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Political hiccups: The Indian Express
Are we overreading the importance of the assembly elections? New Delhi, Nov 28: A pathetic pursuit of ratings, the quest for more advertising has caused TV channels, newpapers and weeklies to focus so heavily on elections in the four northern states that Mizoram seems almost outside the Indian Union. Likewise, much else of interest to the nation remains outside public discourse which is determined by the media.
Are we overreading the importance of the assembly elections?
New Delhi, Nov 28: A pathetic pursuit of ratings, the quest for more advertising has caused TV channels, newpapers and weeklies to focus so heavily on elections in the four northern states that Mizoram seems almost outside the Indian Union. Likewise, much else of interest to the nation remains outside public discourse which is determined by the media. Since October, presidents, prime ministers other important leaders from South Africa, Senegal, Armenia, Canada, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Nigeria, Kyrghyzistan, Hungary, Mauritius, China have visited New Delhi. Did you hear or read much about them? It reflects on market forces and Prince Charles’s newsworthiness that he, of all the visitors, received fawning notices.
Prime Minister Vajpayee’s memorable address to the ASEAN summit in Bali, his bilateral trips to Thailand, Russia, Tajikistan and Syria (the last two of historic importance) have not generated debate. President Abdul Kalam, Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, have in the past few weeks been to UAE, Sudan, Bulgaria, Myanmar, Sri Lanka respectively without any public notice. Why, Silvio Berlusconi, Romano Prodi, Javier Solana, Chris Patten are all in New Delhi for a day’s EU-India summit on Saturday. But have your TV channels explained what went wrong at the Copenhagen summit which is sought to be corrected now?
I am not suggesting that state elections are not important. But an obsessive, disproportionately high focus on them projects us as a provincial people disinterested in the nation’s emergence on the global stage.
Next week the nation’s attention will be riveted on the election results. Sensible folk in the BJP are keeping their fingers crossed: they will heave a sigh of relief if the results are 50:50. Delhi, Rajasthan to the Congress; Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the BJP. Realistic Congressmen are giving themselves 75:25, that is, conceding only Madhya Pradesh to the BJP. Suppose, for a moment, the ‘‘no roads’’, ‘‘no electricity’’ incantation against Digvijay Singh does not work. Suppose, also, that Uma Bharati, a Lodh, does not inspire the entrenched BJP leadership — Sunderlal Patwa, Kailash Joshi, Khushabhau Thakre — to bust their guts in her favour. And if the Mayawati factor works in favour of the Congress despite divisions in the BSP ranks in Gwalior, and Diggy Raja’s Hindu-minus-communalism image, a decade old hold on the administrative machinery, the culture of favours to all the BJP factions, tips the scales in his favour. What happens then? Does the prime minister’s architecture in foreign affairs, of which the central piece is normalcy with Pakistan, come under threat?
Yes, there will be some minimal convulsion but he will have escaped the storm. He will be in Nigeria for the CHOGM and in Ghana from December 4 to 10. By the time he returns, factions within the BJP will be sniping at each other — only in the event that the results are worse than 50:50.
Uma Bharati and Judeo are not representatives of the Vajpayee moderation in the BJP. They represent tendencies associated with the VHP. In that case if they lose, why should the prime minister take the flak? In their victory, however, the spin will once again favour Vajpayee. A 50:50 result was what the BJP expected in any case. Their victory will confirm the BJP’s optimistic expectations.
Secondly, even though the two chief ministerial candidates are close to the VHP, the campaign they conducted was moderate, focusing on development, more in tune with the mood in which Vajpayee hopes to lead the NDA coalition into the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Their victory, in other words, will not be projected as a gain for the VHP line. State BJP leaders are aware of the prime minister’s approach to the Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections. Even though he has done his bit of campaigning as a dutiful BJP leader, he sees an advantage in disengaging state elections from national elections.
Remember the elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi in November 1998? At the Pachmarhi conclave of the Congress in September 1998, Sonia Gandhi was advised that the Congress should shun coalitions for the time being since the contests due in the three northern states were primarily straight ones with the BJP. Coalitions were not required.
The Congress won all the three states. From the specific experience of the three states, the Sonia advisers coaxed a general principle: the Congress does better without coalitions. In the 1999 Parliament election the Congress was routed in the three states and reduced to a cipher in Uttar Pradesh.
In Vajpayee’s book the dynamics which operate in state elections are totally different from the ones that determine national elections. This lesson, the BJP learnt in the 1998, 1999 elections. Successful management of a 24 party coalition at the Centre has taught the BJP two more lessons. That the future belongs to coalitions and a successful approach to the 2004 elections entails that the process of weaving coalitions be set into motion now. Notice the Sharad Pawar, Mulayam Singh activity. Also, these coalitions must embrace new social forces, diluting the party’s upper caste image.
It is recognised within the BJP that the excesses of Gujarat harmed the party’s image as a party of governance. To govern a country as diverse as India, the party cannot be seen to be standing on the extremist margins waving a VHP-like flag. It must appropriate the middle ground being vacated by the Congress.
Here we run into a paradox. How can the Congress be presumed to be vacating the middle ground when it has governments in 16 states and may add a few more to its tally? This is where the theory of a disconnect between state and national elections comes into play. And this is exactly where the vibrant economy, upgraded relations with the US, Russia, China, Central Asia, Iran, South East Asia, Israel, the growing importance of India as made clear by the visitors in the past few weeks and above all, the ceasefire all along the Indo-Pak divide, for the first time in fifteen years, a growing willingness to believe that General Musharraf may in fact be inclined to complete the anti terrorism project he outlined in his January and May 2002 speeches — all these are in preparation for 2004. In this framework, the state election results will either be hiccups or subsidiary events.
New Delhi, Nov 28: A pathetic pursuit of ratings, the quest for more advertising has caused TV channels, newpapers and weeklies to focus so heavily on elections in the four northern states that Mizoram seems almost outside the Indian Union. Likewise, much else of interest to the nation remains outside public discourse which is determined by the media. Since October, presidents, prime ministers other important leaders from South Africa, Senegal, Armenia, Canada, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Nigeria, Kyrghyzistan, Hungary, Mauritius, China have visited New Delhi. Did you hear or read much about them? It reflects on market forces and Prince Charles’s newsworthiness that he, of all the visitors, received fawning notices.
Prime Minister Vajpayee’s memorable address to the ASEAN summit in Bali, his bilateral trips to Thailand, Russia, Tajikistan and Syria (the last two of historic importance) have not generated debate. President Abdul Kalam, Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, have in the past few weeks been to UAE, Sudan, Bulgaria, Myanmar, Sri Lanka respectively without any public notice. Why, Silvio Berlusconi, Romano Prodi, Javier Solana, Chris Patten are all in New Delhi for a day’s EU-India summit on Saturday. But have your TV channels explained what went wrong at the Copenhagen summit which is sought to be corrected now?
I am not suggesting that state elections are not important. But an obsessive, disproportionately high focus on them projects us as a provincial people disinterested in the nation’s emergence on the global stage.
Next week the nation’s attention will be riveted on the election results. Sensible folk in the BJP are keeping their fingers crossed: they will heave a sigh of relief if the results are 50:50. Delhi, Rajasthan to the Congress; Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the BJP. Realistic Congressmen are giving themselves 75:25, that is, conceding only Madhya Pradesh to the BJP. Suppose, for a moment, the ‘‘no roads’’, ‘‘no electricity’’ incantation against Digvijay Singh does not work. Suppose, also, that Uma Bharati, a Lodh, does not inspire the entrenched BJP leadership — Sunderlal Patwa, Kailash Joshi, Khushabhau Thakre — to bust their guts in her favour. And if the Mayawati factor works in favour of the Congress despite divisions in the BSP ranks in Gwalior, and Diggy Raja’s Hindu-minus-communalism image, a decade old hold on the administrative machinery, the culture of favours to all the BJP factions, tips the scales in his favour. What happens then? Does the prime minister’s architecture in foreign affairs, of which the central piece is normalcy with Pakistan, come under threat?
Yes, there will be some minimal convulsion but he will have escaped the storm. He will be in Nigeria for the CHOGM and in Ghana from December 4 to 10. By the time he returns, factions within the BJP will be sniping at each other — only in the event that the results are worse than 50:50.
Uma Bharati and Judeo are not representatives of the Vajpayee moderation in the BJP. They represent tendencies associated with the VHP. In that case if they lose, why should the prime minister take the flak? In their victory, however, the spin will once again favour Vajpayee. A 50:50 result was what the BJP expected in any case. Their victory will confirm the BJP’s optimistic expectations.
Secondly, even though the two chief ministerial candidates are close to the VHP, the campaign they conducted was moderate, focusing on development, more in tune with the mood in which Vajpayee hopes to lead the NDA coalition into the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Their victory, in other words, will not be projected as a gain for the VHP line. State BJP leaders are aware of the prime minister’s approach to the Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections. Even though he has done his bit of campaigning as a dutiful BJP leader, he sees an advantage in disengaging state elections from national elections.
Remember the elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi in November 1998? At the Pachmarhi conclave of the Congress in September 1998, Sonia Gandhi was advised that the Congress should shun coalitions for the time being since the contests due in the three northern states were primarily straight ones with the BJP. Coalitions were not required.
The Congress won all the three states. From the specific experience of the three states, the Sonia advisers coaxed a general principle: the Congress does better without coalitions. In the 1999 Parliament election the Congress was routed in the three states and reduced to a cipher in Uttar Pradesh.
In Vajpayee’s book the dynamics which operate in state elections are totally different from the ones that determine national elections. This lesson, the BJP learnt in the 1998, 1999 elections. Successful management of a 24 party coalition at the Centre has taught the BJP two more lessons. That the future belongs to coalitions and a successful approach to the 2004 elections entails that the process of weaving coalitions be set into motion now. Notice the Sharad Pawar, Mulayam Singh activity. Also, these coalitions must embrace new social forces, diluting the party’s upper caste image.
It is recognised within the BJP that the excesses of Gujarat harmed the party’s image as a party of governance. To govern a country as diverse as India, the party cannot be seen to be standing on the extremist margins waving a VHP-like flag. It must appropriate the middle ground being vacated by the Congress.
Here we run into a paradox. How can the Congress be presumed to be vacating the middle ground when it has governments in 16 states and may add a few more to its tally? This is where the theory of a disconnect between state and national elections comes into play. And this is exactly where the vibrant economy, upgraded relations with the US, Russia, China, Central Asia, Iran, South East Asia, Israel, the growing importance of India as made clear by the visitors in the past few weeks and above all, the ceasefire all along the Indo-Pak divide, for the first time in fifteen years, a growing willingness to believe that General Musharraf may in fact be inclined to complete the anti terrorism project he outlined in his January and May 2002 speeches — all these are in preparation for 2004. In this framework, the state election results will either be hiccups or subsidiary events.