Rahul has a long way to go

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Congress party, which was down in the dumps after the thrashing in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in which Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to power, is on the recovery path.

In the Assembly elections in the Hindi states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, it ousted the BJP from power. While the Congress and the BJP have been alternating in power in Rajasthan for a long time, MP and Chhattisgarh were under BJP rule continuously for 15 years.

The electoral verdict bodes ill for the BJP. It was a spectacular showing in nine Hindi states, where it won 185 seats, that enabled the BJP to secure a majority in the 573-member Lok Sabha with a tally of 282.

MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had given the BJP 62 of their 65 seats. If the verdict in these states reflects the current mood in the entire Hindi region the BJP will have a hard time approximating its 2014 performance in the Lok Sabha elections due in four months.

The Congress was a few seats short of a majority in the new assemblies of MP and Rajasthan. The quick offer of support by two parties, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party, which have a small presence in these States, helped it to make up the shortfall

Success in ousting the BJP from power in three States has boosted the morale of Congressmen and is widely interpreted as popular endorsement of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. He had taken over the post of party president from his mother, Sonia Gandhi, a year ago after serving as General Secretary and Vice-President for a decade.

He had started with some handicaps. He appeared to be a reluctant prince. The BJP’s social media brigade ran a vicious campaign portraying him as a dimwit who owes his position as heir apparent of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. He fought back vigorously and established himself as a leader sensitive to the problems of the poor.

Credit is due to Rahul Gandhi for the Congress party’s recovery in the Hindi belt, reflected in the Assembly election results. However, he and the party still have a long way to go to recapture Congress’s lost glory.

There is room to doubt if he is on the right track. After working for a while with a team of his own, he now relies mostly on the old Congress hands on whom his mother had relied when she stepped into politics a few years after the assassination of her husband, Rajiv Gandhi.

This restricts his ability to chart out a new strategy taking into account the vast change in the political scenario since the days of Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, when the Congress was the only party with a national reach.

The most that can be read from the latest electoral verdict is that the Congress retains the capacity to bounce back in the States where the BJP is its main opponent. 

In the largest Hindi states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which together have 130 seats in the Lok Sabha, the Congress is today a small player. In UP, the BSP and the SP are the main opposition parties. Their traditional rivalry had helped the BJP to grab a lion’s share of its Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and seize power in the state in 2017. They are now in negotiations to take on the BJP jointly in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Beyond the Hindi belt there are States where regional parties are the main players. In the southern state of Telangana and northeastern state of Mizoram, where Assembly elections were held recently, regional parties trounced both the Congress and the BJP.

It is in the Congress party’s interest to forge good relations with small national parties as well as regional parties as they may have a role in the formation of the next Central government. 

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam leader N Chandrababu Naidu’s recent overtures to Gandhi and Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader MK Stalin’s endorsement of him as prime ministerial timbre are indicative of goodwill towards him. 

If he had adopted a liberal attitude towards the BSP and the SP and carried them with his party in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in the Assembly elections, it would have fared better than it did. It would also have put him in a favourable position to strike a good bargain with them in UP.

Rahul Gandhi’s choice of old hands to lead the new governments in MP and Rajasthan, when promising young leaders were available, suggests that his enthusiasm for toning up the party and infusing new vigour has waned. That is not a good sign. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 19, 2018.

Realignment bids ahead of poll

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As the parliamentary elections, due next year, draw near, several parties are rethinking their position in the light of their assessment of the current political climate.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led it to a clear victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party has seized power in several states and established itself firmly as the largest national party, a position previously held by the Congress.

While in the general elections Modi’s campaigns worked wonders in many states, the BJP has not done well in by-elections. In 2014, it won 282 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. By-election losses have reduced its strength to 274, just two more than is necessary to maintain its majority status.

The Congress, the main opposition party, raised its strength from 44 to 48 during this period.

The BJP suffered its worst by-election reverses in Uttar Pradesh where the Samajwadi Party grabbed the seats which Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated following assumption of office in the state. Both of them had won by big margins in 2014.

This time UP’s other major party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, stayed out of the contest and supported the SP candidates. Since the SP draws support mainly from the backward Yadav community and the BSP from the Dalits, the BJP faced the combined onslaught of the lower strata in the byelections. 

The National Democratic Alliance, the coalition led by the BJP, too has suffered erosion of strength. With 14 partners holding 40 seats, the NDA had 322 members when Modi took office. The Telugu Desam party (TDP), the second largest partner with 16 members, quit the alliance last week, accusing Modi of not living up to the promise to give Andhra Pradesh a special status.

TDP boss and AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had earlier pulled out his party’s two members from the Modi government. He followed it up by serving notice of a no-confidence motion against the government in the Lok Sabha. 

The government has the numbers to sail through comfortably but the censure bid will provide an opportunity for a line-up of opposition forces.

The BJP has an uneasy relationship with the Shiv Sena, its largest partner with 19 seats in the Lok Sabha. It is also part of the coalition government in Maharastra. It misses no opportunity to taunt big brother BJP. 

Issues on which the Shiv Sena has taken pot shots at Modi include the Punjab National Bank scam and deterioration of law and order situation. It is not likely to break with the BJP immediately.

Dalit leader and Consimer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s weekend advice to the BJP to become all-inclusive like the Congress is seen by some as a prelude to pullout from the NDA. His Lok Janshakti Party has six members in the Lok Sabha.

Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, hosted a dinner for opposition party leaders a few days ago. As many as 20 leaders attended the event, which the Congress said was meant to promote friendship but was also an occasion to explore possibilities of forging broad unity before the parliamentary elections.

The outcome of the dinner diplomacy will essentially depend upon the parties’ appreciation of ground realities. BSP leader Mayawati’s decision to stay out of the UP byelections and support candidates of traditional rival Samajwadi Party, testifies to a growing realisation among non-BJP parties that they need to pull together. 

The Congress party’s improved performance in the Assembly elections in Gujarat and in the recent by-elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh has raised its standing among the opposition to some extent. All three are states where the BJP and the Congress are sole contenders for power.

Assembly elections are due later this year in MP and Rajasthan as also Karnataka and Chhattisgarh where, too, the main contest is between the BJP and the Congress. The outcome of these elections may influence the course of negotiations for new alliances.

Chandrababu Naidu and two other regional party leaders who are heading state governments, West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Telangana’s K Chandrasekhara Rao, have favoured the idea of a third front. Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam leader MK Stalin introduced a new element by talking of a southern front against the BJP. 

All this makes for a fluid situation. It may be months before a clear picture of the line-up for the Lok Sabha elections emerges. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 20,2018

Challenges to federalism

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The feud between the Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the Central government, and the Aam Admi (Common Man) Party, which runs the Delhi state government, and the skirmishes between the Telugu Desam Party, which rules Andhra Pradesh state, and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which is in power in the recently created Telangana state, are sure signs of deterioration in India’s political climate.

The conduct of the constitutional authorities involved in the fracas poses threats to the future of democracy as well as the federal polity.

The trouble in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, which is not a full-fledged state, began as an ego clash between Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, both former bureaucrats.

Kejriwal had led the AAP to a massive victory in the Assembly elections last February, foiling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to bring Delhi state also under BJP rule. He believes the BJP is now seeking to rule the state using Najeeb Jung as proxy.

Relations between Jung and Kejriwal soured when the former appointed an officer of his own choice as the acting Chief Secretary, ignoring the Chief Minister’s wishes. Kejriwal retaliated by removing the officer who had issued the appointment order at Jung’s behest. Jung asserted that he alone was competent to appoint and transfer officers.

Throwing democratic niceties to the winds, the Centre endorsed Jung’s stand that he could act without consulting the elected government. The issue is now before the court.

Last week the Delhi police, which is under the control of the Lieutenant Governor, arrested State Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar on a charge of using forged university degrees. If the arrest had not come in the wake of the battle between the Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor, it could have been viewed as an act in keeping with the principle that no one, howsoever high, is above the law.

Until recently the BJP was an ardent advocate of full statehood for Delhi. Its present stance shows that it is unwilling to forgive the AAP and the capital’s voters for dashing its hopes in Delhi and bringing the Modi juggernaut to a halt.

The trouble in the South is a fall-out of the division of Andhra Pradesh state, which had come into being in 1956 as the common home of the Telugu-speaking people who lay scattered in British Indian provinces and princely states during the colonial period. The Telangana state was carved out a year ago following prolonged agitation by people of the region, which was formerly part of the princely state of Hyderabad, alleging neglect by successive Andhra Pradesh governments.

Under the law enacted for the bifurcation, Hyderabad will serve as the capital of both Telangana and the residuary Andhra Pradesh state for 10 years. This arrangement was made to give AP time to build a new capital since Hyderabad is now part of Telangana. The two states also have a common Governor, who is in charge of law and order in the joint capital during the interim period.

A piquant situation arose when Telangana’s Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested A Revanth Reddy, a Telugu Desam Party MLA, on a charge of bribing a nominated member of the Assembly to vote for a TDP candidate in the Legislative Council elections. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao later released the tape of an alleged conversation between Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and the nominated member to show that he (Naidu) was aware of the bribery.

Naidu said the tape was a fabricated one. He accused Chandrasekhar Rao’s party of encouraging defections from the state unit of TDP. Workers of the TDP filed complaints at several places in Andhra Pradesh against Chandrasekhar Rao and the Telangana Home Minister on charges of tapping Naidu’s phone.

Any step taken by any government against corruption deserves to be welcomed. But the developments in Hyderabad have to be viewed in the broad context of attempts by the two regional parties which hold power in the neighbouring states to settle political scores. An ugly situation involving a serious challenge to the federal structure can develop if the two Chief Ministers persist in the present course.

The Constitution is resilient enough to deal with tricky situations. But it can work smoothly only if constitutional authorities rise above petty politics and display statesmanship when the occasion demands it. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, June 16, 2015.