How India’s political landscape would change after the recent elections to five state assemblies has been a subject of intense speculation. Some commentators forecast that the Left parties’ crushing defeat in West Bengal and Kerala and other reverses would leave the “third pole” in politics further weakened. The polity would become more bipolar as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party gain from the Left’s erosion.
This speculation was always idle. The Left lost not because it couldn’t adjust to a Rightward shift in politics, but because it betrayed its own promise and followed Right-wing neoliberal policies on social issues, land and industrial promotion.
The credit for toppling the Left in West Bengal goes to Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, and in Kerala, ironically, to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who sullied the Left’s reputation by advocating pro-rich policies.
However, the idea that recent developments would work in the BJP’s favour now stands badly discredited by the goings-on in that party. The “party with a difference”, once united, cohesive and disciplined, is now disunited, rudderless and rivalry-riven.
BJP MP and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj has attacked the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, accusing him of having inducted the Reddy Brothers, notorious for running a mining mafia in Karnataka’s Bellary district, into the Karnataka cabinet in 2009. This has eroded the gains from the BJP’s campaign against the United Progressive Alliance government on corruption.
Swaraj levelled her accusation against Jaitley in a well-planned interview to Outlook magazine, which many in the BJP believe is somewhat “soft” on Jaitley despite its generally pro-Congress editorial line. Swaraj was upset that Jaitley has long planted stories in the media stressing her connections with the brothers.
Swaraj was vulnerable on this score because she had contested the Bellary by-election against Sonia Gandhi with the Reddys’ help in 1999, and repeatedly defended them, indeed literally blessed them, as some well-circulated photographs show. But she says she opposed their induction into the Karnataka cabinet. Yet, Chief Minister BS Yedyurappa, Jaitley, in charge of Karnataka politics, and the-then BJP president Rajnath Singh decided to give powerful portfolios to them.
Swaraj clearly wants to counter Jaitley’s devious effort to pre-empt her from the competition that will break out for the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee in the 2014 elections.
But Swaraj has been no less devious. She charges Jaitley with acting “out of political compulsions”, said to be a nearly Rs200-crore gift from the Bellary Brothers to various BJP-RSS leaders. But she fights shy of demanding the brothers’ dismissal.
Swaraj resents the fact that Jaitley has better political contacts and is closer to the RSS than her, and that the new BJP president Nitin Gadkari, a novice to national politics, eats out of his hand.
This unseemly inner-party tussle greets the BJP just as its government in Karnataka, the only one in a Southern state, completes three years. The government has an awful record of corruption, nepotism, mismanagement of social schemes, and neglect of the poor. It would be a miracle if the BJP, whose power in Karnataka came from money and venality, is returned to office.
The BJP in power has also performed poorly in many other states. In Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, it will almost certainly lose the elections next year.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP only won 10 Lok Sabha seats in 2009, compared to 57 at its peak. It will find it difficult to dislodge the Congress from the third position in UP.
Rahul Gandhi’s attempt to energise the Congress has only been partially successful. The overwhelming majority of his nominees performed poorly in the Tamil Nadu and Kerala assembly elections. He may not have a real political strategy up his sleeve.
Gandhi wants the Congress in UP to take on Mayawati’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party through a limited alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal and a few local factions. Not many in the Congress feel this will improve the party’s UP Assembly tally enough for it to return to the centre in 2014. Some leaders would like the Congress to form a much stronger combination with the Samajwadi Party in UP.
UP will matter greatly to the UPA because it has been politically weakened in the latest assembly elections. The Congress itself holds less than one-fifth of all assembly seats in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
In the remaining southern state, Andhra Pradesh, it faces a formidable threat from Jaganmohan Reddy’s faction, which has done extremely well in recent by-elections. Worse, the Congress cannot take an unambiguous stand on the Telangana issue, and is likely to lose votes both in that region and outside.
In Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where non-UPA parties wield power, the Congress can only hope for limited gains. In Maharashtra, its alliance with Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party could become shaky. The wily Pawar is busy cultivating all manner of politicians including Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa, Jagmohan Reddy and Chandrababu Naidu.
Pawar may only be playing for small stakes: his party, with just nine MPs, is in decline. Age, personality and reputation are not on his side. Yet, he can inconvenience the Congress by declaring himself a candidate for the prime minister’s position if the UPA cannot form the government in 2014.
The UPA has been politically weakened by numerous recent scams including 2G, Commonwealth Games, Adarsh Housing Society and IPL. Besides, the inflation burden is growing on people, with food prices rising by nearly 10 percent a year, milk by 17.5 percent, vegetables by 12.5 percent, and petrol and cooking gas by 32 and 13 percent.
Whatever progressive measures the UPA sets out to take, usually following the recommendations of the National Advisory Council – including a food security bill, creating self-help groups and generating skills through the proposed National Rural Livelihoods Mission, and a less draconian land acquisition act – are quickly neutralised or undermined by other committees.
On the Public Distribution System, the Planning Commission shocked the Supreme Court and the public by setting the poverty line at a miserably low per capita daily expenditure of Rs20 in the urban areas and Rs15 in villages, thus excluding all those above the line from PDS entitlements.
A big contest is now under way between the votaries of pro-people measures within the UPA, on the one hand, and diehard neoliberals in the finance ministry and the Planning Commission, on the other, who would like to drastically reduce state provision of food, education and healthcare, or replace it with cash transfers, the new neoliberal mantra.
This is a dangerous trend. The UPA was returned to power in 2009 on a promise of inclusive development for the aam aadmi, based on the admission that the normal growth process isn’t raising poor people’s incomes and reducing disparities.
The UPA seems to be unlearning that lesson. Many within it would like to erase the legacy of Left-of-Centre policies underlying the government’s legitimacy. This is a recipe for losing the plot in 2014 and paving the way for a generalised Rightward political shift, with disastrous consequences.
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi. Email: prafulbidwai1 @yahoo.co.in
This speculation was always idle. The Left lost not because it couldn’t adjust to a Rightward shift in politics, but because it betrayed its own promise and followed Right-wing neoliberal policies on social issues, land and industrial promotion.
The credit for toppling the Left in West Bengal goes to Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, and in Kerala, ironically, to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who sullied the Left’s reputation by advocating pro-rich policies.
However, the idea that recent developments would work in the BJP’s favour now stands badly discredited by the goings-on in that party. The “party with a difference”, once united, cohesive and disciplined, is now disunited, rudderless and rivalry-riven.
BJP MP and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj has attacked the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, accusing him of having inducted the Reddy Brothers, notorious for running a mining mafia in Karnataka’s Bellary district, into the Karnataka cabinet in 2009. This has eroded the gains from the BJP’s campaign against the United Progressive Alliance government on corruption.
Swaraj levelled her accusation against Jaitley in a well-planned interview to Outlook magazine, which many in the BJP believe is somewhat “soft” on Jaitley despite its generally pro-Congress editorial line. Swaraj was upset that Jaitley has long planted stories in the media stressing her connections with the brothers.
Swaraj was vulnerable on this score because she had contested the Bellary by-election against Sonia Gandhi with the Reddys’ help in 1999, and repeatedly defended them, indeed literally blessed them, as some well-circulated photographs show. But she says she opposed their induction into the Karnataka cabinet. Yet, Chief Minister BS Yedyurappa, Jaitley, in charge of Karnataka politics, and the-then BJP president Rajnath Singh decided to give powerful portfolios to them.
Swaraj clearly wants to counter Jaitley’s devious effort to pre-empt her from the competition that will break out for the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee in the 2014 elections.
But Swaraj has been no less devious. She charges Jaitley with acting “out of political compulsions”, said to be a nearly Rs200-crore gift from the Bellary Brothers to various BJP-RSS leaders. But she fights shy of demanding the brothers’ dismissal.
Swaraj resents the fact that Jaitley has better political contacts and is closer to the RSS than her, and that the new BJP president Nitin Gadkari, a novice to national politics, eats out of his hand.
This unseemly inner-party tussle greets the BJP just as its government in Karnataka, the only one in a Southern state, completes three years. The government has an awful record of corruption, nepotism, mismanagement of social schemes, and neglect of the poor. It would be a miracle if the BJP, whose power in Karnataka came from money and venality, is returned to office.
The BJP in power has also performed poorly in many other states. In Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, it will almost certainly lose the elections next year.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP only won 10 Lok Sabha seats in 2009, compared to 57 at its peak. It will find it difficult to dislodge the Congress from the third position in UP.
Rahul Gandhi’s attempt to energise the Congress has only been partially successful. The overwhelming majority of his nominees performed poorly in the Tamil Nadu and Kerala assembly elections. He may not have a real political strategy up his sleeve.
Gandhi wants the Congress in UP to take on Mayawati’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party through a limited alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal and a few local factions. Not many in the Congress feel this will improve the party’s UP Assembly tally enough for it to return to the centre in 2014. Some leaders would like the Congress to form a much stronger combination with the Samajwadi Party in UP.
UP will matter greatly to the UPA because it has been politically weakened in the latest assembly elections. The Congress itself holds less than one-fifth of all assembly seats in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
In the remaining southern state, Andhra Pradesh, it faces a formidable threat from Jaganmohan Reddy’s faction, which has done extremely well in recent by-elections. Worse, the Congress cannot take an unambiguous stand on the Telangana issue, and is likely to lose votes both in that region and outside.
In Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where non-UPA parties wield power, the Congress can only hope for limited gains. In Maharashtra, its alliance with Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party could become shaky. The wily Pawar is busy cultivating all manner of politicians including Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa, Jagmohan Reddy and Chandrababu Naidu.
Pawar may only be playing for small stakes: his party, with just nine MPs, is in decline. Age, personality and reputation are not on his side. Yet, he can inconvenience the Congress by declaring himself a candidate for the prime minister’s position if the UPA cannot form the government in 2014.
The UPA has been politically weakened by numerous recent scams including 2G, Commonwealth Games, Adarsh Housing Society and IPL. Besides, the inflation burden is growing on people, with food prices rising by nearly 10 percent a year, milk by 17.5 percent, vegetables by 12.5 percent, and petrol and cooking gas by 32 and 13 percent.
Whatever progressive measures the UPA sets out to take, usually following the recommendations of the National Advisory Council – including a food security bill, creating self-help groups and generating skills through the proposed National Rural Livelihoods Mission, and a less draconian land acquisition act – are quickly neutralised or undermined by other committees.
On the Public Distribution System, the Planning Commission shocked the Supreme Court and the public by setting the poverty line at a miserably low per capita daily expenditure of Rs20 in the urban areas and Rs15 in villages, thus excluding all those above the line from PDS entitlements.
A big contest is now under way between the votaries of pro-people measures within the UPA, on the one hand, and diehard neoliberals in the finance ministry and the Planning Commission, on the other, who would like to drastically reduce state provision of food, education and healthcare, or replace it with cash transfers, the new neoliberal mantra.
This is a dangerous trend. The UPA was returned to power in 2009 on a promise of inclusive development for the aam aadmi, based on the admission that the normal growth process isn’t raising poor people’s incomes and reducing disparities.
The UPA seems to be unlearning that lesson. Many within it would like to erase the legacy of Left-of-Centre policies underlying the government’s legitimacy. This is a recipe for losing the plot in 2014 and paving the way for a generalised Rightward political shift, with disastrous consequences.
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi. Email: prafulbidwai1 @yahoo.co.in
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