Hindutva not so rosy

The historic descent of the BJP beyond the Vindhyas and the formation of a majority government in Karnataka recently have created optimism in the party about its possible ascent to Delhi in the coming parliamentary elections. This euphoria is reinforced by a series of victories achieved by the BJP in assembly elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab (with Shiromani Akali Dal) last year. Obviously, it has created anxiety in the Congress that is besieged with the problem of inflation and price rise on the economic front, and the threat of withdrawal of support by the Left, and the allegation of a weak prime minister on the political front.
Will the BJP would do better in the next Lok Sabha (LS) polls as compared to 2004. In the 2004 LS elections, the performance of the BJP and Congress was evenly balanced. That is indicated by the equal vote share of 34.3 per cent they got. The fact that Congress was able to form the government thereafter was more due to its pre-poll alliance -- the UPA -- and the performance of its constituents, as also the support given by the Left Front. The UPA got 222 out of 535 seats that it contested and half of that 111 came from just four states (Tamil Nadu (TN)-35, Andhra Pradesh (AP)-34, Bihar-29, Jharkhand-13), and another one-fourth from Maharashtra (23), Gujarat (12), Assam (9) Haryana(9) and Himachal Pradesh (HP) (3). So, the Congress seats and vote shares across all major states were quite low during the previous LS polls, and there is nothing to indicate that the party would improve upon that in the coming one.
As far as the BJP is concerned, it had then lost in some of the states like Assam, Jharkhand and Haryana because it had lost allies there. Due to changes in alliance structure over 1999, the NDA is reported to have lost around 26 seats whereas UPA got 46 more seats in 2004. But, the NDA had been a clear gainer in Rajasthan, MP, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala (Yogendra Yadav: , December 18-24, 2004). So, in the coming LS elections, much will depend on the reconfiguration of the alliance structure by the BJP and Congress.
It is unfortunate for the BJP and Congress that they have neither clout nor alliance partners in the most important state of UP that sends the largest contingent of 80 MPs to LS. The two seemingly regional parties, SP and BSP (which is a national party, of course), have apportioned between them about three-fourths of seats. This significant loss of about 60 seats distorts the electoral arithmetic of both the NDA and UPA.
Ironically, the BJP had claimed its revival from UP in the wake of the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid imbroglio in 1991 when it got 221 seats and 31.5 per cent votes in the assembly elections, and 52 seats and 32.8 per cent votes in LS elections. Unfortunately, the party failed to understand the of the people and thought, imprudently, that the voters can be fooled to vote for the party on such a flimsy issue as the ‘Ram mandir'. They also failed to appreciate the state's syncretic that generates genuine love between Hindus and Muslims in UP.
That explains the consistent decline of the BJP in the assembly elections (1993: 177 seats, 33.3 per cent votes; 1996: 175 seats, 33.9 per cent votes; 2002: 88 seats, 20.7 per cent votes; 2007: 50 seats, 16.9 per cent votes). During the last few years, the BJP has hardly done anything to attract popular votes, and therefore, the chances of the BJP improving on its previous performance in UP does not appear to be bright.
However, the loss of the BJP, cannot be the gain of the Congress in UP. Since 1989, the Congress has steadily been relegated to the fourth position in the state notwithstanding the fact that it used to rule the roost there, and several Congress prime ministers, viz. Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi came from UP. The Congress loss of this vital citadel was owing to the abdication of grassroots politics and democratic political culture for the high command politics and sycophantic political culture. The plight of the BJP and Congress in UP has completely changed the texture of national politics.
The Congress has been trying to regain lost ground in UP through the zealous efforts of Rahul Gandhi who is not only trying to retrieve Dalits from the clutches of the BSP but also reorienting new and old Congressmen to the callings of present-day politics. But he is facing a tough situation owing to the new social engineering of Mayawati who first consolidated her Dalit vote bank through exclusionary politics based on ‘social osmosis' during the 1980s. At the turn of the century, she took a U-turn to inclusionary politics based on ‘reverse social osmosis' (Verma, : March 10-16, 2007) trying to assimilate the upper castes, especially the Brahmins.
Her efforts produced stunning results in the UP assembly elections last year when she succeeded in producing a perfect matrix of the ‘vertical' and the ‘horizontal' social coalitions that gave her absolute majority with a meager vote share of 30 per cent. There are no indications that Mayawati is losing her support base in UP though there might be some mild resentment among Dalits in view of the steadily growing influence of Brahmins and Muslims in the BSP. But, as the April by-elections in UP showed, Mayawati won all the assembly (Bilgram, Karnailganj, Muradnagar) and LS (Khalilabad and Azamgarh) seats, indicating her hold on the electorate.
During 2002-2007, upper caste support for the BSP rose by 40 percentage points (Brahmin, Vaishya, and other upper castes by 11 percentage points each, Thakurs by 7 percentage points), and the middle caste support was up by 30 percentage points (Yadav-2, Kurmi-6, Lodh-7, other peasants-15) in UP. The party already has a very high support base among Dalits. It also got elected the largest contingent of 26 Muslims in the previous assembly polls with 17 per cent Muslim votes to its credit. Thus, the BSP has developed a kind of a ‘sandwich coalition' representing all social denominations. The party may not easily lose its recently acquired vote base.
The anti-incumbency factor against the BSP government may not work; it is too early for that. She has tried to control the electoral chessboard by declaring a subsidy on gas, petrol and diesel prices giving an impression that she was trying to offset the peoples' plight in UP created by the Congress government led by Manmohan Singh. Thus, Mayawati ensured that the voters' ire due to price rise is not wrongly directed to her party in U.P. in the coming parliamentary elections.
The BJP has locked horns with the Congress by declaring LK Advani as its prime ministerial candidate. How people and the party would perceive Advani as a replacement of Vajpayee, and a competitor of Manmohan Singh, is difficult to comprehend. But one wonders if declaring Jinnah ‘secular' earlier, and publicly airing his close relations with Benazir Bhutto, has anything to do with his ‘image management' -- keeping the liberal Hindus and Muslim voters in mind. Advani may not have a national rival in the domain of leadership, but he may be brow-beaten by regional in several states.
As parliamentary elections acquire the character of a ‘conglomerate of state elections', the importance of regional continues to grow. The strongest challenge to Advani's claim may emanate from UP. How the claim of Advani competes with the declared ambition of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati for the top job is hard to assess. But, if either of the two manage a contingent of 50 plus in LS, they may stall Advani's enthronement. At 80, Advani's age may also go against him and his party. One does not know really if the BJP is united in seeing Advani as the next PM, or, there are internal cliques and factions hatching their own conspiracies!
What are issues the BJP might be contemplating to raise in the next elections? Will the parliamentary elections be guided by a national perspective or by local problems? Will it be fought on ideological lines or on caste basis? Will price rise, inflation and the nuclear deal go against the Congress to benefit the BJP?
The BJP has hardly enlightened people on . It has no clear formulations for controlling prices in the wake of global factors beyond governmental control, its stand on nuclear deal flounders on the support extended to the same APJ Abdul Kalam, ex-national security advisor Brajesh Mishra, and several eminent scientists. The BJP might argue that there is opposition to the nuke deal even within the UPA. If the Left withdraws support, it would be discredited, and this may actually generate a sympathy wave for the Congress at an all-India level.
As electoral focus shifts from the nation to the states, issues of development and security at the local level come to acquire greater attention. ‘National consciousness' will have to be aroused to ensure that the coming parliamentary elections are fought on national issues (nuke deal/inflation) and not on regional and local issues. If that happens, then the BJP can play its cards well; otherwise, it may be smitten in the face.
The same is true of the Congress. If it can convince that price rise is not its doing and any party would have been helpless on that count, and that the nuke deal is in the interest of the nation, despite initial discomforts, it may control the national election agenda. But, if the Congress and the BJP fail in doing so, and if the local issues foreground electoral contestation, then both of them stand to lose.
The victory of the BJP in Karnataka and Gujarat may not have a positive effect elsewhere. Gujarat and Karnataka are exceptional cases; the BJP has no such sympathy or developmental agenda elsewhere. Despite the fact that the BJP has done well in the assembly elections in seven states from where 113 LS seats are at stake, and despite having obtained a good vote share of 30 per cent plus in many states, there is nothing to indicate that the scales are favourably tilted towards the party in the coming parliamentary elections.