confused rush to expand its vote bank, the party is espousing the Hindutva cause in Jammu and Kashmir. In protest against the massacre of Hindus, it has launched a ‘satyagraha’ in Doda. The party’s Hindutva star, Vinay Katiyar, who heads the party’s unit in UP, has announced bounty killings. Kill a militant (read Muslim), and you will get Rs 1 lakh from the BJP. The central BJP has disowned Katiyar’s utterances but it’s amply clear that the party, which paraded discipline as its political USP, has now only weak responses to its own leaders taking off on their own individual courses.

The CPI(M)-led Left Front has an equally wayward record, the only buzz being the noise it makes on all issues only to grab people’s attention. In UP, V.P. Singh launches a new platform. The CPI and other major constituents of the Left Front are there, but not the CPI(M).

Instead, for joint action against the hike in diesel and petrol prices, the CPI(M) opens channels with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party and the Asom Gana Parishad — all perceived to be close to the BJP. The CPI(M) would be more than happy if the Janata Dal(U), which shares power with the BJP in Bihar, also joins the agitation.

The CPI(M) has its own problems. The party speaks in two voices. In West Bengal, its pro-reform man, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, is a brand. His counterpart in Kerala, 83-year-old V.S. Achyutanandan, stands for the party’s dogmatic ideology. The party has its own problems on the issue of its MPs holding offices of profit. Whatever the popular perception, the number of Left MPs who stand to lose their seats if a ‘biased’ Election Commission takes a decision on pending petitions could drastically alter the political scenario in and outside Parliament.

If the aam aadmi is confused about the goings on in the major parties, here’s the bad news. It’s going to get worse. The forthcoming UP elections will surely see new standards in political contortionism. After that we’ll have the battle for Gujarat, where Narendra Modi will seek a third term in 2007. The return of Modi could herald the BJP’s revival and that prospect will be enough to further change party formations. The road to the 2009 general elections is going to be a rough one.