by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
The run-up to the 2014 elections is quite different from previous ones in one respect: that the core of India's big industry, which we may call the "Mumbai Club", is now driven by an evangelical zeal to believe that the rise of Narendra Modi to the prime ministerial pedestal was inevitable. The composition of Mumbai Syndicate may have changed over the 60s, but what has become intense this time is its resolve to get the government that it wants. And that it will settle for none other than Modi. Never in the past did it behave more like a reckless punter, putting all its bet on one side and one man, leaving nothing for hedging. It is as if someone at the poker table has read the opponent's cards, and fancies he has won already.
The confidence in Modi that Mumbai Syndicate has been showing of late is a smug self-assurance that electoral calculations have remained engraved in the stone of caste and community, and that the weaker the voter is, the more she can be herded into the polling booth and push the button she's been ordered to. It is a twentieth century concept, and, in many corners of the country, we saw it getting demolished in the twentieth century itself. Some of the old techniques, like proxy votes, as BJP exhibited in the Bastar region in the 2008
Chattisgarh assembly election (over 80% voted BJP), may now be blunted by mandatory video recording of polling; if one is casting a false vote, he can't afford to get himself photographed while doing it. The biggest game-changer in the 2014 elections is the demography of voters. With 12 crore youngsters voting for the first time, and 20 crore between age 19 and 30, it is an army of strangers the Mumbai Syndicate has never met before, social media notwithstanding.
A pointer to the changed electoral landscape will be assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi which have witnessed proliferation of young voters. Besides, all the four states historically have a close mix of BJP and Congress. In Delhi, there is a dark horse, the Aam Aadmi Party, representing, perhaps, the new cynicism among the common man about political parties, bred on a long spell of inflation, low growth and unemployment. The north-eastern state of Mizoram, where too is assembly election due, is an outlier. But the four mainline states present an enigmatic canvas on which a few predictable, or made to order, opinion polls have hardly shed any light.
LK Advani, the old battle horse that he is, rightly sniffed that the 2013 state elections could be a dangerous prologue to the 2014 drama. In opposing Modi being named BJP's prime ministerial candidate early on, his intention, perhaps, was not to spite Modi but to avoid dragging him into the risky game of responsibility fixing for the assembly poll results. But RSS and Modi, cocksure of BJP's success in the states, suspected it to be a ploy to divert credit to regional satraps, like Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Raman Singh, or Vasundhara Raje Scindia. The Mumbai Syndicate also thought alike. If BJP wins not more than two of these four states, the Syndicate members will have beads of sweat on their face. If BJP loses all but one of the state assemblies, say for example Madhya Pradesh, it will surely leave Modi regretting for joining the race in one hell of a hurry.
In none of these states is Modi the issue. In Rajasthan, the issue is Vasundhara Raje's past record of inadequate governance, and her aloofness. The line that became familiar in the state during her rule was: "No CM after 8 PM". Following her defeat in 2008, Congress came in but Ashok Gehlot, its chief minister, failed to leave his mark. Modi's sponsors have calculated that if weight of incumbency does bring down the Congress government, Modi can grab its credit before Scindia, and that will boost his image for the 2014 contest. The entire calculation is based on a handful of axioms: that the Jats this time want Scindia back as CM, Gujjars will support the Congress, and so will Muslims. Modi is lucky if Scindia still wins. If she doesn't, it will recoil on Modi in a big way.
In Madhya Pradesh, on the other hand, BJP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan was particularly hurt when RSS railroaded the party to accept Modi as its prime ministerial candidate before the state elections. Again, Mumbai Syndicate thinks that a BJP hattrick in Madhya Pradesh is sure as eggs. But it is silent on the 'Scindia card' that Congress is playing in the state by making Jyotiraditya Scindia, the scion of the Gwalior House, a possible CM candidate. Rajasthan is not a Scindia land and if BJP claims Vasundhara Raje to be the state's 'princess of hearts' it is because she got married to the state's Dholpur royalty, to be subsequently divorced. But Gwalior, in the heart of Madhya Pradesh, is the fountainhead of the Scindia charisma. It is a mighty pull that BJP may find difficult to contend. Chauhan may be a popular figure but most of his ministers are neck-deep in corruption. It is for this reason that BJP is planning to drastically change its candidates in both Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, but that invites further risk of internal dissension.
Still, these are, in a way, the ‘known unknowns’. What can hit the Mumbai Syndicate as ‘unknown unknown’ is the AAP phenomenon in Delhi. The party being new, and disaggregated, somewhat like al-Qaeda, it is not possible to make a forecast of its performance based on past records and quantifiable swing. Arvind Kejriwal has emerged as a cult figure among the new young voters. But if the “charismatic Modi” cannot conquer Delhi from the jaws of well-entrenched Shiela Dixit, the Mumbai syndicate should be a worried lot to continue to bet on him. Its Kejriwal’s “broom”, AAP’s election symbol, that is capable of upsetting all future calculations of the captains of industry. In their game plan, democratic election is something tradable, like acquisition of a firm and merging it with another. Such a vision is not only false but self-destructive.
After failing in the late 60s,
the Captains of Industry who
thought democratic election is
something tradable, have risen again
(The author is the National Editor of
Lokmat group of newspapers at Delhi)
