Will cases against Jogi, Mayawati help BJP?

Speaking strictly in political terms, the Bhartiya Janata Party has a lot to lose after its break-up with Mayawati, writes Pankaj Vohra.

Speaking strictly in political terms, the BJP has a lot to lose after its break-up with Mayawati. Till a couple of months ago when the BJP was toying with the idea of holding simultaneous elections of the Lok Sabha with the four assembly polls later this year, Mayawati and her party were very much central to the plan. She was expected to play a crucial role in splitting the Congress votes.

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The CBI action against two prominent non-NDA politicians ? Ajit Jogi and Mayawati has triggered off a debate in political circles on whether the premier investigating agency of the country was being used by its political masters once again to settle scores on the eve of crucial assembly elections in four northern states.

In fact, the criticism against the government and the CBI would have been less if the timing of the action had not coincided with the announcement of the election schedule by the election commission. If Jogi was, for instance, guilty of forgery or any other similar offence as claimed by the CBI, he could have been easily charged a few days ahead of the election announcement or perhaps after the poll process had been completed.

Since Jogi is the chief minister of Chhatisgarh where the Congress and the BJP are locked in virtually a straight fight, the action of the CBI, however legitimate it might have been, gives an impression that there is an element of political vendetta in the entire exercise. Before this development, several Congress leaders had in private admitted that the Chhatisgarh CM had invited trouble by levelling allegations of an Intelligence Bureau plan to destabilise Congress chief ministers. They had predicted that Jogi's allegations were bound to boomerang and had criticised him for practising his own style of politics.

However, by initiating action against Jogi a day after the election schedule was announced, the government and the CBI have given a handle to the Congress as well as the chief minister to take the BJP head on. The issue is obviously going to figure in the assembly polls and could even perhaps work to Jogi's advantage if his supporters are able to project it as a case of political vendetta in the face of the BJP's demand for his removal.

Similarly, action against Mayawati had appeared to be imminent once the apex court had been seized of the infamous Taj Heritage Corridor scandal. But the timings of the raids at the former UP chief minister's residence and several other places have contributed to the perception that the most prominent Dalit leader of the country was being hounded by the BJP-led government after the two parties ended their alliance in UP.

Only a few months ago, the Punjab Chief Minister had been advised by the Deputy Prime Minister not to settle personal scores with political rivals — the Badal family. A similar advice could have been also been given to functionaries in the NDA government itself since the raids have created a controversy which the BJP could have avoided just ahead of the forthcoming crucial elections. The general impression is that as long as Mayawati was with the BJP, she was honest and clean and the moment she moved away from the party, she had become corrupt and politically untouchable.

In fact, raids on Mayawati's premises may on one hand help her to consolidate her vote bank if she is able to project that she was being victimised on account of being a Dalit leader, and on the other, widen her differences with the BJP to the point of no reconciliation. The raids also prompted Mayawati from launching a no-holds barred personal attack on the Prime Minister and his foster family, something which no politician has done so far. The kind of things the former CM said about Mr Vajpayee's daughter and son-in-law on the television demonstrated that she would not hesitate in stooping to such a low level even in the future.

Speaking strictly in political terms, the BJP has a lot to lose after its break-up with Mayawati. Till a couple of months ago when the BJP was toying with the idea of holding simultaneous elections of the Lok Sabha with the four assembly polls later this year, Mayawati and her party were very much central to the plan. She was expected to play a crucial role in splitting the Congress votes. While it is true that association of the BJP with the Dalit leader had alienated a section of its committed voters, it is also true that the association had increased the overall support base at the cost of the Congress.

Even after the break-up between the BJP and the BSP, some leaders were hoping that Mayawati could be persuaded in extending tactical support in the assembly elections by putting up candidates in constituencies with sizeable Dalit votes in order to ensure that these votes did not go the Congress way or were split thereby providing an edge to the BJP candidates. However, this is unlikely to happen now and the BJP may be forced to review its strategy to put the Congress on the defensive. As things stand at present or in the event of the BSP supporting the Congress, it is the BJP which will have a lot to worry about.

Another dimension of the development concerning Mayawati is that UP chief minister and the BSP supremo's sworn enemy Mulayam Singh Yadav must be the happiest man around. Without having to do anything in terms of registration of cases against Mayawati, he would be content to watch two old allies ? BJP and the BSP ? slugging it out in the open.

The BJP has done something which most people would have expected Mulayam Singh to do. However, those, who have been speculating about the latent friendship of the UP CM with a section of the BJP, may not be in any position to consolidate their theory since Mulayam Singh has nothing to do with the Centre's action against Mayawati.

The CBI which is in the eye of the current political storm has over the years been used by political parties in power to act against their political opponents. Even if one presumes that the CBI cases against Ajit Jogi and Mayawati are being investigated purely on merit and the action is totally justified, the past record of the premier investigation agency somehow continues to affect its credibility.

And whenever the CBI gets used for political purposes, it is very difficult to distinguish between a genuine case and a fabricated one. Congress Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao had used the agency in the infamous hawala scandal to fix political opponents who could have at some stage come in his way of being elected to the august office for another term. What followed thereafter was that the entire exercise not only boomeranged but pushed Rao into political oblivion.

Even in the Bofors case, when Rajiv Gandhi's opponents tried to use the CBI to drive home a point, people actually saw through it and the entire investigations today are treated with a degree of scepticism and suspicion. It is another thing that whenever election time is round the corner, the opponents of the Congress party rake up this oft-repeated issue.

While the CBI may have had very strong reasons to proceed in the cases against Jogi and Mayawati, the ramifications of the developments could be far reaching so far as the BJP is concerned. But then the BJP has always maintained a high moral ground on such issues and obviously while taking the action the CBI must have kept the PM and his deputy fully informed. The developments in the two cases will be therefore a subject matter of great interest.

Between us.