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?
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