India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 15 :: No. 25 :: Dec. 05 - 18, 1998

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COVERSTORY

A DEBACLE IN NINE MONTHS

Nine months after it clambered onto power in New Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party finds itself trounced in elections in three States and Delhi. For the Congress(I), the overall winner, the triumph is dramatic but not unqualified.

SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN
in New Delhi

AT different stages in the campaign for the November 25 Assembly elections in four States, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's speeches seemed to reflect a diversity of attitudes about the implications that the results would have for the future of his Government. He initially rejected any suggestion that the impact would be of a substantive character. The elections, he said, were not to be construed as a referendum on the performance of his Government.

Vajpayee later admitted that there would be some lessons to be learnt for his administration, since the outcome of the elections would be an indication of "what people feel". Towards the final days of the campaign, Vajpayee sought to find advantage in adversity. Whatever the outcome of the elections, he said, there would be no immediate danger for his Government since the prospects for a realignment of forces were negligible. There was in fact, no credible alternative government that was possible with the given balance of arithmetic in the Lok Sabha. Since no party was really in favour of mid-term elections to Parliament, there was little likelihood of the Bharatiya Janata Party's coalition partners rocking the boat.

As the results began to pour in, showing how efficiently the BJP had managed in the space of a mere nine months to transform solid electoral performances into ignominious rout, party spokespersons proffered a variety of alibis. The BJP had defeated itself, said Delhi Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj. Not so, said party president Khushabhau Thakre - the explosive price situation, itself occasioned by adverse weather conditions, bore the entire burden of blame. Whatever indiscipline and factionalism did exist in the party was no more than that in earlier years and no worse than that in other parties. In one of his periodic moods of introspection, Home Minister L.K. Advani admitted that the party had failed to deliver on its promises of good governance.

THE swing in the popular mood - from endorsement to decisive rejection - has been little short of dramatic. Historians of the democratic process in India will be hard pressed to find an analogue at any level of electoral contests. No party has in fact managed in such a short space of time to squander public goodwill in quite a similar manner.

SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY
Congress(I) president Sonia Gandhi responding to greetings from supporters.

In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won 39 per cent of the popular vote, exactly the same as in the last Assembly elections in 1993. In the intervening period, the BJP had capitalised on the anti-incumbency factor, improving its showing in the 1996 parliamentary elections and peaking at 46 per cent of the popular vote in the 1998 Lok Sabha contest. Nine months have seen a swing of no less than 7 percentage points in terms of popular vote share against the BJP in a State that used to be its bastion. And this has been despite the incumbency of a Congress(I) Government, which in normal circumstances should have been expected to bear a fair share of public opprobrium for its record of governance.

More dramatic is the case of Rajasthan, where there has been a swing of 10 percentage points against the BJP in this span of time. The Lok Sabha elections in March had brought the party no less than 42 per cent of the popular vote, though its performance in terms of seats won was far from distinguished. The last nine months have seen the BJP plumb the depths, with the Congress(I) turning in the best performance ever by a single party in the State.

KAMAL KISHORE/ REUTERS
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with leader of the Samata Party George Fernandes on November 30 at a meeting called to review the political situation.

Neither of these quite compares with the case of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, where the BJP's desperate last-minute switch in leadership only seemed to make matters worse for it. The swing in the popular vote here is a stupendous 17 percentage points - from a solid 51 per cent in February to a dismal 33 per cent in November 1998.

SWINGS of this magnitude would, in normal circumstances, be sufficient evidence of a government that has forfeited all public goodwill and lost its mandate to rule. But the BJP's own sense of conviction that it alone is the chosen party of governance, together with the peculiar composition of the alliance it leads, makes a gradual internal disintegration, followed by an implosion, the most likely outcome. Allies have already begun to feel the burden of association with a party that seemingly has no use for constructive dialogue and is intent on pushing ahead with its own sectarian and rather divisive agenda, irrespective of the consequences in terms of social strife and political discord.

Jayalalitha, general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the most substantive ally of the BJP, was the first to sound the note of disgruntlement. The electoral verdict reflected a sense of popular "anger and disenchantment" with the BJP-led Government, she said. Although she refused to commit herself on a future course of action, she did say that the AIADMK would not give any cause for mid-term elections.

Similar ambivalence was again the distinctive feature of the Trinamul Congress' reaction. Party spokesman Ajit Panja spoke of the electoral verdict as a reprimand for the BJP's consistent record of neglect of its partners' interests. He too disavowed any intention of forcing a showdown with the senior partner, but he did warn the BJP to be more attentive to the larger interests of the coalition.

ANU PUSHKARNA
AIADMK leader Jayalalitha

The Akali Dal also expressed itself in like terms. And the Biju Janata Dal, caught up in its own internal schisms and disputes - focussed primarily on the inept leadership of Naveen Patnaik - had little to say. The Samata Party, chastened by the loss of a seat in the Bihar Assembly byelections and the failure to wrest any moral advantage in its struggle against Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Laloo Prasad Yadav, expressed itself fairly unequivocally in favour of sustaining the alliance.

That the BJP has been bloodied and now enjoys less influence within the coalition than its dominant numerical position would indicate is indubitable. It is equally clear that the allies will utilise the additional leverage afforded to them to influence the ruling coalition's political and legislative agenda. Since many of the allies are known to believe that their interests will be served by the fulfilment of a fairly extravagant set of conditions, the room for accommodation would seem limited. The AIADMK seeks the invocation of Article 356 of the Constitution in Tamil Nadu to dismiss an elected government, as does the Samata Party in Bihar.

The Trinamul Congress has its own ambitions in West Bengal, but no means of achieving them. It does intend, however, to demarcate itself clearly from the BJP as far as concern for the minorities is concerned. The call to observe December 6 - the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition - as a black day is of a piece with this intention and is only likely to heighten discord with the hardline element within the BJP. The Akali Dal for its part believes, contrary to the views of various expert committees, that Udham Singh Nagar district in Uttar Pradesh should not be a part of the proposed Uttaranchal state.

Elements within the BJP rank have pressed the point that the way out of problems posed by its fissiparous alliance is to return to the core ideological agenda of the Hindutva formation. This agenda was diluted on account of coalition compulsions, but the BJP could, in preparation for a mid-term poll, make a bold bid to seize the initiative by bringing it once again to the foreground.

RAJEEV BHATT
Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee.

The idea may have been a viable one in terms of political returns if the BJP had managed to salvage even a modest degree of honour from the latest electoral contests. Pre-election calculations that the party would suffer the worst of the incumbency disadvantage in Delhi and Rajasthan, and actually benefit from the same factor in Madhya Pradesh, may have underpinned Vajpayee's rather bold declaration in the closing days of the campaign that he was not averse to the notion of a mid-term poll. A few caveats were entered at a later stage, undoubtedly with a view to preserving the strategic advantage of the surprise element. But the possibility of a complete rout of the BJP in the northern region makes this a worthless strategic option.

Three of the BJP's traditional bastions have now fallen. Of the others, Uttar Pradesh offers no solace. The BJP has been in authority there as the head of a ramshackle, opportunistic and inept coalition, for well over a year and could face adverse consequences in any prospective electoral contest. Gujarat returned a relatively modest victory for the party in byelections to the Bharuch Lok Sabha seat and may not yield the sweeping triumphs of the recent past. Himachal Pradesh is too small in numerical weight to contribute to a plurality at the Centre. And in Maharashtra, the BJP is the junior partner in a coalition that appears rapidly to be fraying over the most trivial of issues.

In the days to come, the hard-line elements within the BJP are likely to advocate the strident pursuit of the party's distinctive ideological agenda as a way out of this bind. This would put the onus on the alliance partners either to acquiesce or part ways and leave the BJP in pristine isolation as the party of high nationalist ambition. These circumstances may, in one reckoning, be the more conducive for the BJP in an electoral contest.

DEEP internal fissures in the party may put paid to this strategic gambit. Policy differences have something to do with these divisions, which are only likely to be compounded by the electoral debacle. That the winter session of Parliament has commenced just two days after the magnitude of the rout became evident is a further inconvenience. After the legislative default of the Budget session of Parliament, the Central Government is obliged to bring forward a series of important bills in the coming weeks. It does not help the BJP's cause that its ranks are deeply divided on several of these proposed measures.

K. RAMESH BABU
Union Home Minister L.K. Advani.

Among the items listed for discussion and possible adoption in the winter session are the Indian Patents Act Amendment and the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill (stories page 100-101), on both of which the BJP faces the prospect of an internal revolt. These aside, a clutch of economic measures is also pending, none of which is likely to win the automatic backing of either the Treasury or Opposition benches - such as the Foreign Exchange Management Bill, the Money Laundering Bill, the Companies Act Amendment and the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act (ULCRA).

From the point of view of the Central Government, default is clearly not a feasible option any more. Industry and finance, not to mention the international donors, are looking for concrete signals of movement on the economic policy front. And the ruling policy orthodoxy believes that buoying up confidence in these circles is vital to economic revival. Consensus-building being foreign to the BJP's nature and its legislative majority being tenuous, most observers seem to think that the winter session could be a critical episode in the unravelling of the Vajpayee regime. Defeat on the floor of the house for any important bill could accelerate the process.

THE Opposition for its part is unlikely to push very hard, since the BJP has embarked upon a course of self-destruction. The Congress(I) could conceivably initiate a process of realignment by encashing commitments of support from Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Laloo Prasad Yadav. But it remains averse to the idea of stepping into a quagmire of the BJP's creation without an adequate buffer in terms of numbers in Parliament. Even with the conditional support of the Left, the Congress(I) would have to bring too many bit players in line to make survival a reality. And then the task of providing a modicum of efficiency in governance would be quite another question.

AJIT KUMAR/AP
Jubilant Congress (I) supporters outside Sonia Gandhi's residence in New Delhi after the election victory.

Congress(I) spokesmen have in the days following the elections firmly disavowed any intention of seeking an immediate ouster of the BJP-led Government. Party president Sonia Gandhi characterised the results as a rejection of the BJP's claims to being a party of governance. The credit, she said, should go to "all Congress leaders and workers". Mani Shankar Aiyar spoke gleefully of watching the gradual "withering away of the BJP". And even Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar, who was earlier known to be in favour of toppling the BJP-led coalition, distanced himself from any such intention in the aftermath of the elections.

Alhough dramatic by any indications, the Congress(I) triumph is qualified by certain important considerations. In all the States concerned, it was the only available alternative to the BJP. It had preserved its position against the incursion of a third party all through the late-1980s and early-1990s, which were the heyday of Third Force politics. And as the prospect of a third force faded away and a semblance of leadership coherence was established by the restoration of the dynastic principle, the Congress(I) emerged with renewed vigour.

It is not obvious yet that the Congress(I) will be able to reverse its fortunes quite in the same manner in the crucial battlegrounds of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where Third Force politics is firmly entrenched. Nor are the breakaway factions in West Bengal (the Trinamul Congress) and Tamil Nadu (the Tamil Maanila Congress) about to gravitate back in the near future to the parent organisation. Dependence on the Left for survival at the Centre would involve some heartburn in Congress(I) units in West Bengal and Kerala. And where stable regional parties are in power, such as in Andhra Pradesh, the Congress(I) faces a quite distinct set of problems.

The defeat of the Congress in Mizoram is of course an irritant in this story of resurgence. The triumph of the coalition between the Mizo National Front and the Mizo People's Congress is adequate testimony to the continuing relevance of regional interests in national politics. After decades of relentless centralisation, the Congress(I) will have to seek a way to coopt regional interests while preserving the monolithic quality of its central leadership - its seeming infallibility - which is central to its political fortunes.

BAD tidings seem to come in five-years cycles for the BJP. In November 1993, the party went into a series of critical electoral contests in the northern region, convinced that its manifest destiny as the party of cultural nationalism was about to reach fruition. Still heady from the demolition of a place of worship in Ayodhya, the BJP seemed to have no use for restraint or sobriety. It faced a debacle in 1993, which unleashed a prolonged period of internecine strife and bickering, from which it was only salvaged by the conspicuous ineptitude of the Congress(I)'s P.V. Narasimha Rao dispensation and the fractiousness of Third Force politics.

In 1993, the BJP was set back not so much by an erosion of its newly won allegiances as by a consolidation of votes by the sections that had a vital stake in keeping it out of power. The picture now is quite different. The BJP has suffered not just in relative terms but through an absolutely dramatic desertion by social classes that it had managed to recruit to its cause. Inflammatory rhetoric and lofty invocations of the nation's newly won status as a nuclear weapon state clearly cannot substitute for sobriety and a patient attention to the details of governance. The aftermath of Assembly elections shows very clearly that the BJP is temperamentally incapable of imbibing these lessons.