Harish Gupta
Reams of newsprint and hours of television time have already gone into scrutinizing the respective merits and demerits of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi as the next prime minister of India. But there is little public interest to grasp the fact that either of them is unable to form a government all by himself. The feat of a single party bagging more than half the seats in the Lower House was last accomplished in 1985, by Rajiv Gandhi, in the wake of his mother Indira Gandhi's assassination on 31 October 1984. There have been strings of coalition governments since then. But even a coalition is seldom constant. On the other hand, it is more like ballroom dance with a leader and multiple partners. The partners may occasionally come and go, but it's no dance if everybody jibs like in the "will you won't you, will you won't you join the dance" song in 'Alice in Wonderland'. Partners of UPA began deserting the Congress since 2008, when CPM left in a huff following the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. It has never been a coordinated tango after that. To stick to dancing metaphor, what has followed is nothing short of madcap polka.
UPA-2's major starting problem was the relatively diminutive stature of Congress' partners. While Congress won 206 seats, its largest initial partner in the coalition, the Trinamul Congress (TMC) of Mamata Banerjee, had only 19. Still, Mamata played tough cookie. She used the Railway Ministry allocated to her like her own fief, changing the railway minister during budget session for the supposed audacity of presenting a railway budget with a marginal increase in passenger fare. Moreover, she literally blackmailed the Centre for additional Central grant to the West Bengal Government which she headed after her 2011 election victory, on the ground that her predecessor CPM had left the state finance bankrupt.
Congress will still remain Mamata's first choice not only because that's the starting point of her journey in politics, but also due to the fact that she presides over the government of a state with 26 per cent Muslim population. Therefore, secularism, it is presumed, is the sine qua non of a political career in Bengal. But Mamata, as a person, is remarkably ideology-free. Since becoming Union Minister for the first time in 1999, she shuttled between BJP-led NDA and Congress-led UPA as regularly as a daily commuter. It's true that she is diligently trying to wear the same minority-first image as, say, Mulayam Singh Yadav wears, allocating for mosque priests a monthly allowance from the exchequer till it is blocked by the high court, and allowing her pictures to appear in Haj posters observing the hijab just short of wearing the face veil.
However, in 2014, if Modi by any chance emerges as the front-runner with BJP emerging as a single largest party, TMC will still be in great demand, both as an important prop to the government, and as a valuable potential ally of BJP when it wishes to project itself eastward. Within the Congress corridors, there is a belief that Mamata cannot join the dance with Modi because of the demography of Bengal. The belief is without foundation. There is no doubt that TMC requires Congress support, but it is mostly to garner the minority votes which Mamata does not really steer, the hijab notwithstanding. The relatively affluent Muslims of the northern districts constitute the traditional support base of the Congress. In central and southern areas, the Muslim population, which is relatively poor and dependent on agriculture, went with CPM in the past. Still they're largely with CPM. Despite Mamata's massive electoral triumphs since 2009 parliament poll, Muslims do not seem to have transferred their loyalty en masse to 'didi'.
In the recent panchayat poll, TMC has failed to wrest the council in any of the three districts—Murshidabad, Malda and North Dinajpur—where Muslims constitute more than nearly half the population, or more. Unsurprisingly, Mamata's party won 13 of the 17 Zilla Parishad seats in South Dinajpur, where Muslim population is somewhat smaller (24 per cent). Her victory even in southern and central districts with sizeable minority population has been subdued. In Nadia, neighbouring Bangladesh, it was a close call, winning 25 of the 47 seats. She was plain lucky to get 54 of the 81 seats in the coastal district of South 24 Parganas, which has 44.19 per cent Muslim population, going by the 2011 census.
TMC's big-time victory in the 2011 assembly election was therefore a product of her poll alliance with Congress, the first choice of the minorities. It was an inclusive move. But it did not help her win back the community's confidence, as is evident from the lessons of the panchayat election. And who knows the extent to which Modi's campaign, and the aggressive communal edge in the style of Varun Gandhi, BJP general secretary in charge of the West Bengal unit, will be able to polarise voters along the religious divide in the state with the second largest share of Muslim population (afterJammu and Kashmir)! If that indeed happens, Mamata cannot afford the luxury of sitting pretty, and alone, in her Vastu-compliant new office. Modi's trademark divisive politics, once allowed into Bengal will leave no wiggle-room for Mamata, unless she makes a pre-poll commitment to BJP.
TMC's admirable panchayat poll performance in Bengal's Muslim-thin districts, like West Midnapore (64 of the 67 seats in Zillah Parishad), shows that a silent polarisation in the state is already in progress. Riding its crest, if she can reap a huge harvest in 2014, and join Modi's coalition, and if, this is a bigger, if the coalition comes to power, Mamata can play a strategic role in the setup. Congress support, on the other hand, is not of much consequence to her if the grand old party falls to return to power. Besides, Mamata too is no longer of much value to Congress as it has been proved that her charisma does not work across the communal picket fence, Margaret Thatcher famously said that "this lady is not for turning", but, come 2014, and the fiery didi may really turn.
PANCHAYAT & ZILLA
PARISHAD POLLS SHOW
THAT HER OBSERVING HIJAB
DIDN'T WORK ACROSS THE
COMMUNAL PICKET FENCE
(The author is
National Editor of the
Lokmat Group of newspaper in Delhi)
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