Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 8, 2007
The reality of defeat, even when it seems
imminent and inescapable, is very cruel. We saw it on the faces of top BJP
leaders in 1998 when they tried to pretend that the onion crisis that triggered
mass revulsion was a media exaggeration. On Saturday morning, the haunted
look reappeared on the faces of Congress leaders who seriously underestimated
the magnitude of their own devastation in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi
(MCD) polls.
That the Congress was going to lose control
of the MCD was known to the party even before campaigning had begun. After
five years of unregulated loot in a boom town, the party knew that it was
time to bow out. It mattered little that Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit shared
the people's disgust with their venal corporators. What is politically significant
is that the Congress didn't merely yield the middle class and Purvanchali
vote to the BJP; it permitted a large chunk of Delhi's Dalit vote to land
in the lap of the BSP. The MCD results indicate that not only has the Congress
lost but the loss has occurred in a way that makes short-term recovery looks
extremely unlikely.
It was the progressive loss of the Dalit vote
to Kanshi Ram and Mayawati from 1989 that killed the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.
Are we seeing a replay in Delhi?
Yet, before the BJP is tempted to extrapolate
the MCD results on the national stage, it is best to strike a cautionary note.
First, anti-incumbency was the winner in Delhi. From local corruption to the
national mismanagement of the economy, the odds were too heavily stacked against
the Congress. On top of that, the party didn't even bother to campaign. In
true Congress style, knowing defeat was inevitable, its candidates preferred
to conserve their resources.
Yet, the relatively low turnout is revealing.
It suggests that while there was a strong push against the Congress, the pull
towards the BJP was less marked. The BJP won in Delhi because it was the natural
Opposition. If it had conceded that space to someone else, then that someone
else would probably have won.
In Uttar Pradesh, where there is also a fierce
anti-incumbency mood, the BJP is unlikely to be the natural beneficiary. The
anti-Mulayam vote will split three ways. The state BJP has been unable to
dispel the strong impression that a powerful section of its leadership acts
as surrogate promoter of the Samajwadi Party.
Speaking at the party's foundation day last
Friday, LK Advani put a stamp of inevitability on the BJP's return to power
at the Centre. His optimism seems a trifle overstated. The Delhi experience
suggests that the BJP could take advantage of the anti-Congress mood because
it has a clear leader in Harsh Vardhan, with the ability to parley with the
Delhi Chief Minister on equal terms. Yet, there were also BJP counterparts
of the Congress' Ram Babu Sharma, enjoying the patronage of the less salubrious
parts of Ashoka Road, who could have been spoilers in a more hard fought election.
The importance of projecting a leader unambiguously
can hardly be over-stated. In Uttar Pradesh, there is no ambiguity over the
leadership issue in the SP and BSP. In the BJP, however, while Kalyan Singh
is nominally the party's chief ministerial candidate, his leadership is constantly
undermined by the same people who drove him out of the BJP in 1999. It speaks
volumes for the Uttar Pradesh BJP that someone like Lalji Tandon, who played
a seminal role in the party's 2004 debacle, is actually thought fit to be
paraded before the media as a face of the BJP - even if it is only for an
"unauthorised" CD.
Rahul Gandhi, it is generally acknowledged,
has made a beginning in Uttar Pradesh and still has some way to go. Imagine
the public response if, against this energetic 30-something, the BJP threw
up the likes of Lalji Tandon? If the BJP cannot offer a wholesome and inspirational
leader, Rahul Gandhi will effortlessly be able to transform Manmohan Singh's
anti-incumbency into a vote for a new-look Congress.
