Now that the Parliamentary elections are over, it is stock-taking time for the voter and time for introspection to those who won and lost among politicians.
One important feature of this Parliamentary election was the appearance of the Third Front and the Fourth Front that took premature birth as a challenge to the Congress and the BJP, considered the First Front and the Second Front. Fortunately for Indian Democracy it was a case of infanticide for the Third and Fourth Fronts by the voters. In the past, it used to be pre - poll alliances by the two acknowledged national political parties (leaving out the Communist parties), the Congress and the BJP. Sometimes, depending on the number of seats won by the alliance partners, a post-poll alliance used to be stitched together by Congress and BJP known as UPA and NDA respectively.
Surprisingly this time around, this did not happen. Instead, the regional parties suddenly became too presumptuous and also greedy (I will not say bloodthirsty). They decided on a new political strategy altogether by refusing pre-poll alliances, thereby freeing themselves from the restrictive seat adjustment exercise with the National parties, Congress and BJP that would treat them as poor relatives. They were given a very small share of seats after major partners, Congress or BJP, claiming for themselves all the winnable seats. The formation of the Third Front and the Fourth Front did not happen in a pre - meditated manner after long and considered deliberation by its partners. It happened sometime after the elections were announced and after gauging the mood of the voters (rather wrongly) in different regions of the country.
The perception was, because it is a Parliamentary election, the two major national political Parties, Congress and BJP would naturally get the maximum number of seats even if they do not get the magical number 272 to form the government on their own. In that event, the apprehension on the part of the Regional parties was that Congress and BJP would treat those willing to align themselves with either Congress or BJP as underdogs with the Prime Minister’s office going to either of them. In such an electoral scenario, the regional political leaders like our own H. D. Deve Gowda, the AIADMK's J. Jayalalithaa, the Communists along with other splinter groups and satellite parties like PMK and Vaiko's MDMK, Andhra's TDP and K. Chandrasekhara Rao's TRS and the newly-born Praja Rajyam of film - star Chiranjeevi saw an opportunity to be one up on Congress and BJP in the election. So the Third Front was formed with the blessings of the Leftist parties.
Mayawati of UP with vaulting ambition to become the Prime Minister too embraced the Third Front without a second thought, considering it as an opportunity of a lifetime.
The brain behind the Third Front was of course the JD (S) supremo H. D. Deve Gowda, whose party though claiming to be a national party is nothing but a rump confined to Karnataka and even in Karnataka only to old Mysore region where Vokkaliga community is in the majority to which he himself belongs. No wonder in a caste - ridden election, the caste equations suited him very well ensuring a few Parliamentary seats always. This time around he could get just three and among them two were won by himself and his son, H. D. Kumaraswamy, though he had expected around 8 seats.
Well, if there could be a Third Front, why not a Fourth Front? So Lalu Prasad Yadav who was so compatible and comfortable with the UPA (especially with Sonia Gandhi) formed the Fourth Front with his RJD along with Ram Vilas Paswan of the LJP and Mulayam Singh Yadav of SP, hoping in case of a fractured verdict, they could stake claim for plum Cabinet portfolios if not the Prime Ministership.
In short, the Parliamentary election this time was all about personal ambitions of our political leaders at both national and regional levels. The good of the country and the healthy development of democratic polity at the national level was sacrificed at the altar of personal ambitions of local Satraps. Fortunately for our country and also for our democracy, the two national political parties, namely the Congress and the BJP, stood like two sentinels of our democracy and went about fielding their candidates in good numbers taking care to cover the magic number of 272, so that each can form the government on their own strength, whoever wins.
As we now know, once again the UPA led by Congress got the maximum number of seats, more than the NDA led by BJP, though not the magic number for which it fell short by 10 seats. As a result, UPA (Congress) is now in a commanding position not only to choose its own Prime Minister but also to form the Cabinet the way it wants brushing aside the petulance and protestations by some greedy alliance partners like for example DMK. After all, there are many elected Parliamentarians both independents and belonging to other splinter groups waiting in the wings to support the UPA to make up for that wafer thin shortfall of 10 seats. Be that as it may, now let us turn to the battle of wits the country witnessed between the two national political parties, the Congress and the BJP. The latter was overconfident this time as it was in 2004 election. Then, its “India Shining” slogan was smashed to smithereens and exposed as a mere moonshine by a more realistic and even sentimental counter - slogan of the Congress “Aam Aadmi”.
This time around there were not many issues for these two political parties to debate and discuss before the voters except general administration, development and all pervasive decades-old menace of terrorism. As a result, in the initial stages there was not much heat generated in the campaign and the leaders were also pre-occupied in working out alliances and selection of candidates. And suddenly BJP (NDA) came out with the announcement that in the absence of Atal Behari Vajpayee being disabled due to age and ill - health, its Prime Ministerial candidate was L. K. Advani, the former Deputy Prime Minister under NDA which ruled the country for six years before 2004, without making much difference to the earlier governments run by other parties.
Not to be left behind, Congress (UPA) quickly announced its Prime Ministerial candidate, the incumbent Dr. Manmohan Singh. With this the battle lines were clearly drawn. While Sonia Gandhi stood like a “Rock of Gibraltar” behind Dr. Manmohan Singh without wavering or vacillating in her choice of the Prime Ministerial candidate, there was problem with BJP. In retrospect, one wonders if this issue was raised in order to pre-empt any move by the Congress to make Sonia Gandhi the Prime Ministerial candidate in case of winning the election as happened once earlier. At that time, some women leaders of BJP swore to tonsure their heads for life or even to take a more severe personal action.
Whatever it was, poor Advani did not have a Godfather or a Godmother to stand by him, not even the RSS. Rather, his choice as the Prime Ministerial candidate was soon made untenable by arm - chair politicians like Arun Shourie and even Arun Jaitley who suddenly came before the TV channels saying the BJP's (NDA) second choice for the Prime Ministerial office was the controversial Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. It was as if BJP was keen on having two strings in the bow for whatever reason. Surely this kind of prevarication in the choice of their Prime Ministerial candidate turned out to be a great advantage during the campaign for Congress. In times like war and election (election too is a war, fought not with bullets but with ballots) there should be only one voice, not two and BJP should learn this lesson now so that it will not repeat the same mistake next time.
As the campaign was gaining momentum in this manner, it was once again BJP and worse its Prime Ministerial candidate Advani, who in great rhetoric unnecessarily raised the issue of illegal money stashed away in secret Swiss Banks and other foreign banks by Indian politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and arms dealers, like Win Chadha and Ottavio Quattrocchi, forgetting that it will boomerang on him in a most insidious manner as it did. The Congress was quick to expose the hollowness of this issue asking: "What did the NDA do for six years with regard to the black money in foreign banks?" The voter understood that it was only an election gimmick and if NDA was serious, six years was a long enough period for any competent government to tackle this issue or take initiative even when there was no global economic meltdown which has now made the US and other Western countries to break the locks of secret accounts of these banks. The BJP simply lost out to the Congress in its poser of the issue.
The next one was the issue of the Congress (UPA), which, though being in the midst of the electoral battle, getting the Red Corner Notice issued by the Interpol against Sonia Gandhi's family friend Quattrocchi being dropped. It was a deceitful move on the part of the UPA government, say Congress, no doubt. But, here too the BJP had to swallow its own criticism for the reason though it had immense opportunities to chase and catch Quattrocchi during those six years in power, it simply failed. No doubt, Congress has its own vested interest in protecting Sonia's family friend, but what prevented BJP from giving a hot chase to Quattrocchi? This was not convincingly explained even to this day by BJP.
Why the BJP (NDA) could not prove its mettle in handling these two issues while in power is a mystery to the voters. Did BJP (NDA) acquiesce in the matter of these issues for fear of its own or its friends' skeletons tumbling down from the cupboard along with those of Quattrocchi, Rajiv Gandhi and others? Anyway, the result of the election goes to show that the voters did not buy the BJP's charges against the Congress. Another issue, once again raised by Advani, the Prime Ministerial candidate, was about terrorism. I do not wish to inflict a repetition of the manner in which the acrimonious debate took place between the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh and the BJP led by Advani and Narendra Modi in this regard.
The issue of Afzal Guru not being hanged, the issue of 26 / 11 terrorist attack on Mumbai were all made to look not as grave as what BJP (NDA) did in handling the terrorists who had hijacked Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in Afghanistan where the NDA Minister himself, in a manner of speaking, surrendered to the terrorists to the dismay of the people of India. [According to a report quoting the celebrated criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, the problem with Afzal Guru was that he was not defended by an Advocate during his prosecution]. Next, BJP had to cut a sorry figure because of the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L. K. Advani's unwarranted, unwise and wrongly timed personal attack on Dr. Manmohan Singh as a weak Prime Minister, without giving any examples of his weakness to the voter. In making these accusations, a kind of hubris is perceived in him by the voters for it necessarily infers that in comparison he is a strong candidate.
In times of elections, it is nothing but scoring a self - goal when a candidate becomes narcistic instead of becoming humble and full of humility promising voters what he can do for them rather than telling them how strong he is compared to the rival candidate without anything to show.
This attack too seems to have boomeranged on BJP. Dr. Manmohan Singh's response to this charge was measured and very convincing. He might be accused of being an acolyte of Sonia Gandhi but then it is important to know and realise that in what high esteem, respect and affection Sonia Gandhi treats this brilliant economist, administrator and more than anything else a good human being which, of course, L. K. Advani too is.
I recall here an incident recounted by Khushwant Singh, the well - known author and journalist, about Dr. Manmohan Singh who had contested the election to the Parliament from Delhi as a Congress candidate and lost. It appears, like all politicians who raise money to contest elections from friends, well-wishers and from those to whom they have done a favour, Dr. Manmohan Singh too had approached Khushwant Singh as a friend for help and was given, I think, Rs. 4 lakh. Dr. Manmohan Singh lost the election. After a few days, he went to Khushwant Singh and returned that money to the latter's utter surprise, for he knew that money given to a politician was like the tax paid to the government or a dead body taken to the cemetery.
Such was the honesty and unquestionable integrity of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the man who was responsible for our country's economic revival. The credit for India's economic resurgence, at a time it was sinking abysmally, should go to the top twosome of post - Rajiv era, Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, destined to become the Prime Minister himself. Thank you Sonia. Your “inner voice” indeed works miracles for our country!
Jai Hind
