What to make of India’s highest-ever voter turnout (so far)

Mass participation has slid in democracies across the world but Indian voters have bucked this trend in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Is it another clichéd ‘triumph of democracy’ or the last gamble of a disenchanted population?

Yahoo News, 28 April, 2014

Social scientists tell us that no logical individual should ever vote; that the probability of casting a decisive vote in a large election is almost zero (or 1 in 60 million if it’s the US presidential elections). The fact that many still vote made Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina bemoan in 1989 that “turnout is the paradox that ate rational choice theory”.

Then, as recently as in 2011, we were told that voting should not be considered a duty for many who, in fact, owe it to the rest of us not to vote. In The Ethics of Voting, political scientist 
Jason Brennan argued that unless citizens put in the hard work to become informed and upright voters, it’s better if they don’t pollute the polls with their spurious votes.

The millions of Mumbai voters who stayed away from polling booths last week might comfort Fiorina. And Brennan’s argument seemed to make sense when candidates such as Medha Patkar
accused their opponents of distributing cash to buy votes, or when I visited Jharkhand’s Latehar where entire hamlets waited till the poll eve for cues from their village heads, who were away striking deals with candidates.

Yet nothing seems to legitimize a democracy more for us than a high voter turnout. Besides making the election process more representative, mass participation endorses claims that the so-called system is working just fine.

So the biggest good news so far from these ongoing Lok Sabha polls is that the first seven phases till April 24 in the 349 constituencies in 24 states and Union Territories have recorded the highest-ever voter turnout in any Lok Sabha polls since 1951. The national aggregate so far is 
66 percent against 57.53 percent for the same constituencies in 2009. In terms of numbers, that is 35 crore votes against the 21.49 crore cast five years ago. Counting of postal ballots will only take the tally higher. Reports of lakhs of names missing from electoral rolls only show that we have missed the opportunity to record an even bigger turnout.

This upswing of the Indian voter turnout is truly remarkable in the backdrop of receding interest among voters across the world.

In the US, the 
turnout for presidential polls slipped from 73 percent in 1900 to 58 percent in 2012. In the UK, participation in parliamentary polls came down from 83 percent in 1951 to 65 percent in 2010. Europe's strongest economy Germany saw 72 percent turnout in 2013, down from 86 percent in 1953. With only 59 percent voting in 2012, even Japan saw a drop of 17 percentage points over six decades since 1952.

Indian voters have been rather consistent in maintaining a moderate 
55-64 percent turnout over six decades. Barring the war years of 1962 and 1971, voter turnout for general elections never slipped below the 60 percent mark before 1980. It rode the sympathy wave after Indira Gandhi's assassination to scale an all-time high of 64 percent in 1984. Since then, the only two times the turnout crossed 60 percent were in 1989 and 1998 when voters brought themselves to believe in the political alternatives that VP Singh and AB Vajpayee, respectively, promised. Both times, their optimism went unrewarded as neither Singh nor Vajpayee proved be the promised game-changers and were soon dislodged themselves by voters.

Usually, a swing for or against a candidate or party mobilizes voters in large numbers. In the Assembly polls last year, most states registered record turnouts. If Delhi swung for the AAP, Rajasthan rejected the Congress. Madhya Pradesh and Tripura backed the incumbents en masse.

So do the claims of a ‘Modi wave’ and the obvious anger at the corruption-laden Congress government explain the current spurt in turnout? Is it also a broader endorsement of our political and economic system?

“This is not a manifestation of any sudden swing for any party,” says professor Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti, a research program of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). “We have seen high turnout in all Assembly polls in the last few years. The credit goes to the Election Commission that launched its latest voter awareness campaign [
SVEEP] in 2010. Cleaning up electoral rolls in urban areas by removing dead, duplicate or absent voters has also helped.”

Kumar also credits political parties and their innovative campaigns for energizing voters. “But the biggest factor is probably the participation of women voters,” he says. In the first five phases till April 12, women registered a higher turnout than men in 
Chandigarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep, Meghalaya, Goa and Sikkim.

The trend has been consistent since 2010 as women voters overtook men in Assembly polls in states such as Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram. In a slow but steady progress, women brought down a 16.68 percent gender gap in turnout in 1962 to less than 8 percent in 1998. Another decade and now they have begun to catch up. The bad news, though, is the skewed sex ratio (down from 
945 in 1941 to 927 in 1991) and that only 883 women voters were registered per 1000 men voters in 2014.

New voters usually vote, and the new 
10 crore in these elections are also contributing to the big turnout. But a large number of youth come of age as first-time voters in every election. The key factor pushing the turnout this time is probably the other first-timer – the woman voter who became eligible earlier but did not vote before 2014. Little wonder then that the poll at the two-thirds stage (349 seats) has already recorded 13.55 crore more votes – higher than the total 10 crore new voters put together – than in 2009.

Sociologist Dipankar Gupta considers the high level of engagement as much a sign of awareness as of dissatisfaction. “Turnout goes up whenever there is a crisis or tension,” he points out. “We are undergoing a period of tension with growing resentment against corruption and concern for the economy. This turnout is seeking change. Ironically, the only change these voters can bring about is that of political leadership and not of policies.”


Plus ça change
Our voter turnout (so far) might have hit an all-time-high of 66 percent, but the larger question remains: why have Indian voter turnouts been consistently limited to only a thin majority of 55-64 percent over the last six decades?

When it comes to policies, our principal political parties have been mirror images of one another. This lack of a real choice and the resultant inability of voters to significantly improve their lot have created a sense of futility among a large section over time.

Of course, there is nothing Indian about this. “This is a global reality. There is not much to choose between the Republicans or the Democrats [in the US] beyond, maybe, a healthcare bill or such. The political alternatives do not really offer policy options. It is the same system that works,” says Gupta.

The global disenchantment with politics-as-usual is finding rakish voices in the popular media. “Why be complicit in this ridiculous illusion?” scoffed British “socialist comedian” Russell Brand in a 
BBC interview last year. American satirist PJ O’Rourke wrote his 2010 book, Don’t Vote – It Just Encourages The Bastards, from a conservative position very different from Brand’s.

In India, it usually takes Naxalite organizations to call poll boycotts and not many have heeded them this month in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. And yet, at least one-third of our voters usually don’t turn up to vote.

The convenient explanation for limited voter participations is that the affluent city dweller has been too self-absorbed to vote, particularly after liberalization. But only one-third of India’s voters are in urban areas and a large number of them are by no means affluent. Besides, as Gupta points out, the urban voter is often politically more active and rapid urbanization has pushed many erstwhile rural voters to political participation.

Instead, it would appear that millions of Indians in both towns and villages are getting increasingly disillusioned with the efficacy of their franchise. Not all of them are necessarily poor. They have exhausted their options – or watched their elders do so – on political alternatives without achieving any tangible change. Indeed, their participation in polls would have been much lower in the absence of cheap election freebies.

That we are happy to celebrate a two-third turnout takes some shine off the Indian experiment that John Keane, political scientist and author of 
The Life and Death of Democracy (2009), described as democracy’s “most compound, turbulent and exciting” prototype.

After World War II, democracy revived itself from the global onslaught of dictatorship as “monitory democracy”, with provisions for constant public scrutiny of the government. The Indian experiment championed that model with federalization of government, panchayati raj, flourishing regional parties, minority quotas, student elections, lok adalats and public interest litigation.

Keane called ours the “banyan democracy”, with deep roots, many trunks, tall branches and all. But like all forms of democracy, “monitory democracy” is also susceptible to morphing into a state in which people withdraw from politics, and market failures, social inequality, intolerance and environmental damages trigger backlashes beyond the State’s control.

With the rise of market forces in India, the business of winning elections has made our parties and governments pander to vote banks, embrace criminals, bypass the laws of the land and thrive on corruption. In this, barring the almost-defunct Left and the still-nascent Aam Aadmi Party, there is little to distinguish India’s principal political alternatives that are all dependent on corporate funding.

The absence of ideological difference among them is all too evident from the way politicians hop parties and parties switch alliances. Beyond the rants against pseudo-secularism and Hindu nationalism, even election manifestos do not offer much difference in policy choices on key issues such as agriculture, water resources, mining, energy, subsidies or incentives.

In this election, all we have been told is that the BJP is in the fray to ensure good governance and high growth; the Congress to help the poor and big investors; the likes of the Trinamool Congress or the AIADMK to emerge as the third largest party; and a host of others to broker fluid alliances.

In his 2007 book 
Why We Hate Politics, Colin Hay of the Paris Institute of Political Studies challenged the conventional view that people are responsible for the kind of politicians they get and argued instead that “democratic polities get the level of political participation they deserve”. Little wonder then that we need so many ‘Wake up, Vote’ campaigns by the Election Commission, NGOs and even beverage brands to coax the voter.

Insidiously, though, our deteriorating political atmosphere discourages the very quality participation necessary for redrawing the agenda. The language of propaganda shuffles between the vicious and the frivolous. There is no debate on how to secure the life, livelihood and dignity of millions. Instead, all we hear is about expendables ranging from 
marital liabilities of leaders to ‘apology’ demands for mass murders, with a random call to “go to Pakistan” thrown into the mix.

While we find assurance in the sight of young voters queuing up, the average age of Lok Sabha MPs has gone up by 
7 years to 53 since 1951. High turnouts give us reassurance of fair elections while nearly one-third of Lok Sabha MPs are charged in criminal cases, including murder and abduction. We celebrate women voters but there remain only 58 women MPs in the Lok Sabha – a more than100 percent jump from the mere 5 percent representation in 1952, yet far below the global (22 percent) or even the Asian (18.5 percent) average.

If these are any indication of the state of our democracy, it is indeed a miracle that only a third of Indian voters are missing in action. And this is why this pro-change, anti-incumbent mega-turnout holds out a certain remarkable hope.

In the best-case scenario, the voter may finally be rewarded for her tenacious optimism. But if even a record turnout fails to break the sinister continuity of business-as-usual in the months to follow, the much-beguiled Indian voter may refuse to queue up the next time.

How to win Lok Sabha polls in India the classical Italian way

What is the secret Italian connection to Election 2014? No, don’t resurrect the ghost of Quattrocchi. And don’t even think of some mysterious Maino you have never heard of.


Not many care that Marcus Cicero, the eloquent Roman statesman who shaped the future of prose in Europe, had a younger brother named Quintus, a military leader given to crude punishments. In 2012, Philip Freeman, an American professor of classical language, resurrected a candid letter the maverick brother believed to have written to Marcus more than 2000 years ago.

Freeman’s slim 128-page translation, How to win an election: An ancient guide for modern politicians, of Quintus’s advice for his illustrious elder brother when the latter decided to run for Rome’s top office gave many Americans a few déjà vu moments during the noisy presidential election campaign.

Now it is not entirely unfair that the Obamas, Bidens, Romneys or Ryans would occasionally find themselves on the same page with Quintus. After all, Cicero senior, it is said, inspired the founding fathers of the United States.

But given that Indian politics’ Roman, I mean Italian, connection (or devotion or aversion) is fairly recent, it is uncanny how the far-removed contestants in Election 2014 are playing the game by the campaigning guidelines Quintus had laid down for Marcus.

Sample a few:

Side with big money: You should pay special attention to… businessmen and moderately wealthy citizens. You must diligently cultivate relationships with these men of privilege. Never let them think that you are a populist. Tell them if you seem to be siding with the common people on any issue it is because you need to win the favor of Pompey (a popular general of the time).

Give false hope: The most important part of your campaign is to bring hope to people and a feeling of goodwill toward you. If you break a promise, the outcome is uncertain… But if you refuse to make a promise, the result is certain and produces immediate anger in a larger number of voters…

Lie generously: People would prefer you give them a gracious lie than an outright refusal…  Remember (the politician) Cotta, that master of campaigning, who said that he would promise everything to anyone, unless some clear obligation prevented him, but only lived up to those promises that benefited him…

Don’t be accountable: You should not make specific pledges either to the Senate or the people. Stick to vague generalities. Tell the Senate you will maintain its traditional power and privileges. Let the business community and wealthy citizens know that you are for stability and peace. Assure the common people that you have always been on their side.

Bark, don’t bite: You don’t have to actually bring your opponents to trial on corruption charges. Just let them know you are willing to do so. Fear works even better than actual litigation.

Be seen as popular: You must have a wide variety of people around you on a daily basis. Voters will judge you on what sort of crowd you draw both in quality and numbers... It is vital that you have a crowd of devoted followers with you at all times.

Target youth: It will (also) help your campaign tremendously to have the enthusiasm and energy of young people on your side to canvass voters, gain supporters, spread news, and make you look good.

Own your followers: You must make those overzealous and devoted groups you have feel inspired with hope believe that you will always be there to help them…

Play to the gallery: Encourage those who show goodwill because of a personal attachment they believe they have made with you by adapting your message to fit the particular circumstances of each… Show them that the more they work for your election the closer your bond to them will be.

Buy support: You can win uncommitted voters to your side by doing them even small favors.

Don’t fear pedigree: Another factor that can help you as an outsider (hailing from outside Rome) is the poor quality of those men of the nobility who are competing against you…. Who would believe that men as pathetic as Publius Galba and Lucius Cassius would run for the highest office in the land, even though they come from the best families?

Get personal: It also wouldn't hurt to remind them (voters) of what scoundrels your opponents are and to smear these men at every opportunity with the crimes, sexual scandals, and corruption they have brought on themselves.

Build your cult: Now, my brother, you have many wonderful qualities, but those you lack you must acquire and it must appear as if you were born with them.

Reinvent yourself: You have excellent manners and are always courteous, but you can be rather stiff at times. You desperately need to learn the art of flattery -- a disgraceful thing in normal life but essential when you are running for office.

Hard sell yourself: You must always think about publicity… it is vital that you use all of your assets to spread the word about your campaign to the widest possible audience.

Play to your strength: Your ability as a public speaker is key… Since you are such an excellent communicator and your reputation has been built on this fact, you should approach every speaking engagement as if your entire future depended on that single event.

Put on a show: Finally, as regards the Roman masses, be sure to put on a good show… full of the color and spectacle that appeals so much to crowds… people are moved more by appearances than reality…

That was 64 BC and Marcus Cicero won the election for consul’s office. If brother Quintus’s directives still sound uncomfortably familiar, it is because, as Peter Stothard observed in The Wall Street Journal, a campaigner’s “concerns have remained just as constant as the debate about whether any democracy is ever democratic enough”.

Or could it be because one or more leaders in Election 2014 have internalized the Quintus treatise like nobody before? Now, now, your guess is as innocent as mine.

How both Modi and Rahul are likely to lose their 2014 battles

RaGa may not stay relevant in politics or in his party to lead a comeback. NaMo may not get to become the super-PM he so promises to be.


Tough luck!
Nearly two-thirds of India, 349 of 543 constituencies, will have voted by Thursday. Most poll surveys have so far been rather unkind to the regional players perhaps because we hate a fractured mandate. Making corrections for that instinct, it is possible that the BJP and the Congress may not cross the 200- and 100-mark, respectively. That would be in sync with the 2009 results when the two bagged a total of 322 seats.

If the Congress falls short of even 100 seats, Rahul Gandhi will have lost his battle to keep the Gandhi family as the sole power centre of the party or to stay relevant in politics to lead a comeback in the near future.

If Narendra Modi cannot bring home more than 200 seats, he will not be forming any ‘Modi sarkar’. It is one thing to be the undisputed leader of the BJP and its beholden allies, quite another to grapple with an ‘NDA sarkar’ backed by J Jayalalithaa or Mamata Banerji.

Rahul Gandhi’s late attempt to redeem himself by braving a second interview where he sounded almost coherent in Hindi is matched by the last-ditch offensive by his ailing mother and combative sister. But all that may not count for much.

In fact, much of what Rahul said in that interview and recent speeches made a lot of sense. Infrastructure and human resource development should go hand in hand. The poor do need a push (or “escape velocity” or plain subsidy) to overcome the inertia of poverty. Only more transparency can combat corruption. Primaries are indeed necessary to pick good candidates so that the voter is not shortchanged.

And Rahul would have many takers for these ideas were he an opposition leader fighting the Congress. But he is no khaas admi version of Arvind Kejriwal. His Congress, in which he enjoys decisive backroom control, has undermined all these ideas while in power. He cannot suddenly stand for all that the Congress has belied to demand a mandate for the same party.

Rahul’s fundamental tragedy is to find himself in two wars simultaneously. His one battle has been within the party to seek organisational reform which alienated the old guard. If his radical ideas and promotion of the young brigade created a fissure, Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council and a certain Jairam Ramesh stood in the way of the growth hawks in the government.

On most occasions though, the UPA government eventually bent every rule to push for unbridled growth and alienated large sections of farmers and tribals. But the corporate India was not amused by the party’s internal resistance to its interests and switched sides, believing a Modi sarkar would have no compunction delivering what it wants. Ironically, the faux ideological battle within the Congress sent out wrong signals to both poor and rich.

Rahul, however, has only himself and his coterie to blame for not assessing that he would not decisively win the battle within the party well in time before general elections. The result is the poor performance card of a confused government and a divided leadership. A number of party heavyweights missing in poll action are waiting for a spectacular debacle to cut a much-defeated Rahul to size. In such a scenario, the Congress may even split if 10, Janpath does not cede control.

Narendra Modi, on the other hand, is riding high on his presidential-style campaign. His biggest achievement so far is to project an air of inevitability about his becoming prime minister. This election is not for a BJP or an NDA but a Modi sarkar where every vote cast for the alliance reaches him directly and even parties opposed to the BJP can justify backing him.

Yet, Modi and his party know that the numbers are not quite adding up. Therefore, in the last few weeks, the thrust of their campaign has been on a decisive mandate. Some are playing the stability card. Others are warning against policy paralyses. Clearly, Modi cannot be the CEO-like all-deciding super-PM if his government hinges on AIADMK or TMC support and the whims of their mercurial leaders.

That limits the voter’s choices. Barring the corruption front where the BJP is less guilty if only for the lack of comparable opportunity, and the facile secular-communal debate, there is little to choose from between Rahul’s Congress and Modi’s BJP. For all the rhetoric, no NDA government will dare scrap the UPA’s rather unimaginative subsidy schemes. And it is only expected to follow India Inc’s growth brief more single-mindedly and unabashedly than the UPA did.

Unless, of course, a Modi sarkar gets encumbered by unreasonable allies who can be as big a roadblock to reforms as the NAC was, albeit for very different reasons. It is fashionable to slam these parties and their so-called short-sighted political compulsions for resisting reforms. We can continue to hard-sell the benefits of mega growth but cannot discount in a democracy those who still refuse to buy in.

However regressive we find their politics, these parties have been winning enough seats to deny both the Congress and the BJP anything close to a majority for a long time. While it may upset the growth story if Modi needs more than likeminded or servile allies, a highly fractured mandate will also show that most Indians perhaps wish to see certain policies paralysed.

In such a scenario, will Modi stick around for the next poll within a couple of years hoping the voter gets more decisive? Or will he risk his cult by backing himself to tame the feistiest of allies?

Indian election spoofs get voters laughing

A barrage of political spoofs on the internet and TV is ensuring that every Indian politician is cut down to size
Candidate Narendra Modi is spoofed using an iconic scene from Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator
For a people not known to take themselves lightly, a surprising number of Indians are laughing their way to the general election.
A generous dose of irreverent political humour is now competing with shrill campaign rhetoric, thanks to a new crop of satirists.
The genre is not new in India - there is a rich tradition of cartoons in newspapers - but the appetite for political satire is.
CNN-IBN's spoof show - The Week That Wasn't, starring Cyrus Broacha - was popular long before the last general elections in 2009, and Hindi show Pol Khol (Expose) by Shekhar Suman on Star News became a hit during the 2004 elections.
"Our shows have increased the appetite for humour in India," says Mr Broacha.
"Remember Mel Brooks playing Hitler? It is all about touching the untouchable, the demi-gods and demons of politics. We helped open the door and now you have so many spoofs, particularly on the internet."
Punching bag
India's first satire website Faking News emerged in 2008. The UnReal Times, touted as the Indian version of the Onion, followed in 2011.
Since then, hugely popular start-ups like AIB and The Viral Fever (TVF)have joined the fray. Meanwhile most news channels have devised their own weekly and even daily shows to lampoon politicians.
The response is overwhelming.
Arvind Kejriwal is a favourite punching bag of humorists
Nayak 2 by AIB attracted well over three million hits on YouTube in just over two months.
In it, actor Alok Nath, a ridiculously righteous father figure in TV soaps and Bollywood films, helps create the political persona of former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal - a broom-wielding, muffler-sporting, "gareeb-max" (ultra poor) leader of "aam aadmi" (the common man).
Mr Kejriwal is also the favourite target of TVF's Qtiyapa. In a spoof watched by over three million viewers since February, the former Delhi chief minister fights for honesty in Bollywood, complaining that a film called Ship of Theseus, an allegorical take on organ donation, did not feature a single boat.
In a recent episode of his show, Mr Broacha makes fun of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's first-ever TV interview, where he repeated the phrases "RTI (right to information)", "systemic change" and "women's empowerment" several times.
Asked "how many Congressmen does it take to change a light bulb", the fake Rahul wonders poker-faced if the light indeed goes off when the fridge door is closed.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Facebook LookBack video by The UnReal Times has been watched nearly half a million times on YouTube in less than two months. Their Rahul.One - The Next Level: 2014, a super-hero movie trailer featuring Rahul Gandhi and his mentor Digvijay Singh - is another big draw.
Lampooning politicians
Dhol Ki Pol, a "politoon" series on YouTube, takes a swipe at BJP's PM candidate Narendra Modi after the most iconic sequence of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.
Curiously, most spoofs of Mr Modi on the internet are unattributed. In July 2013, a website lampooning his agenda was taken down. It soon reappeared though, claiming that "ideas must not die out of fear".
In recent weeks, Rahul Gandhi has been featured in spoofs
EP Unny, chief political cartoonist of the Indian Express group, is proud of the boldness of his colleagues in a country known to arrest cartoonistsand remove cartoons from textbooks.
"There is no rule for laughter. So, we have to put up with collateral damage, if any, and we expect that maturity from the political class," he says.
It is not so much the politicians, points out Mr Broacha, but their humourless followers one needs to watch out for. "The wider reach of vernacular languages penetrates different layers of sensitivity. I keep that in mind while doing Hindi shows," he says.
A heavy dose of irreverence is needed to make people smile, says CS Krishna of UnReal Times. "When we make a point, we do it in the least filtered, least censored way possible," adds Rohan Joshi of AIB.
But are they trivialising politics by lampooning politicians?
'Inspired from reality'
While Arunabh Kumar of TVF claims that "art has the habit of getting inspired from reality", Mr Joshi feels that "trivialising politicians can be a sharp way to make serious, non-trivial points".
Last year, British comedian Russell Brand's refusal to "be complicit in this ridiculous illusion" of politics-as-usual kicked off a global debate.
PM Manmohan Singh's Facebook LookBack video by The UnReal Times has been watched nearly half a million times on YouTube in less than two months
While Mr Unny finds nothing wrong in satire fuelling a degree of disenchantment with the system - "better be irreverent than apolitical" - the younger lot prefers to tread more cautiously.
For Mr Krishna, the "intention is not to make people lose faith in our institutions and polity". Mr Joshi claims that though the tone of satirical podcasts is often cynical, they are not calling for disengagement.
TVF's new YouTube channel Recycle Bin, points out Mr Kumar, has tied up with Association for Democratic Reforms, a civil civil society group vying for transparency in politics, to create content that make the "youth politically more aware in an entertaining fashion".
"A staggering number of young people don't read papers or pay much attention to the TV news. Often, a funny tweet or a parody video is their first source of information," says Mr Joshi.
Mr Broacha is not taking himself too seriously.
"Let's leave real satire to Jonathan Swift. Our stuff is comedy that draws people. It is perhaps the lowest form of political engagement but we get the class that is quick to turn their back on politics talking."

Role reversals in Bengal's power play

TMC workers manhandle EC staff as Mamata Banerjee plays victim


Mamata Banerjee is not done with provoking the Election Commission. This morning, Trinamool Congress workers manhandled EC functionaries at Manikchawk in Malda district. Yesterday, TMC workers burnt an effigy of Deputy Election Commissioner in-charge of Bengal Vinod Zutshi right outside the state secretariat and, at a rally in Burdwan, Banerjee urged the voters to "avenge the insult of Bengal by Delhi".

After daring the EC to arrest her on Monday, Banerjee relented and transferred the officials as per the EC order once the Commission gave her an ultimatum on Tuesday. She would not risk postponement of polls or President’s rule in the state. But she did not back out. Reiterating that Zutshi was misleading the EC, she declared that she would write to the Commission seeking an explanation for its “politically motivated” decision.

The Commission, it is learnt, is mulling action against her and has asked for detailed video footage of her speeches and the attacks on its staff by TMC workers. That will suit didi fine. Banerjee knows that she appeals to her electorate best as a rebel and a victim.

Just three years ago, after dislodging the Left Front in 2011, Mamata Banerjee credited the Election Commission for her triumph. “This is the victory of the people. They have got their voting rights and I am grateful to the Election Commission for their full support,” she told the media.

This Monday, seething at the EC’s decision to transfer eight top bureaucrats, Banerjee trained her guns at Zutshi. “An officer who has a case against him, how can you send him [to Bengal]? This is a conspiracy,” she fumed at an election rally.

In June 2013, the Supreme Court stayed the non-bailable warrant pending against Zutshi for leasing out land to a private company. A Jaipur district court issued the warrant in 2011, the year Zutshi looked after the Assembly polls in Bengal and earned Banerjee’s gratitude.

How the tables have been turned.

This election season, the EC has replaced 61 top officials in five states so far. Nowhere else it has met with such resistance. Not without reason. Successive SC orders have underlined the Commission’s constitutional authority since former CEC TN Seshan started cleaning up elections in the 1990s, most famously in Lalu Prasad’s Bihar. Jyoti Basu called Seshan a “megalomaniac” before falling in line. James Lyngdoh dragged the mighty Narendra Modi to court and foiled his move to hold early state polls after the 2002 riots.

More recently, Bengal CPI(M) heavyweights Biman Bose and Subhash Chakraborty had to apologize for taking the EC on after the latter threatened to postpone Assembly polls in 2006. In fact, Banerjee was all praise for the Commission in 2006, 2009 and, of course, 2011. Once in power, her party co-opted the Left’s infamous election management machinery. In a role reversal, the EC suddenly became the villain.

In 2013, the TMC government wanted to hold Panchayat polls simultaneously across the state. But SEC Mira Pande insisted on phased elections under the watch of central forces. Banerjee took on Pande but perhaps without looking into her past. In 2008, the Left Front government had a similar plan but Pande stood her ground.

Last year, the fight reached the apex court via high court and the state was forced to toe the EC line. But not before MP and chief of TMC’s legal cell Kalyan Banerjee stooped to make crude personal remarks against Pande. "She needs the CRPF on her left, on her right, in the middle and on all sides. She seems to have fallen in love with the CRPF," he said at a rally in Burdwan. Unsurprisingly, he was not chastised by his chief minister.

Since the EC received too many complaints from the Opposition parties, Zutshi cautioned senior officials in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls this January. Immediately, he drew flak from TMC Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee. “Where were they (EC officials) who are now shooting their mouth off during the Left rule?” he mocked.

To be fair, Monday’s EC order was unprecedented in the sense that it unilaterally named the replacements for the officials the EC wanted removed. Though there is no legal obligation, the Commission usually asks the state government for options for each replacement.

The Left legacy of political indoctrination is so deep in the state bureaucracy that the EC might have had reasons to believe that the government would offer a list of yes-men as replacement options. At the same time, the state’s argument that officials unfamiliar with critical areas such as Jangalmahal may find it difficult to get a grip on the ground before polls can’t be discounted altogether.

However, more than a perceived slight to her authority or concerns for law and order, the spectre of losing what many call ‘stage advantage’ in certain key constituencies is what fuelled Banerjee’s virulent outburst. The prospect of emerging as the third largest party in Lok Sabha and the tight four-corner fight at hand has made her edgy.

But didi has history on her side. Be it Lalu or Modi, every time a politician has confronted the EC, his votes have only consolidated. For all her fight with SEC Pande, TMC swept the Panchayat polls last year. There is a method to her madness, after all.

Playing in Palamu: State vs rebel vs victim vs identity

A former Maoist zonal commander. A retired head of state police. A democratic ultra-Left underdog. And an ex-MP expelled from Parliament. Their battle at the polls this week in one of India’s most ‘Naxal-infested’ constituencies encapsulates the political madness that is the method in Jharkhand.

YahooNews, 8 April, 2014

It is seven in the morning. Kameshwar Baitha, 59, clad in whites, is presiding over the listless chaos that I gather is routine at Baitha Niwas in Bishrampur, in Jharkhand’s Palamu district. Campaign vehicles laze outside the gate draped in Trinamool Congress posters featuring Mamata Banerjee frozen in her stride. A few security personnel bathe in the cramped, cemented front yard. The sitting MP’s campaign managers sulk as one of Baitha’s sons distributes what appears to be insufficient cash.

A laboratory for political experiments. That is how an exasperated Arjun Munda, former chief minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party, described Jharkhand last year. The state has seen nine governments and five chief ministers, one of them an independent MLA, since it was formed in November 2000. In these 13 years, politicians jumped parties and parties switched alliances as frequently and unabashedly as soldiers of fortune. Palamu, the Lok Sabha constituency that covers all of Garhwa district and a part of Palamu district, is no exception to Jharkhand’s politics of convenience. 

Reserved for candidates from the scheduled castes, this erstwhile Congress bastion became a BJP stronghold during the saffron decade of the 1990s when the party registered four consecutive wins here. The formation of the state upset local equations. And very little has stayed constant since.

Take Baitha. Once a feared Maoist zonal commander who carried a reward of Rs 7 lakh on his head, Baitha was arrested in 2006 after a 26-year reign of terror. Charged in 51 cases of murder and violence in the neighboring districts of Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, he was released on bail only in 2011. He is India’s MP with the maximum number of criminal charges against him.

He contested the 2007 bypoll from jail on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket and came second, ahead of the BJP candidate. In 2009, Baitha returned as a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (National Democratic Alliance) candidate to defeat the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal (United) candidates by a fair margin. And this year he is contesting from the TMC.

“I got only two and a half years to work for my people and I did as much as I could. I also asked 36 questions in Parliament,” Baitha claims before proceeding to read out a laundry list of achievements. “They (political opponents) say I have not done anything. What have they and their parties done in all these years?”

Baitha says he was “saved by god from getting sucked into communal politics” when the BJP refused him a ticket. What he isn’t saying is that even getting a Trinamool ticket was a big gamble. Dadai Dubey, Congress MLA from Bishrampur and till recently a minister in the Hemant Soren government, fell out with the party after openly criticizing it and joined the TMC as recently as early March. Dubey was Baitha’s emissary to Mamata Banerjeee.

“I got inspired by Mamata Banerjee. Her model of development weaned people away from Naxalism in Bengal. I want to fight Naxalism in Palamu the same way,” he says. He adds quickly that few know about the TMC in his constituency and that he, not the party, will be drawing the votes.

As the BSP candidate in 2007, he drew nearly one and a half lakh votes. (Before Baitha in 2004, the party managed 61,000 votes. In 2009, going against Baitha, the party got only 43,000 votes.) But not everyone shares Baitha’s confidence in his personal charms. Certainly, the sympathy wave generated by his wife Deomani Devi campaigning for her jailed husband in 2009 is missing this time. 

And Baitha’s own aides say that the tacit Maoist support is missing too. “Baitha knew that security alone wouldn’t protect him. So he and his eldest son struck some deal to buy safety. But having lost his base, he is no more useful for the Maoists. Today, he won’t even win a ward election. He knows it himself and that’s why he has stopped spending money,” sniggers one of his campaign managers.

Deomani Devi will have none of it. “This time sahib himself is campaigning and the people are responding warmly. We don’t have enough funds as the party [TMC] has not offered any. But who says we have given up hope?” And then she adds rather poetically, “Ummidwar toh ummeed se hi bante hai na (You only become a hopeful by hoping, don’t you)?”

In a brief, dramatic speech on the Lokpal Bill in the Lok Sabha in 2011, Baitha had said that over 26 years he fought for the victims of feudalism who had no food or dignity. “In those years, it seemed corruption is in the villages. Now after coming to the big city, I hear in Parliament that Rs 68-75 lakh crore in black money is hidden abroad. Baap re baap! I though the robbers were in villages when the real dacoits are sitting here. That’s why Jharkhand is burning and the Maoist movement is gaining ground.”

At Baitha Niwas, he reiterates this anguish. “Jharkhand is rich in minerals but still our people are the poorest. It’s a conspiracy of the big capital and big politics. Our platform is separate. We [TMC] will emerge as the third largest party and form a third front,” he says, before tearing into Babulal Marandi’s “dangerous domicile policy”.

Asked if he is confident of a victory this time, Baitha fidgets. “Win or lose, what is important is reaching out to one’s people.” The next moment, he attempts a recovery. “People are weighing the alternatives. Will they vote for Manoj Bhuiyan who gave Palamu such a bad name for just one lakh rupees? Or for VD Ram whose in-laws in Daltanganj are his only local connection?”

Then Baitha flashes a fulsome smile. “I belong here. Pauhna se chor nahin marta (Can’t depend on a son-in-law to guard against thieves).”

* * *

Well past midnight, the bellboys have settled down on the sofas, watching TV in the lounge of a Daltonganj hotel. 

A noise at the shuttered entrance of the hotel. The guard lifts the shutter to let in Palamu’s most talked about son-in-law returning from his 16-hour-plus daily campaign. VD Ram is so exhausted he can barely keep his eyes open. “I am really in no position to talk,” he mumbles as we start the discussion that was scheduled for 11.15pm.

When former Maoist zonal commander Kameshwar Baitha was behind bars in Bihar and Jharkhand, Vishnu Dayal Ram was Jharkhand’s Director-General of Police (DGP). He retired in 2011, the year Baitha was released on bail. He is now the BJP candidate from Palamu. Ram had to fight Baitha within the party as the latter was also eyeing a BJP ticket after the UPA (Congress-JMM-RJD) decided to field an RJD, and not a JMM, candidate from Palamu this time.

While many in the state see this as a face-off between the “symbols of a police state and a rebel militia”, Baitha refuses to get drawn into that debate.

Ram has reasons for campaigning like one possessed. None of the six Assembly segments – Bhawanathpur, Bishrampur, Daltonganj (Congress), Garhwa (Jharkhand Vikas Morcha), Hussainabad (RJD) and Chhatarpur (JD-U) – of the large Palamu parliamentary constituency is with the BJP.

A section of the local BJP is sympathetic to three-time-MP Braj Mohan Ram who was a strong contender for the ticket that went to Ram. Also, his brother-in-law Radha Krishna Kishore, then a JD(U) MLA, has already alienated a lot of voters in Chhatarpur by flaunting his powerful DGP jija-ji during 2004-2009. 

Kishore, who came third in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls on a JD(U) ticket, won the Chhatarpur Assembly seat for the party in 2005. He tried his luck again at the Lok Sabha polls in 2009 for the JD(U), but performed dismally even with the BJP’s support. When the party refused him a ticket in the subsequent Assembly polls, he switched sides to contest from Chhatarpur on a Congress ticket and lost. This time around, he is campaigning for Ram.

Luckily, the decorated police officer has his supportive family. Ram’s elder son Vikas Anand took a break from his MNC job to be with his father, whom he calls a self-made man. “He was born in Ara (Bihar) but the only family we have is the one from our mother’s side here in Nai Mahalla (Daltonganj). My mother and sister are also here to look after him.” The younger son, a general manager with a cola giant, is missing in action, though.

Ram made news early in his career for his possible involvement in the Bhagalpur blinding case of 1980-81. It is the case on which the 2003 Ajay Devgn-starrer Gangajal was based (‘Gangajal’ being slang for the acid that several policemen poured into the eyes of under-trials). While the CBI interrogated Ram, he was not charged with any involvement. 

Decades later, during his second tenure as DGP of Jharkhand, he was removed from office in 2010due to allegations of a dubious withdrawal of Rs 5.6 crore (some claim Rs 8 crore) from the Secret Service Fund. SS funds are supposed to be distributed among the district police chiefs for intelligence gathering for which no accounts are required to be maintained. Ram apparently withdrew sacks of cash and never transferred any to his SPs. In his affidavit to the court, he claimed to have distributed crores in cash directly among police informers at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Stadium (Morabadi ground) one night in 2006.

Subsequently, the CBI refused to probe the case because it claimed to be “overburdened”. Incidentally, then-CBI chief AP Singh is a 1974 batch IPS officer and a year junior to Ram in the cadre. The reporter who broke the story for a national daily confided to me that Ram had repeatedly asked him not to go ahead with the report when the reporter asked him for his version.

Manning the BJP campaign headquarters in Daltonganj, elder son Vikas fields questions on his father’s behalf and dismisses the money allegations as a conspiracy. “When you are in important positions, you create enemies. We in the family know that my father had to dilute his fixed deposits to fund this campaign,” he claims.

Vikas also discounts the complaints that his father is a rank outsider. “Initially, maybe there was some resistance. But it helped that he has been here, reaching out to party functionaries and people for the last 8-9 months. Now this is an issue for his rivals only.”

Ram knows he has a close fight at hand with the RJD’s Manoj Bhuiyan this time. The BJP is eyeing Palamu’s upper caste votes while the RJD is targeting the Muslims. Of the backward castes, the Banias traditionally back the BJP and the Yadavs the RJD. Chunks of Dalit votes will go to the BSP and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. The BJP hopes that Ram’s Dalit identity will help them fight the RJD over the remaining votes. The Adivasis are said to have their loyalty divided primarily between former BJP leader Babulal Marandi’s JVM and the Congress (the RJD).

“A big officer like Sahib is not used to acting servile. But Brahmins here expect candidates to beg for their vote and some of them may have decided in the JVM’s favor,” points out a local BJP functionary. In fact, Ram is dismissive of his rivals who, he says, tarnished the image of Palamu with crime and bribery. Instead, buoyed by the Modi factor, he is promising development without really explaining how it will be achieved.

Vikas defends his father again on this question: "We have plans for a thermal power plant. The land acquisition and environmental issues will have to be considered but let’s at least start thinking in that direction”.

As a former top cop, Ram is naturally a prime Maoist target. Does it worry him or the family? “It is certainly in the back of his mind, our minds,” Vikas pauses. "But one cannot compromise on campaigning after joining the fray.”

* * *

A few yards from a red flag fluttering on a lone campaign vehicle, Sushma Mehta is sitting by the road on a pile of bricks and scanning a newspaper outside her padlocked CPI(ML) Liberation office in Bishrampur, 40km from Daltonganj town. “Someone” is bringing the key. “We hired these two rooms only recently as our local campaign base. We need to organize this office,” Mehta says apologetically.

Slow moving SUVs blaring BJP campaign songs drown the CPI(ML) Liberation candidate’s voice every now and then as she narrates her story. On January 21, 2012, Mehta, then chairperson of the Garhwa District Council, and CPI(ML) Liberation state committee member Akhtar Ansari were on their way to join a roadblock organized by villagers over the location of a proposed health centre in Bhandaria.

In separate operations, the Maoists abducted Mehta and Ansari, along with their driver and security guard, and triggered a landmine blast killing 13 policemen who were accompanying the Block Development Officer to the protest site. The state police cracked down heavily on the CPI(ML) Liberation leadership and cadres alleging that the roadblock was organized to lure the cops into the Maoist’s trap.

The hostages were released on 24 January, the day when cops brutally lathi-charged a peaceful protest during a Garhwa bandh called by the CPI(ML) Liberation against state violence. Though the Maoists owned up to the blast, several CPI(ML) Liberation activists were detained and tortured.

“They [the Maoists] made us walk nonstop for three days. They hid us under bushes every time a chopper was heard overhead. I fell unconscious a number of times due to exhaustion. And on the day of the bandh, police officers trampled all over our state committee members [including Mehta’s husband Kalicharan], broke the bones of the elderly [including her father Kishor Kumar] and did not spare even women Panchayat members,” recalls an agitated Mehta.

Against such odds, the CPI(ML) Liberation base among the poor (primarily Dalits) is steadily expanding in Palamu. In the 2004 and 2007 Lok Sabha polls, the party bagged 16,837 and 18,413 votes respectively. In 2009, Mehta won more than 22,235 votes. But given the abject poverty and feudal practices still prevalent in the area, hasn’t the progress been slow? The BSP seems to command a much larger share (43,521 in 2009) of the Dalit vote here.

Mehta admits that unlike in Kodarma constituency, where the party moved up to the second spot from the third between 2004 and 2009, the organization has not been able to reach out to the poor from all sections in Palamu yet.

“A lot of money is at play here. We can’t and don’t want to go that way. Our budget for this election (campaigning) is only Rs 7 lakh. Anyway, mass mobilization hasn’t been easy as we are caught between the state and the Maoists,” she says. “But we are determined to give as long as it takes,” chips in Kalicharan, who has just joined the group waiting outside the office.

With somewhat rehearsed ease, Mehta breaks off to speak about the mineral riches of Jharkhand and its dismal resource management and arbitrary land acquisition policies. She points out how the abduction and liquor mafias operate with impunity in an atmosphere of fear created by the rebels.

“The Maoists are misled. But the police is no better. I am the most vulnerable candidate here and yet the administration wants me to apply for security cover. Even so, the protection is provided only up to 6pm; after that we are on our own,” she complains.

Kalicharan laughs. “What security? They arrested our Koderma candidate when he went to file nomination using an arrest warrant in a 2010 Panchayat election case.” Mehta shakes her head and calls to her companions if she can enter the office anytime soon.

The key has not been found yet.

* * *

No, Palamu’s political carousel is not meant for a casual read. Barring the Congress and the RJD sticking with each other, the only island of consistency in these treacherously fluid equations is the CPI(ML) Liberation, plowing a lonely furrow under fire from both cops and Naxals.

In 2004, Palamu sent Manoj Bhuiyan alias Manoj Kumar of the RJD to Parliament. Bhuiyan lost his Lok Sabha membership in the cash-for-query sting by a TV channel in 2005, but the RJD retained the seat in the 2007 bypoll with a new candidate, Ghuran Ram.

Ghuran Ram lost out to Baitha in 2009. He is contesting this time for the JVM, a party formed in 2006 by the state’s first chief minister and erstwhile BJP stalwart Babulal Marandi.

Meanwhile, snubbed by RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Bhuiyan joined the JMM after a brief political hiatus to unsuccessfully contest the Chhatarpur Assembly seat that comes under the Palamu Lok Sabha segment in 2009. Five years on, Bhuiyan is back as Yadav’s chosen one for the Palamu seat.

At his Daltonganj home, Bhuiyan is surprisingly relaxed among his noisy followers itching to hit the road. It’s already 8.30 in the morning. But Bhuiyan calls for another round of tea. Then he waves off the Modi factor in Palamu. “What is this Gujarat model? No, that is not a challenge for me in Palamu.”

With the same poise he dismisses the cash-for-query sting. “They aired it 24x7 for 20 days or so. Go out and look for its impact here.” His opponent VD Ram the policeman? “He misused power. Our voters cannot be fooled.” 

Why is Bhuiyan is so confident? “I got over 2 lakh votes here in 2004. Lalu Yadav’s promise of social justice resonates among the weaker sections of all communities.”

Anything at all Bhuiyan is wary of? The answer comes from a local Congress functionary. “There is a possibility that the JVM will split the Muslim vote. Also, a section of new voters – the jobless, frustrated youth – may buy the BJP’s lies about Modi. They may create a swing of sorts if they vote in large numbers,” he admits. “More so because half of Palamu’s voters don’t vote.”

The administration typically blames the low turnout on the atmosphere of fear perpetuated by the Naxalites. Palamu and Garhwa are among the 33 most vulnerable districts identified by the Union Home ministry. In 2009, the constituency recorded a turnout of just 46 percent.

Palamu district collector KN Jha has launched an impressive Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) drive to spread awareness among voters this time around. “We have taken out rallies, distributed posters, involved schools, community groups and All India Radio to encourage people to vote. The feedback has been good and we expect a better turnout,” he says.

While Maoists rarely target civilian poll workers, there are long queues at the Collectorate to seek exemption from election duties in sensitive areas. So far, no Naxalite poster calling for a boycott of the polls has been spotted. “We are deploying 16-24 security personnel in hypersensitive booths. We will station enough forces and micro observers to make the SC/ST voters feel secure,” Jha assures.

For now, the buzz is about Ram Navami celebrations beginning on April 8, two days ahead of the poll. The administration will be watching out for trouble while political parties will be looking to milk the festival. The BJP, in particular, expects the celebrations to trigger a mini swing in its favor. A JVM poll worker guffaws at the prospect, though. “There are enough Rams and Ravans already in the fray to bother about the mythical ones.”