COMING ASSEMBLY POLLS

Secular Parties Need To Exercise Restraint

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

BY the time we write these lines, the election process has already started for the Haryana assembly polls and for the first phase of assembly polls in Bihar and Jharkhand. While the whole of Haryana will go to polls at one go on the 3rd of the next month, the first phase of the three-phase poll process in the other two states will take place on the same date.

CURRENT SITUATION

IT is therefore natural that the notification of the poll process has set into motion a whole train of hectic activities in the concerned states. In Haryana, however, the situation is more or less clear, and here it is the Congress that will be taking the incumbent Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) head on. The indication so far is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would go into these polls all alone, and this thing can only add to the INLD’s woes without bringing any corresponding benefit to the BJP. On the other hand, Chaudhari Bansilal has already disbanded his Haryana Vikas Party and re-joined the Congress, which will only help the latter. One notes that the Congress had bagged 9 out of 10 seats in Haryana in the last Lok Sabha polls.

But the situation is not so simple in the other two states where the political spectrum is fragmented and no party is in a position to form a government on its own. In Jharkhand, as we noted last week, the state government had as if fallen into the BJP’s lap after the bifurcation of Bihar. During the last assembly polls that had taken place in undivided Bihar, the BJP was in alliance with the Janata Dal (United) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), and had cornered a big chunk of the assembly and Lok Sabha seats. But the bufurcation of Bihar also caused bad blood between the BJP and JMM. For the latter felt that, as it was in the forefront for the formation of Jharkhand, it should have been given the chance to lead the state government. On the other hand, the BJP was adamant on having its own government. This led not only to a serious dispute between the two parties but also to ugly manipulations on part of the BJP, when this so-called “party of principles” behaved in a most unprincipled way in order to grab power.

The JMM retaliated as soon as it got a chance, during the Lok Sabha polls in May 2004, by aligning with the Congress and some other parties. This gave a big jolt to the ruling BJP and its allies, and their Lok Sabha seats from the state sharply came down. Nay, there is every possibility that if the Congress, RJD, JMM and the Left parties come together, they can thoroughly trounce the BJP and allies once again. 

The record of the last polls in Bihar had been somewhat more complicated. These polls had taken place when the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was ruling at the centre and a BJP man was there in the Raj Bhawan in Patna. As the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) could not muster a clear majority in the 2000 assembly polls, the governor got a chance to play his dirty game and invited Nitish Kumar of the JD(U), an NDA constituent, to form a government. Which Kumar did. However, he miserably failed to cobble a majority by the date given to him to show that he had the confidence of the house. In such a situation, he only followed the example set by Atal Behari’s Vajpayee, his real leader, and ran away after a week, without even facing the assembly. 

This cleared the deck for the formation of a coalition government led by the RJD, the Congress being the other partner in the government. In accordance with their stand against the communal forces, the Left parties have been supporting this government from outside.

It is thus clear that, contrary to Haryana, it is not parties but coalitions that would be locked in a trial of strength in Bihar and Jharkhand. 

NEED FOR RESTRAINT

IN this situation, as one could expect, various parties have been making claims and counter-claims as to the number of seats they want to contest. This, however, must not be blown out of proportion as such things happen every time an election is round the corner; it has happened in various states and during the run-up to various elections in the past.

On their part, the non-NDA secular parties have to think about what is expected of them in order that the BJP and its allies may be defeated. The first thing is that all such parties have to avoid making unrealistic claims. To take an example, it was the unrealistic claim made by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) that prevented an alliance with the Congress in Goa assembly polls, and the result is there for all to see. The BJP benefited from the Congress-NCP disunity and came to power.

At the same time, the bigger parties in a state have also to realise that it cannot defeat the communal forces on their own. This is as true of the RJD in Bihar as it is of the JMM in Jharkhand.

Let us take the case of Jharkhand first. If the JMM-Congress alliance trounced the BJP in this state in the last Lok Sabha polls, it was not purely on the basis of their respective strengths. In fact two factors, one subjective and the other objective, led to the rout of BJP here. While the first, subjective, factor was that the Congress-JMM alliance prevented a division of the secular votes, the second and objective factor was that the BJP’s state government stood thoroughly discredited and had badly isolated itself from the Jharkhand people during the preceding two years and a half.

Now, what do we find in the light of this analysis is that while the objective factor is still very much there, it alone cannot ensure a rout of the BJP. The latter would definitely gain if the secular votes get divided, and this is precisely what the BJP is trying to have. 

As for Bihar, it is worthwhile to recall that the NDA had almost scraped through in the last assembly polls in AD 2000, and the state would have been under an NDA-BJP government if only a few MLAs had crossed the floor, which fortunately did not happen. Then, even after Nitish Kumar ran away without facing the assembly, the RJD was not in a position to form a government on its own. Still earlier, the RJD had won the so far lowest number of seats in the September 1999 Lok Sabha polls in undivided Bihar.

It is clear that while the other parties need to base their claims on a realistic assessment of their ground strength, the RJD too has to display a spirit of accommodation and avoid making any unilateral announcement. Whether in Bihar or in Jharkhand, restraint is required on part of all secular parties, and all of them have to constantly keep the basic objective in view --- that they have to face and trounce the communal forces as convincingly as they can.

PARIVAR’S MOVE TO REGROUP

THIS is all the more necessary in view of the Sangh Parivar’s efforts to regroup. True the Parivar has so far not been able to overcome its present demoralisation or internal dissension. Yet it is undoubtedly making efforts to rally its forces on the basis of a rabid communal agenda. To the good fortune of the BJP and Sangh Parivar but to the Indian nation’s misfortune, the BJP has got some allies who set more store on ministerial chairs than on the people’s genuine interests and on the nation’s unity and secular structure.

One such party is the JD(U) whose leaders have a modicum of caste-based appeal in Bihar and Jharkhand, e g Nitish Kumar, or who are rudderless, like George Fernandes. To the utter dismay of our people, these JD(U) leaders have just one-point agenda --- to somehow rout Laloo Prasad Yadav and his party, the RJD, so that they could capture the state government. All their antics in Bihar and Jharkhand are motivated by this very desire.

Recall what happened after the BJP national executive at Mumbai issued a statement three months ago --- that it would go back to its basics. While the whole country took it as the RSS signal to BJP to pursue a rabidly communal agenda, Nitish Kumar said his party would sever relations with the BJP if the latter was found reverting to its communal moorings! Then he also added in the same breath that the JD(U) would continue its ties with BJP till at least the assembly polls in Jharkhand and Bihar. On his part, the maverick Fernandes went a step ahead and virtually gave the BJP a certificate of innocence, saying there was nothing communal in the latter’s pronouncements.   

And today, the same JD(U) leaders are doing their utmost to rope in Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in order to create a grand alliance against Laloo Prasad. One will note that the LJP, which has a limited base in Bihar, had joined the NDA government at the centre after the 1999 Lok Sabha polls but then quit it after the Gujarat massacre of Muslims in 2002. Then it joined hands with the RJD and Congress for the May 2004 Lok Sabha polls and is currently a constituent of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ruling the centre. However, as he has fallen apart from Laloo Prasad, Nitish Kumar is trying to woo him, and it is known that he is doing all this at the bidding of BJP president L K Advani from behind the curtain. Nay, Nitish Kumar has even offered to Paswan the chief ministership of Bihar in case the NDA-LJP combine wins the polls. On his part, Paswan says he is prepared to align with the JD(U) provided it severs its relationship with the BJP. This, however, is unacceptable to the JD(U). In such a situation, the chance is that the LJP would contest the polls alone and, with about 4 per cent votes at its command, may cause a division in the secular votes. This will cause some harm to the RJD-Congress-Left alliance, but one is pretty sure this harm would not be so great as to bring about a qualitative change in the situation.

On their part, the BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits are currently trying to rake up the Shankaracharya issue. Right now, the situation in the Kanchi Kamkotipeetham case is that the Supreme Court has granted bail to the Shankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswati, but asked him to surrender his passport to the police and not to visit the mutt without the court’s order. On the other hand, the Tamilnadu police has arrested the pontiff’s junior, Vijayendra Saraswati, in the same case. Yet, the Parivar has failed to cash in upon the issue in the last one month and a half, and this testifies to the political maturity of Indian masses who have seen the horrendous results of exploitation of religion for political purposes during the period 1998 to 2004.

But the threat of communalism still remains, and nobody can say when it will aggravate once again. More so because the more the Parivar grows desperate, the more the chance that it may resort to extreme steps. In Gujarat, Narendra Modi is still trying every means to threaten the witnesses of the 2002 massacre or purchase their loyalty, in order to save the saffronite killers. The BJP is also trying to hurl Ms Uma Bharti into its election campaign in Bihar, and the lady is known for her worst kind of communal rabble rousing.

To reiterate, such a situation all the more enjoins upon the secular forces the need of restraint, so that there is no division in anti-BJP votes and the Sangh Parivar is given yet another body blow in the coming assembly polls.