Delhi votes for development

India’s cities and its middle class have, unfortunately, played an enabling role in the rise of the BJP and its divisive religion-based politics.  (As an astute observer I admire said, “India’s middle class has degrees, no education.”)  Even so, they are marginal players, in broad terms, notwithstanding their explosive growth over the past 20 years.  This was evident in 2004 when the country’s predominantly-rural electorate rejected the NDA’s “India Shining” thesis.

Delhi was no different – and once the strongest of BJP bastions – but has become an interesting laboratory for the “development versus ideology” experiment over the past decade.  In 2008, Delhi’s voters returned a Congress government for the third time making Sheila Dikshit the country’s first longest-serving woman chief minister.  Over the past 10 years, Dikshit has zealously pursued a single-minded agenda transforming the crumbling capital into one of the world’s most livable cities.

In 10 years, Dikshit’s Congress government has doubled power generation (quadrupling it by 2011), water supply, and hospitals; tripled sewage treatment capacity; built (or is building) more than 130 flyovers and underpasses; switched over its bus transportation fleet to clean-burning natural gas dramatically reducing pollution; and implemented a world-class city-wide rail commuting system amongst other things.  This development track record has trounced the BJP’s ideological posturing in three consistent elections.

This is a heartening story because it shows that the strongest of ideological bastions can be stormed (and retained) with sustained political action emphasizing governance and development.  The validity of this political emphasis will be tested again in Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats.

Who will win in Uttar Pradesh?

As Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls today, the big question is – as in all general elections – “Who will win Uttar Pradesh?”  Historians and psephologists may cite several reasons but it is UP’s contribution of 80 seats (even after Uttaranchal’s separation) to the Lok Sabha that makes it a “decider” for Indian elections. 

Let me begin with a conventional version of UP’s political history.  Congress dominated the state until the mid-1980s by consolidating the Brahmin, Dalit, and Muslim votes.  Caste-based political outfits – the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) – wedged the Dalit vote out of the Congress coalition.  In the past 20 years, the SP has further segmented the Dalit vote retaining the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and consolidating Muslims alienated by poor leadership of their issues by an ineffective Congress (e.g., December 6, 1992). 

During the same time, the BSP consolidated the Dalit vote and came to power twice – first with the help of the SP and the BJP and, most recently, by clever division of the Brahmin votes.  The BJP, until, recently stewarded the Brahmin votes by leveraging Hindutva.  However, unlike caste, Hindutva has run out of steam and is no longer a vote getter.

This, however, did not happen by chance and my theory is the political leadership played a far more crucial role than most analysts will credit it with.  Until the mid-1980s, the state’s several powerful Congressmen – e.g., Govind Ballabh Pant, Kamlapati Tripathi, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, and Narayan Dutt Tiwari – in concert with the charisma of the Nehru-Gandhi clan ensured electoral successes.  Growing dissidence within the party along with Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s frequent replacement of chief ministers and state party leadership eroded the political base allowing SP, BSP, and the BJP to make inroads. 

Kalyan Singh created BJP’s presence in UP, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati built the BSP, while Mulayam Singh Yadav has led the SP.  Of these, Kalyan Singh left the BJP, Kanshi Ram passed away, and Mulayam Singh Yadav is held hostage by advisers besotted by movie stars.  As a result, Mayawati remains the only state politician who understands UP and its ground realities.  This became spectacularly evident in 2007 when she secured a simple majority against all odds and expectations by amplifying BSP’s Dalit base with a large number of Brahmins and Muslims (akin to the Congress coalition until the 1980s).

Rahul Gandhi was pitched in that election as Congress Party’s primary campaigner but the party fared worse than the previous election.  Media reports, however, suggest that he has continued to work the grassroots in the state and is “hopeful of a surprise.”  For the first time in almost 30 years, a single Congress politician will be leading the party into a second consecutive state election.  For that reason alone, the Congress must be hopeful.

The BSP is certainly suffering some anti-incumbency.  The SP is regretting its “informal” alliance with Kalyan Singh.  The BJP is fighting dissidents and rebel candidates.  The Congress is relying on Rahul Gandhi who has been distracted by campaigning elsewhere.  State reports are suggesting that it is not the typical two- or three-sided fight in most constituencies in an election that is bereft of any single pan-state issue.  Instead, most constituencies have turned into a four- or five-sided contest making any sort of trend-reading unreliable.

One electoral outcome will beget an interesting question.  If the BSP does well by retaining its Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim coalition, would its two consecutive electoral victories signal casteism’s diminishing influence?

A different ending

Chiranjeevi’s political career reminds me of movies that we wish had a different ending.  When announcing his entry into politics, Chiranjeevi cited one reason being the desire to “try his hand” at it.  I consider that as adequate justification.  However, he could have “tried his hand at politics” very differently. 

For example, instead of starting a new political outfit, what if Chiranjeevi had driven down to Lok Satta Party’s offices and said, “I like your political emphasis on governance and professionalism.  I want to join your party but be much more than a “star” campaigner.  How can we work together?”  It is my belief that Jayaprakash Narayan or Chiranjeevi would have been the state’s next Chief Minister.  A more seminal change would have been the reform of Indian polity.

For such an ending, I would have joyously cheered from Lakdi ka Pul.

Can Chiranjeevi repeat history in Andhra Pradesh?

Chiranjeevi is more to Telugu cinema than Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh, and Aamir Khan put together can ever be for Bollywood.  This election will test if Chiranjeevi’s popularity will translate to votes for his Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) but the growing consensus is that his party will end up in the third place with 15-20 assembly and 0-2 parliamentary seats.  Disabused of illusions, Chiranjeevi himself is contesting from a second “safe” seat, Palakol in West Godavari district.

Palakol, near Chiranjeevi’s birth place, is where I spent numerous summers visiting my grandparents.  As children, my cousins and I would return from the late night shows excited by Chiranjeevi’s action thrillers while in recent times he has energized fans by attacking corruption in movies such as Stalin and Tagore.  In real life, Chiranjeevi has channeled his popularity to drive blood and organ donations so successfully that India Today included him on a recent list of 50 powerful Indians.

This compelling legacy is dangerously close to being destroyed by a carefully pondered but poorly implemented political entry.  Electoral success these days needs more than mass hysteria.  It needs a coalescing political issue or vision; a thoughtful but dynamic strategy; and diligent implementation by a band of organizers, campaigners, and strategists at multiple levels. 

Chiranjeevei, however, was following the template N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) created 27 years ago in March 1982 when the latter cashed in his popularity as a Telugu movie superstar to form the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).  However, NTR leveraged two key issues to channel his mass following into a landslide two-thirds majority in January 1983.  One was Teluguvari Atmagauravam (“Telugu Pride”), which had been hurting from a broad range of slights by the Nehru-Gandhi family beginning decades ago from the agitation for a separate state (e.g., Nehru in a letter to C. Rajagopalachari: “Some kind of fast is going on for the Andhra Province ….  I am totally unmoved …”).  The other seminal coalescing issue NTR exploited was the promise to sell rice to the poor for two rupees a kilogram, creating precedence for the blatant political use of extreme populism.

This year, the TDP too is hard at work on destroying its “Telugu Pride” legacy by allying with the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) whose sole political goal is the creation of the state of Telangana by breaking the region away from Andhra Pradesh.  This is, however, TRS’ second turn at the wheel.  It did well in 2004 by leveraging this issue and spent almost five years in power by participating in the Congress-led UPA government.  Why should the people of Telangana buy the TRS’ tired promises again is an open question?

In general, the Congress government’s performance over the past five years is viewed favorably.  It has certainly lost some ground in recent months and the high voter turnout may further impact its performance.  However, the TDP may not be the beneficiary because of caste polarization that has intensified further following PRP’s entry.  The kapu community typically aligns with the TDP but is expected to switch allegiance to PRP significantly impacting the TDP especially in the coastal districts.  Andhra will, most likely, see a Congress-PRP coalition government.

Battling Modi-mania in Gujarat

A single but dastardly act of violence transformed its alleged perpetrator, Narendra Modi, from just another Chief Minister to the BJP’s Prime Minister-in-waiting. Such is his stature that when Arun Shourie recently described Modi as BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014, the party’s reaction was muted. In comparison, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was greeted with rude howls and shouted down when he tried to assert his seniority over this election cycle’s official Prime Ministerial candidate, L. K. Advani.

BJP has great hopes that Modi’s magic will improve the party’s parliamentary tally by bringing in about 20 seats from Gujarat. In the last general election in 2004, BJP’s performance in Gujarat was the worst in 20 years. It won 14 seats and the remaining 12 went to the Congress. This was an unexpected upset given the widespread view that Modi controlled Gujarat following the 2002 riots. A key reason for the 2004 debacle was the absence of campaigning support from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The RSS is involved this time but reluctantly given the 300 illegal temples the Modi government has demolished recently. Further, numerous BJP leaders have been alienated (or supporting rebel candidates) because of the party’s decision to give Modi a carte blanche in selecting candidates, an opportunity he has utilized to reward supporters.

Even so, the Congress is struggling primarily due to lackluster leadership. Congress’s condition is a sorry fall from the absolute dominance it enjoyed in Gujarat until the 1980s due to its KHAM alliance comprising Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis, and Muslims. The Congress’s KHAM alliance drove the upper castes (e.g., Brahmins and Banias) to the fold of the BJP. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the RSS-driven grassroots campaign used Hindutva to drive a wedge through the KHAM alliance and consolidated the Harijans and Advisis within the BJP’s base. Modi cemented these votebanks with Godhra and the 2002 riots completely isolating the Muslims, who account for almost 10% of the state. In recent years, Modi has combined (some say, camouflaged) his Hindutva militancy with a strong development agenda cannibalizing another traditional Congress plank.

There is, however, an opportunity in rural Gujarat. Voters in villages are, apparently, disillusioned by Modi’s excessive focus on urban development. Congress’s 2004 slogan, Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath, may resonate better with them this time. If all else fails, anti-incumbency is the only hope.