Issues and portents for 2009 General Elections

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Forecasting of any kind is for psephologists, meteorologists or astrologers. Most often they are proved wrong. Political players who try to become analysts of any pre-election scenario have to refrain from the tendency to indulge in wishful thinking. Any reader of views and assessments by persons supporting or opposed to the ruling dispensation must be taken with a pinch of salt, and since the Indian voter is both obvious and subtle at the same time, anyone who sniffs the winds looking for the victorious combine in the next elections is unlikely to find any strong scent. It is also standard practice for every candidate of every political party to reassure anyone who cares to listen that he or she is a sure-shot winner. So who can be sure till the votes are counted and announced?

I propose to look at some issues hovering before the electorate in the four crucial states that matter to anyone wanting to create the biggest post-election combine, i.e., Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The rest are in the category of smaller states that add or subtract equally and therefore are not decisive.

The murkiness surrounding India's pre-general election scenario in 2009 started in July 2008 with the long-threatened and finally materialised withdrawal of support to the UPA by the Left parties on the issue of the nuclear deal. The balance was quickly set straight with the Samajwadi Party being taken on board to enable the Prime Minister's prime project, the nuclear tie-up with the USA, to become a reality. The party that protested Saddam Hussein's capital punishment by the USA, suddenly became the party that helped the Indian government a tie-up with the USA. The voluble General Secretary of the Samajwadi Party scoffed away criticism by saying that George W. Bush who had attacked Iraq was on his way out. However, now many more find an Obama administration cutting back on outsourcing in his Buy American policy, leading to massive job losses in India for all categories of people. The financial downslide continues, and India's jobs in the organised and unorganised sector are both folding up rapidly, in tandem with the USA. At the moment the Congress is in ostrich-like denial about its negative fallout.

People will surely ask whether a pro-US tie-up on all fronts, both economic and energy/security related, was in India's best interests. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his colleague Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who have followed the 'corporate growth and privatisation' mantra to a fault, tied as they are to US prescriptions for globalisation, must be answerable. What would have happened if we had privatised all banks and insurance companies, apart from schools, hospitals and housing schemes, as such reformists long to do?

Another question that will be asked is whether we have become so inextricably linked to the US' 'war on terror' that any terrorist attack on Indian soil now needs and brings in the active intervention and investigation of various parts of the US administration. If Bush attacked Iraq, Obama is clearly gunning for Afghanistan, all in the pursuit of terrorist fountainheads. There is no doubt that the ominously increasing Taliban strength will head India's way as a result of this. The UPA will have to take the blame.

The question is where this leaves the Muslims of India who, like others who have not been bred by the IMF and World Bank, have been wary of America's real intentions in the Middle East for decades. The Congress party will have to find convincing answers to these questions if a sharp opposition knows how to ask them. A Rahul Gandhi-type answer of one light bulb in every home after 20 years is no answer at all for the US nuclear tie-up that has left Muslims seething. The other tie-up causing trouble for the Samajwadi-Congress alliance is Mulayam Singh's induction of Kalyan Singh into the ranks of his buddies. No one, and certainly not the Muslim voter, believes that crossing over from the 'saffron' to the 'secular' combine washes away the sins of anyone connected with Babri Masjid, however rational the argument may be. Kalyan Singh may just about carry his caste vote, but the Muslims will correspondingly shed the Samajwadi party and turn to the BSP. If the Congress works out an alliance with the Samajwadi Party plus Kalyan Singh, the combine will lose the Muslim vote, and if it goes alone, the split Muslim vote will not be decisive enough in its favour. The Muslims will prefer to vote for the stronger party, which again points to the BSP.

In Bihar, Lalu Yadav is nobody's fool. He will lead the fight against Nitish Kumar and only give a smattering of seats to his allies, if any chose to stick with him under humiliating terms, couched, of course, in pro-Sonia language. Since the JD(U)-BJP combine know that they have to sink or swim together at least in this round, the Congress-RJD will not gain much.

In Andhra Pradesh the forces opposing the Congress is growing, even if it does not favour the NDA at present. Here, the amorphous grouping of anti-Congress, anti-BJP parties have the upper hand. This does not hold out much hope for the Congress to retrieve itself, particularly since the accusations of the TDP against the Chief Minister in the Satyam matter is getting louder every day, and the Naxals will support a pro-Telengana grouping.

Until recently Tamil Nadu seemed well held by the DMK. However, the events in Sri Lanka have created a piquant situation for the Congress which has only been able to make some clucking noises in favour of the civilian Tamils in that country in response to DMK pressure. Karunanidhi and his colleagues and allies desperately need to stick to power till the very end to fill their election treasure chests, leaving them faint-hearted in their support for the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Since Jayalalithaa is fully aware of the consequent disappointment of the people, she has decided to have a little fun at the expense of the DMK and the Congress, to expose them both and confuse her current suitors among the Left parties. Such confidence only comes if she felt she was on the upswing. It is hardy likely she will have any post-poll tie-up with the imperious "Gandhi family only" party doctrine, so the UPA leadership should not begin their celebrations on this count.

'Secular' and 'communal' arguments are revolving around fringe groups and people of all hues who have a continued vested interest in seeing that politicised Muslims are never made to feel at ease. It is unwise and dangerous to allow this line of activity to come to the forefront in the next General Elections. It is easy to say that terrorism has no religion but this cannot lead to complacency at one end, and Muslim-baiting at the other. There is growing unease among ordinary citizens that the professed secularism of the UPA has led to an increase in suspicion between communities and complete laxity in security for the urban citizen. Its practice of secularism is not secular - it is merely posturing - and the Muslims are feeling used.

Recently a prominent Muslim leader of the Congress in Karnataka organised a demonstration against Saddam Hussain's killing months after his death to coincide with a harmless RSS meeting in the city, replete with provocative slogans et al. The RSS had nothing to do with the death of Saddam Hussain, yet tension was sought to be manufactured. Similarly, it is extremely distressing to see reports in most media columns on the recent appointment of a Muslim Director General of Police in Gujarat. They have all made it a point to note in a slightly disappointed tone that he is a Bohra Muslim (considered far from fundamentalist) and that he had been hauled up earlier for maiming a criminal. The order was rescinded by the Gujarat High Court. Is it normal to note the sect of an official appointed to an important post or is it a ploy to undermine Narendra Modi's dealings with officers under his command, irrespective of their religion? The political mindset that cannot let go of the constant demonisation of Modi, even while they reluctantly admit that he governs well, and is not corrupt, finally annoys even mild and non-political citizens who otherwise like to believe what the media tells them. If the maut ka saudagar syndrome revisits in new avatars, the Congress will face the fate of the last Assembly elections in Gujarat. People, including Muslims, want to move on. Will they be allowed to is the moot question.

In states like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Jharkhand and Orissa, the UPA cannot expect any gains, but only if the Advani-led NDA finds a way of collectively putting some strength into its election messages. If is it left to the BJP to call all the shots rather than a display a true, cohesive, team of allies who have worked together amicably before, the result may well favour some other hotch-potch grouping. The numbers do not add up for the UPA, in spite of the complicated analyses of some psephologists already taking their seats in television studios.

Between now and April, a hundred events can turn things upside down for any hopeful aspirant for the Prime Minister's chair. As far as my personal views are concerned, I passionately hope that the country sees the last of the UPA, which has made a mockery of constitutional institutions, the true meaning of secularism, national security, poverty alleviation, employment generation, control over corruption, infrastructure development and everything else the aam aadmi hopes for from a government that has ruled for five years albeit through a shadow prime minister.