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After Nitish Kumar, Mayawati, Narendra Modi, Jayalalithaa, and a few years ago even Sharad Pawar, a sizeable section of media has now started tracing prime ministerial material in Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former pahalwan (wrestler). |
Stories of Third Front and Fourth Front started hitting the headlines––many of them were simply planted ones done with obvious political and business objectives.
Though serious political analysts rubbish all such stories and say that there is no likelihood of H D Deve Gowda type chief minister or regional satrap becoming the Prime Minister of the country in the near future, yet there is no denying the fact that Mulayam Singh’s stature has certainly grown up after March 6 verdict.
If, of all the persons, Nitish Kumar representing Bihar with 40 Lok Sabha seats, can be projected as the Prime Minister of the country by a section of media why can’t Mulayam nurse such an ambition as Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to Lok Sabha. Even at its peak Nitish’s Janata Dal (United) alone could win only 20 Lok Sabha seats in 2009 while Mulayam may end up winning more than double in 2014, provided the present performance continues. Nitish secured majority in Bihar in alliance with the BJP while Samajwadi Party came to power all on its own and by trouncing much formidable Bahujan Samaj Party, which always has the base vote of 21-22 per cent Dalits.
So, in that way, the result of UP is a setback to Nitish Kumar. But then politics does not always go that way. Very often media pundits go too far in analyzing the situation on the basis of speculative stories.
If analyzed the other way one can say that the results in four out of five states has come as an advantage to Nitish too. But this does not mean that it has brightened his prospect of emerging as a prime ministerial candidate by 2014.
The Janata Dal (United) is happy that its alliance partner the BJP has been cut to size. In that way its demand within the NDA would increase too.
The truth is that the media is focusing too much attention on Congress simply because it performed below the expectation in UP, Punjab and even Uttarakhand. Otherwise, there is no good news for the BJP either. That is why the RSS was compelled to say on March 11 that it is difficult for the BJP to come to power at Centre in 2014.
A close analysis of the result would reveal that the BJP could win only 113 Assembly seats in five states which went to poll recently. Against this its performance in the previous election to these very five states was slightly better and it had won 119. Against this the Congress party’s figure increased from 133 to 157 in 2012. Barring in Goa, in all the four states the tally as well as percentage of votes of Congress increased in comparison to the BJP.
The problem with the BJP is that even in Punjab its figure came down from 19 to 12 in 2012. It is the Shrimoni Akali Dal, which increased its tally from 49 in 2007 to 56 this time and thus saved the day. The BJP has lost its bargaining position even in that state, which has a long history of alliance with Akali Dal––it goes back to its earlier incarnation as Bharatiya Jan Sangh.
What is not highlighted by the media is that the BJP got virtually wiped out from the five states which went to poll last summer too. In contrast the Congress and its allies performed well in Assam, Kerala and West Bengal. The BJP could only open its account in Assam.
Nitish fully understands this gradual decline of the BJP, therefore, he was all praise for Prakash Singh Badal. It was because of BJP’s slow eclipse from UP that first the BSP in 2007 and now Samajwadi Party on its own secured full majority.
In Bihar too with now 118 MLAs Janata Dal (United) is very close to majority in the House of 243. Managing four MLAs to secure full majority is no big deal for the party. That is why after the recent election result Nitish lectured the national parties, even the BJP, to say that there is a lesson for all of them and that the regional aspiration should be taken care of.
His party’s general secretaries, K C Tyagi, and Shivanand Tiwary, had last week indulged in heavy verbal shelling of the Saffron Brigade and put all the blame on it for poor performace of both the Janata Dal (United) and the BJP in UP.
Tyagi made it loud and clear that rift had surfaced in the Janata Dal (United)-BJP alliance and if it is surviving in Bihar it is simply because of the magnanimity of Nitish Kumar.
Politics is not Twenty-20 cricket or 90 minutes of gruelling football, but is a long drawn game played with patience and full calculation.
Thus, while the Congress is busy doing the post mortem of the result––it is to be seen how better equipped the (spin)-doctors deployed for this job are––the BJP is perhaps, yet to realize that it can not win any big battle by just shooting at the imagined target from the shoulders of media and Team Anna. After all the allies within the NDA are watching everything closely.
comments...
There has been no gradual "decline" of the BJP.. rather it was only a temporary rise of the party sometimes riding VP Singh wave or the communal wave..once the waves have subsided..the BJP is back to where it should be. In Bihar, it is currently riding the Nitish wave. Position of the BJP shall not be very different compared to it’s current position in UP, if it fights election in Bihar on it’s own. No wonder even after regular abuses from notable JD-U leaders, it is clinging to Nitish babu. Laat khakar bhi rasgulla khayega..
Congress is a party of status-quo which used to assure the middle-class (read upper caste) of maintaining it's position and social status at the same time acting as the mai-baap for the rest. During mandal agitation of 90s, the congress party could not take a clear position (in reality it took anti-mandal position at ground level)..which resulted in it's total wipe-out from the hindi heart land of UP & Bihar. Middle class had no other option but to turn to BJP to retain it's hold and snobbish position. But by this time the marginalized section of the population became fully assertive of their democratic rights leaving little scope for the party which is associated with the upper caste. Core of the BJP is anti-mandal.
BJP is terming the UP debacle to it's lack/ load of leadership but in reality BJP was bound to get to this level irrespective of whatever they would have done. Please note that this happened despite the significantly high voters turn out during the election. More voters yet less vote for the BJP in UP is not surprising at all. Till yesterday the vocal middle class would blame lazy voters for defeat of BJP..but the myth now stands busted. Two consecutive defeats of BJP in 2004 & 2009 parliamentary elections and now recent election results do tell us that there is a much bigger landscape in the country which is beyond the bounds of Congress and BJP combined together. Thanks to the constitution of India, the transfer of political power has started happening which is also changing the social structure - it has been quite fast in last decade. Don't we know who all dislike the the constitution (or even the democracy)?
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