Didi may challenge Modi in 2019

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Since Narendra Modi bulldozed the parliament in May 2014, and repeated the feat three years later in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state, the opposition is overwrought with frustration. With the chances of its electoral recovery rather distant, it is unable to paper over the lengthening, and deepening, lines of its internal fissures. Like Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s exit from its camp; his JD(U) facing an existential crisis; or the CPI(M), which is convulsing with internal dissensions so deep that its general secretary Sitaram Yechury fails to get his party’s nod for returning to the Rajya Sabha with Congress support.

The opposition is hamstrung for other reasons too. Faced with BJP, RSS and their ideological challenge, the traditional ‘secular’ politician seems to have lost the plot. His response to incidents of serious cultural onslaught is feeble, at best. For example, no opposition party has worked out a coherent strategy to combat the Hindutva groups nursing their private militia in the name of cow vigilantes. They attack cow vigilantism as though it were the handiwork of extreme bigots sheltered by the Hindutva groups. But they have failed to present it as an integral part of an agenda to turn the religious minorities into second class citizens. Their bankruptcy surfaced when Congress workers attacked a BJP leader in Chhattisgarh responsible for cows death. On the rare occasions that Congress president Sonia Gandhi, or Rahul Gandhi, the vice president, comment on contemporary issues, they fail to strike a chord. While Rahul shoots and scoots, his mother has limited grasp of India’s social and civilizational issues. BSP supremo Mayawati, always shy to venture beyond Dalit issues has become even more tongue-tied. Down south in Tamil Nadu, ruling AIADMK and two other factions are getting sucked into the BJP rather than trying to redefine themselves in India’s political landscape after the end of multi-party rule. In Maharashtra, so total is the hold of BJP that Shiv Sena, its ideological sibling and local rival for power, outshines other opposition parties. In the states where the Congress is ensconced, such as Karnataka, there is not much certainty about its continuance.

In such bleak scenario for the opposition, two things are missing—leadership and strategy. Some of the opposition parties assumed that, in fighting BJP, the best strategy would be to forget past differences with the Congress and tie up with it. In Uttar Pradesh, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav tried it, and paid heavily for that mistake. In West Bengal, the CPI(M), by fighting the 2016 assembly election jointly with the Congress, fell into the same trap.

With the passing of years, if there is a single opposition leader to cobble up a strategy against BJP’s divisive politics, she is Mamata Banerjee. The West Bengal chief minister is a master player of the caste and sub-caste cards. In 2011, she succeeded in putting the 34-year-old CPI(M) rule to an end my mobilising the subalterns against a party which, though highly regimented, had only higher castes in its upper echelons.

Her Bengal is in BJP’s crosshairs for a long time. During CPI(M) rule, there was no entry for the Hindutva politics as the state’s poor were entirely identified with the hammer-and-sickle. BJP thought that, following the Marxists’ exit, it may be able to polarize votes.

But the BJP’s strategy against Mamata Banerjee has not succeeded so far. It brought limited dividend in 2014 with BJP getting 16 per cent votes (only two seats). But the BJP share came down to 10 per cent in the assembly elections two years later. Banerjee ruled the roost as her deft ‘salami slicing’ of the state’s huge OBC and dalit population did not allow the BJP to herd all non-Hindus under the saffron shamiana. It is a strategy that has worked.

In India, with ‘forward caste’ population estimated to be around 25 per cent (that leaves three-quarters of the population comprising the entire panoply of OBC and dalit, plus minorities), it is tough for BJP, to win elections without support from a large section of non-caste Hindus. That explains why Modi, and party president Amit Shah, have been reaching out to those on the lower rungs of the caste ladder, with a Dalit being made the President of India. Ram Vilas Paswan, a Dalit, heads the LJSP, an important partner in the ruling NDA. During his tours aimed at the 2019 general election, Shah makes it a point to have lunch (well publicised) one day in a dalit home.

In India’s social fabric of mixed hue, it is not possible to win elections on the support of one or two castes. Mayawati, for example, won elections in Uttar Pradesh whenever she could broaden her appeal beyond the jatav community of dalits to which she belongs. But Mamata Banerjee’s appeal is subtler. It works on the ‘class animosity’ among castes, thus posing a challenge to the BJP strategy of appealing to an all-embracing Hindu identity. Last year, as there were minor skirmishes between Hindus and Muslims at Dhulagarh in Howrah district, BJP bent over backwards to give it a communal tinge but the Trinamool leader used a mix of her understanding of subaltern politics, and executive power, to deny BJP any leeway.

The answer to religious identity politics is the politics of subaltern identity. Nitish Kumar realised it as he introduced the mahadalit concept and re-embraced Lalu Yadav. But he has hung up his boots in opposition politics. In today’s scenario, if Modi’s BJP can face a serious contender in 2019, it has to be from Mamata Banerjee.

It's Modi Vs Gandhis, let India wait

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

As a joke, it is clever but contrived. As a jibe in parliament, it is rank graceless. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest remark in the Rajya Sabha about his predecessor Dr. Manmomohan Singh—only Doctor saab knows the art of bathing wearing a raincoat in the bathroom—looks like having put paid to the budget session when it resumes on March 9 after a month-long adjournment. The Congress, which is Lilliputian in the Lok Sabha but ‘big brother’ in the Upper House, has threatened to keep out of the rest of the session if Modi doesn’t apologize. And that’s asking for the moon unless the stand is changed after March 11.

However, beyond the frightening display of “indigestion”  at the highest level of India’s political life, the incident also highlights just what CPI(M) party chief and Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechury  remarked, that it is not a reply (to President’s address) but an election speech. For that matter, on demonetisation, none from the treasury benches, including the Prime Minister, ventured to respond to the fact of the GDP dropping a full percentage point post-note ban. During the winter session, it was Dr Singh who had got Modi’s goatby forecasting that GDP would be dented by a percentage point, and even upped the ante, in an uncharacteristic way, by calling demonetisation as “organized loot” and “legalized plunder”. Dr Manmohan Singh’s sharp attack on the Modi government surprised all because he rarely spoke in such strong words before, even when Rahul Gandhi tore his Ordinance in full public view. Modi who was sitting in the Rajya Sabha then, kept his cool and waited for an opportune time to strike back. And when he did, all hell broke.

Congress’ leaders did their best to counter Modi’s offensive, but it was not enough. BJP president Amit Shah promptly sprinkled salt on the wound by reminding Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi about his mother Sonia Gandhi’s famous invective at Modi during the days when he was chief minister of riot-hit Gujarat, that he’s maut ka saudagar (merchant of death). Shah did a bit more chest-thumping as he claimed that BJP has given a prime minister who “speaks” and before him “there was one whose voice could be heard only by you and your mother”.

It is evident that if the existing ill will between BJP and Congress continues—and there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that it will go anytime soon—there will hardly be any significant legislative action in the present Lok Sabha. Modi’s ‘raincoat’ jibe was undoubtedly unbecoming of him, but so was Manmohan Singh’s “organised loot” and “plunder”, words that the Prime Minister said Singh had been “made to utter” (implying off-stage prompting by the Congress president). Looking backward, it is obvious that what was mere obstructionism by BJP during UPA 1 (2004-09) turned into splenetic outbursts in the UPA 2 (2009-14) period, when the opposition led by BJP blocked every legislative move by the UPA. Political analysts gave it a sober name, ‘policy paralysis’, but it was actually a series of outbursts against the Congress’ dynastic leaders.

Now the table has turned, and it is ‘Modi V. Dynasty’. At an election rally in Haridwar last week, Modi was at the height of vexation with the Congress’ top leadership. “I tell the Congress leaders: hold your tongue, else I have your detailed horoscope. I do not want to desert dignity and reason, but if your desert dignity and reason and speak nonsense, your history will always chase you”. It can well be empty bluster; but who knows if it has ammunition?

Beyond the clash of ego, however, there is a looming threat that the medium to long term effects of demonetisation by the Modi administration may put India on an unexpectedly slippery slope of economic slow growth against strong global headwinds. IMF has trimmed India’s growth forecast for current (2016-17) and next fiscal by one percentage point (giving some credence to Manmohan Singh’s forecast though he said there will be two per cent fall ) and 0.4 percentage point, respectively, primarily to choking of consumption due to cash shortage and payment disruptions across the economy. But the same IMF, in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) update, has upped China’s growth estimate for 2016-17 from 6.5 per cent to 6.7 per cent. China is an aging country with a per capita GDP over five times that of India. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for India to catch up with economies that have raced ahead if it has no national strategy to put its youthful population to productive use. But, going by the Modi-Gandhi feud, national consensus on any issue is unlikely.

It is even more unfortunate that India’s electoral politics does not hold out any prospect for political unanimity on national cause. It is because over time, particularly in the present decade, the two warring parties, BJP and Congress, are increasingly becoming driven by personalities. Modi and the Gandhis, to be precise. If there are others, they’re bit players. Or like new organs growing from original stem cells, like Sasikala has grown out of the late Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu. The party system is under pressure, not merely in India but all over. The Grand Old Party of America, the Republican Party, has been totally eclipsed by Trump, who is anything but a republican, be it a small ‘r’ or capital. The British Labour Party is on stretcher and the Conservative Party died with Brexit. In India, the Congress resembled a party in the classical sense so long as it had a full-scale party as its main adversary, the BJP. But the fig-leaf is gone. And a couple of battling individuals have taken the charge to define the destiny of the world’s largest democracy!

HAND IN HAND WITH RED FLAG

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Garm Hava (Scorching Winds), M. S. Sathyu’s 1973 film was about the dilemma of a Muslim family over migrating to Pakistan post-Independence, ends with the patriarch, played by Balraj Sahni, deciding to stay back in India. As id this was not enough, he also decided to join the communist movement against the ruling Congress, amidst the slogan yeh azaadi jhooti hai (”this freedom is a sham”). Since then, and even earlier, the Congress and communists have remained at polar removes, representing not only two different ideas of India but conflicting views on everything, from property ownership to role of state and democracy. Over the decades, and particularly due to the rise of Hindutva politics under the BJP, their distance has got narrowed but the core difference persists, and so the refusal of their leaders to share power. In 1996, the CPI(M) central committee prevented its senior leader and West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu from being sworn in as Prime Minister, predominantly because of his top comrades’ objection to their party becoming dependent on the Congress. The composition of the lower House at that time was such that the Congress could pull the rug from under the government’s feet any time it pleased.

However, it is the recent assembly election in West Bengal, ending on May 5, that has finally bridged the gulf between the ‘hand’ (symbol  of the Congress) and the red flag of communists. How the alliance will fare is anybody’s guess, May 19 being the scheduled poll counting day. Still, it is an unusual bonding tied by pressure from the ranks, not imposed from above. Congress president Sonia Gandhi was reportedly not much in favour of the idea of a communist-dominated alliance in Bengal where her party had remained number two for decades. But Rahul Gandhi, the party’s vice president, who was not given to such niceties, readily addressed rallies in Kolkata with former CPI(M) chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee by his side, and forests of clenched fists being raised in front of him with the slogan, comrade Rahul lal salam.  It was first time after Independence that a Gandhi scion was hailed as “comrade” by a predominantly communist rally.

 Can it be the harbinger of an enduring and electorally tenable centre-left coalition in India? Why not? The Congress, despite its corruption-tainted image for a long time now, has steadfastly held on to its socialist policies, which got a marked boost in the 10 years of UPA rule due to Sonia Gandhi’s hallmark programmes, like MGNREGA and Food Security Act. But, despite its left-leaning core ideology, the Congress remained without allies as caste-based politics had come to rule the roost. In the Nineties, BJP, with its Hindutva politics, added a new dimension to it. Since then Congress has been left with no regional allies worth the name. The Congress-left alliance, if it spreads across the nation, will have the potential of an anti-elite and pro-poor coalition. It is like turning the clock of history back to where it would have rightfully belonged, in a society divided by class. And it doesn’t matter if it is divided by caste too.

    It is natural that BJP will not be pleased if the Congress-left alliance puts up a stellar performance in Bengal. But even a fairly decent tally of, say, around 100 seats (in a house of 294) will bring a new momentum and push the envelope, particularly for the Uttar Pradesh election next year. CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury is working hard to create a nation-wide non-BJP alliance wherever feasible. Rahul Gandhi is extremely comfortable with Yechury and both agree that road to Delhi goes via Lucknow. Neither Rahul nor the Left trust Mulayam Singh Yadav anymore as he has ditched secular forces six times in the past. It is learnt that poll strategist Prashant Kishore, regarded as the architect of Modi’s election in 2014 as well as that of Nitish Kumar in Bihar last year, is insisting on the party rallying behind a “face”, be it of Rahul, or his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The advice has a lot of substance as even the elite classes, who supported Congress in the past and have now gone mostly to BJP, can respond to their old links only if a member of the party’s leading family agrees to launch his (or her) march to Delhi from Lucknow.

But the elites cannot win an election on their own. The local parties with their caste identities do not trust Congress. Nor is the party held in great trust by Muslims, who constitute 17 per cent of the population of Uttar Pradesh. The left can be a powerful adhesive to glue the regional parties and communities together to Congress. In other words, the left can function as a catalyst in the coalition-building process. It is win-win for regional parties too. Take, for example, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who is working hard to get a leadership slot in UP’s anti-Modi space but hasn’t made much headway yet. A future coalition in the state spearheaded by Congress, and guaranteed by the Left, can offer at least three territorial players—Nitish’s JD(U), Lalu Prasad’s RJD and Mayawati’s BSP --an opportunity to take part in the governance of India’s largest state.

 

The 131-year-old Congress still has substantial brand value. But it has no friends. Despite Sonia Gandhi’s pro-poor programmes, it failed to forge lasting ties with the toiling masses. But the rally for “comrade Rahul” in Kolkata’s Park Circus maidan on a sizzling summer afternoon may pave the way for the party to unshackle itself at last, and win back the poor man’s trust that it has forfeited.

Mamata burns her bridges

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Five years back, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mamata Banerjee stormed to power in West Bengal wearing her trademark Hawaii flip-flop, as a symbol of simplicity in the country's then simmering with allegations of corruption on a humongous scale. Thanks to the 2G scam and 'coalgate', booties in trillions of rupees had just become commonplace. Mamata did not have to make much effort to appear saintly, until the Saradha chit fund scandal began unfolding and one of her ministers, known as her 'bagman', went to jail. Then came a series of 'sting' videos of her party and cabinet bigwigs grabbing for wads of currencies offered to them for promise to pull strings on bribe-givers' behalf.

STATES OF THE NATION

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

  

The assembly elections due in 824 constituencies across four states—Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu—and the Union Territory of Puducherry may have a more than usual quota of surprises. Incumbency can be its reason in only one state, Assam, where Congress is in power for three terms and Tarun Gogoi has led the government all these years. There is another factor, tedium, working in two states: Kerala and West Bengal. It is tedium with the main opposition, which is CPI(M) in both states. Neither Congress' Omen Chandy nor Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee is a picture of popularity after five years in power.