It?s poll and political ?party? time

HATS OFF to former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh. Despite his delicate health and publicly proclaimed determination of keeping away from dirty vote politics, he is back with a vengeance in the political arena, albeit with his newly born ?Jan Dal?.

HATS OFF to former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh. Despite his delicate health and publicly proclaimed determination of keeping away from dirty vote politics, he is back with a vengeance in the political arena, albeit with his newly born ‘Jan Dal’.

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One really hopes he has not lost out ‘Janata’ (the public) along with Janata earlier affixed to his Dal (Janata Dal). May be driven by facts of life more than fiction, he has decided to give some rest to both his pen (poetry) and paint brush (paintings). In his words “I change my blood twice a week (dialysis every Monday and Thursday) only to give it to Janata the rest of the days”. The dialogue is quite filmsy. Perhaps it is the influence of his new ally, Raj Babbar.

Though it is too early to predict the future of ‘Jan Dal’ despite its successful show of strength in the state capital, the common perception in political circles is that it would harm the Samajwadi Party more than developing into a potent political force in the state. However, both SP and its ally Lok Dal are confident that ‘Jan Dal’ would harm Mayawati’s BSP more as the crowds that VP Singh’s rally drew comprised of her (BSP) vote bank. However, their calculations may go awry as rallyists rarely turn into vote banks.

Nonetheless, there could certainly be some truth in their belief that V P Singh is doing all this out of his ‘sheer jealousy’ for their leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.

For those who have forgotten the hate and hate relationship between VP Singh and Mulayam, lets rewind to the 1980s when the former had pitted Choudhary Ajit Singh against the latter for UP’s crown. Obviously ‘Dharti ka Putra’ Mulayam had defeated the foreign returned Ajit Singh after a daylong tense drama in the Tilak hall of the Vidhan Sabha. So today if VP Singh is bringing together all the political adversaries of Mulayam, it should not come as a surprise. The only surprise is that the same Ajit Singh is standing next to him.

Nonetheless, SP leaders still believe that ‘Jan Dal’ is born to settle political scores with Mulayam by the likes of Raj Babbar, Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan and Mr Clean (the sobriquet earned by VP Singh during his Bofors campaign against Congress as the key leader). Whatsoever, they cannot rule out the fact that in the process ‘Jan Dal’ may attract smaller parties (Left leaders are already with them) under its umbrella – not for the ideology sake, but for electoral gains.

However, going by the past record of political parties often borne out of such frustrations, they are born to wither after every season. Loyalty is not the catchword in their organisation. Instead, they are born out of sheer political opportunism and die because of that. One really wonders why at all voters vote for them or Election Commission grants them recognition. A mere three per cent popular votes should not be enough for recognising any group as a political party in the country as it is only leading to more and more political manipulations and blackmailing. See how!

Recently an interesting report in a Hindi daily revealed that as many as 60 legislators in a house of 403 either changed their party or formed a new group after the 2002 assembly elections. In other words they will now be going back to their voters under a new party flag and symbol. More interesting is the report’s revelation that as many as seven parties lost their existence while another two new ones were born during the same period. These parties neither faced election before coming to Vidhan Sabha nor would they ever face election, as they are often one-man parties with no organisational network outside the Vidhan Sabha. For instance Akhil Bhartiya Congress Dal was born when Akhilesh Singh of Rae Bareli was thrown out of the Congress after they came to know about his criminal history. Fact is he openly hobnobbed with Mayawati and tried to become a minister. All his plans failed but he became the president of one-man party Akhil Bhartiya Congress Dal.

Perhaps this practice of some political parties evaporating in thin air even after the constitution of the Vidhan Sabha would end now. The one-third-membership clause for splitting the party or getting or granting recognition has been withdrawn. Now either two parties would merge or lend support, not individual members, in groups or alone.

Thus ‘Jan Dal’ need not suffer from the phobia of losing members after the polls. It’s only how long the party, with different shades of leaders and groups, would survive. However, there is no harm in some of them dreaming of playing ‘some’ role in the government formation in case of a hung house. It is just that its role may not be that crucial. As the season for such parties to flood the state has arrived. After all it’s the election year in Uttar Pradesh.