Elections Analysed : The Kings Are Now In Coolers !

BY R.K.MISRA

A generation brought up on Phantom comics in India would not easily forget the tribal way of communicating through drum beats in the jungles of Denkali. Swift, effective and encrypted.

In similar fashion, the outcome of the recently concluded polls mirrored effective, unspoken communication from west India extremity of Maharashtra through Gujarat to north India’s Haryana stretching onto Bihar. The results came in on October 24, 2019.

In no uncertain terms, BJP’s  legitimacy to induced defection and largesse of party tickets and positions to the turncoats- by now upgraded to the level of it’s national strategy- was firmly given  the order of the boot .

The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not being said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party commander Amit Shah, long used to the echo of their own voices, abysmally failed to decipher the silence. These elections to the Maharashtra and Haryana Vidhan Sabhas and bye-elections to 51 State Assembly seats in 18 states were billed to be a steamroller that would grind to pulp in the manner of the general elections earlier this year. The results have left the six-pack flexing BJP wailing for a walking stick to hobble back to power in  boasted bastions of Haryana and Maharashtra. In fact, in the latter state even the stick has developed ambitions of it’s own!

Once a repository of political morality, BJP now has no compunctions about cobbling a government in Haryana with the help of Janayak Janata Party(JJP) of Dushyant Chautala which bagged 10 seats to the BJPs 40, all of them by defeating the ruling party’s heavyweights. Similarly it threw in everything to worst it’s political rivals in Maharashtra- Modi, Filmstars ,Enforcement department, CBI et al. The attempt to buttonhole NCP supremo Sharad Pawar boomeranged. With Shiv Sena now calling the shots, the kings are now in coolers.

Butter- fresh from the bifurcation of  Jammu and Kashmir through the demolition of article 370, the BJP billed it as a no-contest, a tail-wagging media with exit polls in tow nodded more loyally  than the courtiers. The self- induced paralysis in the principal opposition party-the Congress-lent substance to it. And yet artificially engineered intelligence of the high and mighty was swept aside by the commoners unstated rustic commonsense !.

Gujarat is a case in point. There were by-elections to six Assembly seats, four of these vacancies were created when sitting BJP legislators were elected as MPs while two Congress legislators high profile Alpesh Thakore and acolyte Dhavalsinh Zala, quit to join the BJP and were promptly given tickets. Both were defeated.

It was a meteoric rise and an epic fall for Thakore who belonged to the powerful Thakore community of north Gujarat. Emerging from the ranks of anti-drinking crusader at the helm of the Kshatriya-Thakore Sena, the anti-BJP youth leader joined the Congress and was elected from Radhanpur. Due to his proximity to Rahul Gandhi ,Thakore grew rapidly within the Congress ,enjoying many positions including party observer for Bihar. Roundly criticized by the BJP including Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi for inciting anti-migrant riots in Gujarat, he had no compunctions in switching over and nor did the BJP in obliging him with a ticket and promising a cabinet berth if elected. Both the turncoats licked the dust.

In fact, the ruling party had pulled out all stops and had boasted of repeating it’s Lok Sabha performance in the state by bagging all the six seats. Congress , in effect retained two of its own , bagged a third(Tharad) where youth Congress leader Gulabsinh Rajput won and narrowly missed a fourth seat. In Amraiwadi constituency of Ahmedabad, the BJP received the fright of a lifetime and managed to forge ahead only in the last round.

While the state party and government is facing the music for the dismal outcome in the Gujarat by-elections, the fact is that it is the party top brass which shares the blame. It was the BJP high command’s decision to rest the party’s poll campaign on national issues, principally Modi’s muscularity on Kashmir.

Inducing defections and providing cabinet berths as well as tickets is a practice which was initiated during the Modi-Shah era in Gujarat. Frightened out of its wits in the 2017 Gujarat assembly elections  when Congress bagged 77 seats and  brought the BJP tally to one below a hundred, at least ten Congress legislators have been weaned away ever since. Some have been made ministers, others accommodated with pay and perks.

As in Gujarat so in Maharashtra, Haryana and other states, the Congress is the unexpected  beneficiary of a course correction largesse by the people who realise their mistake in handing over an exceptional majority to the BJP. They seem to be making amends by resurrecting the opposition, more so in the states.

The Congress today resembles a squabbling home for the aged  awaiting spring cleaning while its  jobless young sit idling on the sidewalk. The 30 seats of the total 90 in Haryana(BJP 40) and 44 of the 288 in Maharashtra to the Congress are more an incentive-dole than wages for work, meant to make it get up and get cracking. In fact old warhorse, Sharad Pawar, who weathered the Modi onslaught singlehanded and shored up his NCP proved more of a man, than the Congress which threw in the towel even before the match began.

For the BJP, the results are a clear and forceful signal that the Modi government is under watch for deliverables on basics. A tarzan without teeth is no good. The abrogation of article 370 and the promise of implementation of NRC(national register of citizens) countrywide on which the BJP based its campaign failed to move their  mountains . This acquires strategic importance in Haryana where every other home has some body serving in the security forces. In Maharashtra too a big chunk  of postal votes which come from the armed forces went to the NCP. It indicates that excessive, artificially -shored nationalism can also boomerang.

Unethical political practices, turned from a science of compulsions to an art of convenience, by the BJP combine showed up. Gujarat results apart, 11 of 19 turncoats were defeated in Maharashtra alongside 8 ministers including Pankaja Munde,  besides 7 of 9 in Haryana. In Haryana state BJP chief is  defeated by JJP by over 50,000 votes and the ruling party shamelessly teams up with it.

Ultimately who wins or who loses apart, the Modi veneer is showing signs of both wear and tear. The next poll stop, Jharkhand, which kick-in later this month,  will show up how much the Supreme Court judgement in favour of the Ram temple helped sew the frayed seams !