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BJP's triumphalism in recent elections
THE BJP'S TRIUMPHALISM IS NOT MISPLACED
By: Kanchan Gupta in The Pioneer
After the BJP's defeat in the 1993 Assembly elections in the Hindi belt, it
was considered politically incorrect, desperately unfashionable and incurably
unglamarous to even remotely suggest that the electoral setback suffered by
the party would not stop it from emerging as a national alternative. The
politically correct, desperately fashionable and incurably glamorous political
pundits had gleefully written off the BJP as a nine-day wonder, asserting that
the lotus had gone the way of the lamp.
The results of the Karnataka Assembly election came as a rude jolt to these
obitusrists of the BJP - when the ballots were counted, the final tally did
not quite match with their predictions. But gifted with the felicity of
ignoring the obvious, they described the BJP's emergence as a potent force in
the South, much stronger than the Congress in what was till recently one of its
strongholds, as a flash in the pan, the dying flicker.
Now that the BJP has secured two-thirds majority in Gujarat and come to
power in Maharashtra along with the Shiv Sena, these pundits are flummoxed,
but only for the moment. Soon we will hear how the BJP could have been defeated
if only the (so far mythical) third force of Dalit sympathisers had vigorously
contested the elections; how the BJP exploited its "communal platform"; how
Muslims and other minority communities can now look forward to a reign of
terror and tyranny; and finally how all this is but a mere aberration which
will be corrected in the next general election.
But then, wishes are not horses and beggers do not ride. On the other hand,
the desperately unfashionable suggestion that the BJP is a national party in
the making whose fortunes, notwithstanding occasional electoral setbacks, can
only go up, is now coming true - the winning streak that began with Karnataka
has led the party to power in two major states of the Union. This, however, is
only half the story. The other, and more important half, is the further decline
of the Congress which can no longer look forward to eight of the dozen states
that together elect 470 members to the Lok Sabha. And if the verdict in Bihar
goes against the Congress, it will mean that the party will be left with only
Kerala (where UDF enjoys little credibility) and Madhya Pradesh (where the
Congress vote may be vertically split by Mr Arjun Singh).
On the other hand, the BJP not only enjoys a lead in the overall vote share
of the Hindi belt (it led the Congress by 10 million votes and others by much
more in 1993) but has established a sizable presence in the other states. So mu
ch so, in Orissa not only has the party trebled its presence in the Assembly
but according to early indications, also ensured the JD's defeat in as many as
15 constituencies. In distant Manipur, the party has opened its account depite
adverse local conditions. Overall, in the 12 states that matter the most, the
increase in the BJP's share of the vote is in direct proportion to the shrink-
ing electoral support base of the Congress.
To that extent, the BJP has realised its goal of emerging as a national
alternative to the Congress. What has given it an added advantage is that
unlike the Congress, which still claims to be a national party, the BJP is
being increasingly viewed as not only a pan-India organisation but also
nationalist in its outlook. This is an irony of sorts, not least because it
was the sole repository of ardent nationalism.
The past, however, need not detain us: The presnt round of elections can
only add speed to future political activity and it is now a matter of time
before the Prime Minister, Mr PV Rao, is forced to step out of his never-never
land of Oz, and face the brutal reality of a general election. And it is the
BJP's performance over the next few months that will decide whether or not it
is able to reap the electoral harvest whose seeds it has so painstakingly
soen, starting from the time it was reduced to being a two-member opposition
party in the Lok Sabha.
"If we can secure a victory in Gujarat and Maharashtra, then nothing can
stop us from coming to power at the Center." Mr Advani wistfully commented
during the recent campaign. As the results began to pour in, the wastefulness
made way for the triumphalism that had taken a battering in 1993. And not
without reason: If Mr Advani's inclusion of the Ayodhya dispute in the BJP's
agenda during the Palampur conclave paved the way for its success in the
genral elections of 1989 and 1991, his careful construction of a new platform
for the current round of Assembly elections has shown that it is not necessari-
ly a single-issue party whose success is linked to the popular response to
Hindutva.
Indeed, when Mr Advani steered the BJP away from it excluvist Hindutva
agenda during the naional executive council meeting in Bangalore after
resuming charge of the party, his detractors both within and outside the Sangh
Parivar, had scoffed at his efforts. Corruption, it was pointed out with no
little cynicism, as an issue can at best attract amused attention but not
fetch votes. It was also pointed out that without its strident pro-Hindutva
slogan, the BJP would at best be an also-ran.
The prognostication has turned out to be false: The Party's three-point
agenda, formalised at the national executive meeting in Patna, focusing on
corruption and maladministration, criminalisation of politics and vote bank
appesement has proved to be a winning combination. Whether it is Mr Gopinath
Munde's campaign against the corrupt practices of the Congress government led
by Mr Sharad Pawar, Mr Narendra Modi's articulation of the criminal-Congress
nexus in Gujarat or the party's vocal opposition to the vote bank politics of
minority appeasement, the BJP has been able to convince the voters that it has
a distinct identity based on ideology which is worth voting for.
Ideology, however, alone cannot sustain a Government; what is needed is
pragmatism and foresight. This brings us to the old question: Is the BJP
ready for power? Hopefully, the party has learned the necessary lessons from
its experiences in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where the governments
of Mr Shanta Kumar and Mr Sunderlal Patwa woefully failed to balance good
governance with good politics. There are lessons also to be learned from Mr
Shekhawat's regime in Rajasthan where the BJP has not made the mistake of
seeing power as an end in itself but as a means to an end.
The power which the BJP enjoys in Gujarat and Maharashtra today can be
used to reassert its commitment to providing good governance and honest
adminsitration. Let this, and this alone, be the over-riding consideration;
not the populist rhetoric of swadeshi or the VHP's incurable stridency. As a
potential contender for the masnad of Delhi, it cannot afford to be a camp
follower of either the ideologues of the RSS or the foot soldiers of the VHP
for whom atavism takes precedence over pragmatism. The BJP's future lies in
Mr Advani's attempt to forge a polity in which the Congress is not the
dominant party.
