by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Analysing the upcoming election (July 17) of the President of India may be like replaying the tape of an old cricket match. Because there is not much surprise left in the contest between Ram Nath Kovind, a career politician and the ruling NDA’s official candidate, and Meira Kumar, UPA’s, or rather the Congress’, official candidate, daughter of former deputy prime minister Jagjivan Ram, diplomat, former Lok Sabha Speaker, and an amateur rifle shooter. Kovind is way out front in the race, which generally follows party lines. And, in the arithmetic of voting strength, the NDA starts from a winning score of 63 per cent; it may go up, not down, in the weeks ahead.
But it is still an interesting election. For the BJP, the choice of candidate holds a major surprise for the assorted scaremongers who had begun counting the Doomsday by the annulment of the Constitution’s secular commitments, and expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and the RSS to rummage through the nether world and pick up a Hindutva-warrior as the Presidential candidate. The political know-alls in the stretch between Raisina Hill and the gossip-filled bar and cafe of the India International Center were convinced that the apparent rejection by Team Modi of BJP bigwigs like L. K. Advani, M. M. Joshi and Sushma Swaraj for the prestigious (and powerless) job of the President had an ominous hidden meaning—that of eventually ‘Hinduising’ the Constitution with the help of a like-minded President. As if, given an encouraging pat in the back, any of the above persons would be shy to prove their Hindutva ! Apparently, it did not occur to the ‘cognoscenti’ that if the Constitution were to be twisted and mangled right down to its “basic structure”, its operation room could be the Parliament, and not the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The President is a cipher after all.
The fact that Ramnath Kobind is anything but a Swayamsewak—his only link with the RSS being that he had gifted to it his (none too pricey) ancestral home at Derapur in Uttar Pradesh—tells nothing much. If Modi is really harbouring some radical plans about governance, he can carry it through regardless of who is the President. Just as he did not say a word to President Pranab Mukherjee before ordering the scrapping of 86 per cent of the money in circulation. However, while the choice of Kovind is an obvious pointer to the BJP’s 2019 strategy of leaving no dalit sect unturned, it has a sub-text, which is that the dalit face the BJP under Modi and Shah is looking for is the quiet and sober type, not Mayawati’s kind of a restless soul who’d put caste at the centre of every discourse. Both Mayawati and Kovind are law graduates but the latter had practised law for years and, unlike Mayawati, joined a political party which is anything but someone’s personal property. On the other hand, to Mayawati, politics is a weapon of self-aggrandizement.
Just as Kovind’s choice underlines certain aspects of Modi’s mind, the selection of Meira Kumar by the Congress—which is the short-hand for Sonia Gandhi—is also indicative of its priorities. Kumar is dalit only by name but is a prominent member of the capital’s elite club that has all along set the rules of the game of politics. In her young days, she grew up a Lutyens’ Delhi girl and never left it at her present age of 72, having been elected five times to the Lok Sabha and then nominated as Speaker of the Lok Sabha. And, like all clever denizens of Lutyens’ city, she used her influence to get her father’s 6, Krishna Menon Marg residence allotted to herself for 25 years. Her selection as the Congress’ presidential candidate speaks volumes for the elitist bias that has crippled the grand old party, with choice of leadership at every stage being determined by pedigree and rank in society. Meira Kumar may not go down as badly as Lakshmi Sahgal in 2002, who bagged merely 107,366 votes against winner A. P. J. Kalam’s 922,884. The UPA’s performance could be a lot better if Sonia Gandhi showed a bit of imagination and started the ‘trick’ herself, forcing Modi to be the ‘taker’. Instead, the Congress allowed Modi to deal first, as in a game of bridge, and the latter played Dalit, his strongest hand. As successive elections in Uttar Pradesh are showing, economic and demographic changes are making the backwards dump their traditional guardians, Congress and BSP, with a big chunk of them tasting BJP’s hospitality. If Sonia Gandhi had a better sense of the game, she could in fact accept CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechuri’s advice and put up Gopal Krishna Gandhi as UPA candidate. That would have left Modi with no option to tapping the dark and thick seam of bigotry, and hatred of Mahatma Gandhi, in BJP’s sub-soil. Besides, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is supporting Kovid as he’s too eager to get his uneasy alliance partner Laloo Yadav off his back, by keeping Modi pleased, if necessary, would have thought many times over if he had to oppose a scion of the Mahatma and stay on the side of his abusers. That has a cost, of expulsion from the respectable class. But there is a silver lining in the Congress game-plan; it may finally bring SP-BSP-RLD-Congress on the poll table during 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Modi should have a reason to worry.
However, Presidential election cannot gauge public opinion as its electors comprise those already elected. Still, it is an occasion to get a sense of the kind of people running the majority group among the country’s lawmakers, big and small; their values and the respect they have for the illustrious countrymen whom majority of the people respect. In this sense, the Congress’ role is disappointing. For Modi’s Dalit, all it could offer was its own Dalit. And one like them, to be sure.
