Electing the future

Barring Delhi, and despite the anti-incumbency factor against the BJP, the Congress seems to be on a sticky wicket

Hardnews Bureau Delhi

There is a tendency among Congressmen to limit the import of election results to their immediacy and not to project its implications on the future. Their smug reply always is - every election is different. But this time around they cannot draw comfort from their calculated short-sightedness. The election to the five state assemblies that includes the physically large states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh is going to make it clear for both the Congress as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which way the devil's wind - the wind that overthrows governments - is blowing.

There is near unanimity that a huge anti-incumbency wave is sweeping these states, but there is little clarity who would get hurt by it as both the BJP and the Congress are in power somewhere or the other. In Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and MP,  the BJP is in power and in Delhi it is the Congress. The election results would not only provide the necessary input to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress President Sonia Gandhi about the timing of Parliament elections, it would also convey to their allies the necessity and wisdom of having a relationship with them. If for some reasons the Congress performs creditably then the allies will not jump the sinking ship and there is a good possibility of an early election in February.

If for some reasons it is the BJP that shrugs off anti-incumbency in the states that it is in power, then the Congress will be forced to look at April or early May to hold Parliament elections. Although a result like this would contribute in de-legitimising the Congress party, it would have no other option but to seek more time to conjure some new programmes from their over exhausted hat to woo the disenchanted voters. The Congress could have early elections to minimise the detrimental impact of the global slowdown. If job losses and closure of factories gallops, the ruling party will just not know which programme to sell to the people. The wisdom, therefore, would lie in having early elections before the full implications of the nightmarish slowdown are bared to the masses,

According to reports coming to Delhi, the BJP and Congress are locked in a tough fight in all these states. Contrary to early reports, the Congress, which was reeling under a double whammy of organisational disarray and high inflation induced by central policies, seemed to have slowly got its act together. What has also come to their help is the meltdown of the BJP's vicious campaign against the Congress for abetting terrorists. The Congress was not only suffering from the alienation of the Muslims, who were nursing a grievance for being treated shabbily by some ham- handed police investigations into terror, the majority community also blamed them for being very weak. The Congress- led UPA government's misery was further compounded by their clueless Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, who did not perform his ministerial obligation by taking refuge behind the Constitution.

Both these factors had estranged the Muslims as well as upper caste Hindus. However, recent developments exposing the terror links of Hindu organisations and their involvement in organising bomb blasts that were earlier blamed on Muslims, has changed perceptions. Hardnews learns that Muslims in states like Rajasthan, where they were unrelentingly hounded by the police for their alleged terror links, are once again returning to the Congress fold. Provincial leaders feared a boycott of elections or low voter turnout.