India's Next PM Likely to Be Anointed Because of Deal-Makers, Not Popular Mandate
Ideology is dead. Long live personae. A myth waits to be exploded.
Arrogant leaders will only devour ideologies. Self-proclaimed national
satraps who avoid facing the electorate hide in opulent strategy rooms.
Sons, daughters, sisters, sons-in-law and even cousins will decide poll
strategies and candidates. Manifestos will be written not by party
leaders but by ad agencies and unemployed intellectuals in search of an
identity. Poll 2014 began with the lofty slogan on inclusiveness
combined with decisive leadership. But as the brangle over seizing
winnable seats get uglier, the elections could end up as a fight between
feuding family members and rootless snobs who are determined to destroy
the future of popular leaders and replace them with sycophants, or even
superannuated lickspittle babus. Almost all political outfits—BJP,
Congress and regional parties—are once again placing their confidence in
glamour, networking and pedigree as the criteria to choose candidates.
For
the past three months, BJP’s premier candidate has been spreading his
carbon footprint all over the country, selling his idea of India. He has
never missed an opportunity to unfold his action plan for India’s
growth to make it one of the most prosperous global powers. At all his
70-odd rallies attended by over 30 million people, he spoke about Swaraj
and providing clean candidates. But last week, his party was involved
in turf battles over seat allocations. For even BJP insiders, the
confrontation between the supporters of Murali Manohar Joshi and
Narendra Modi over the Varanasi seat came as a shocker. For almost a
week before the meeting was held in New Delhi, poster wars and verbal
scrimmages had broken out in Varanasi between both factions. Joshi has
won the seat twice with comfortable margins. His performance as the HRD
Minister in the NDA government might have been controversial, but he is
still the BJP’s most acceptable Brahmin face in Uttar Pradesh after Atal
Bihari Vajpayee. The acrimony over Varanasi brings to spotlight BJP’s
dilemma on finding a seat for its PM candidate. Undoubtedly, Modi is the
most popular political leader in the country. His rising acceptability
in large parts of India should make the party confident of his victory
from any seat in the north. But both Modi and BJP feel he should contest
from Uttar Pradesh, and that too from Varanasi. The idea of Modi
standing from Lucknow was dropped because of the considerable number of
minority votes in the constituency. But the fight over Varanasi is an
indication that even PM candidates are looking for safe seats, betraying
faith in their own achievements and capacity to win from any part of
the country. Another BJP leader whose name has always been advertised as
a possible PM candidate appears to be backing out again, along with
other rootless leaders on the plea that they have to manage the polls,
which they unsuccessfully did in 2009 and ensured that the party lost
the election under Advani’s generalship. Moreover, some senior party
leaders have also questioned the wisdom of replacing a senior candidate
with Modi—who could easily win from one of the many other seats in Uttar
Pradesh. If Joshi can be asked to shift to another constituency, why
can’t Modi be asked to fight from any other seat, they ask.
The
saga of an individual becoming more important than an ideology doesn’t
end with Modi alone. The BJP is striking deals with varied leaders with
dubious track records. Ignoring the views of prominent party palatines
in Bihar and Karnataka, the BJP gave Ram Vilas Paswan the saffron
handshake. It legitimised caste chieftains like former Karnataka CM B S
Yeddyurappa only to show that Modi was attracting allies, even those who
face criminal cases and are known party-hoppers. Elsewhere in the
country, BJP hospodars have been engaging the progeny of even picayune
regional political padrones to extend their support for Modi’s legions.
In
the meantime, within the Congress, Rahul has been losing grip over the
selection process. He has been told that individuals are more powerful
than a dynasty’s nationwide allure. The selection of candidates like
Ashok Chavan’s wife proves that the Gandhi cognomen is not powerful
enough for the Congress to ensure the victory of its party candidates.
Rahul has been vocal about dropping tainted candidates but is now left
to accommodate some of the party’s most notorious leaders who could
easily demolish its electoral prospects if not given tickets. His
experiment of choosing 15 candidates through primaries seems to have
backfired because some controversial candidates appear to command much
more grassroots support. The situation is much worse in the household of
Lalu Prasad, who leads the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar. He chose
family members over other clean, acceptable leaders. He promises to
fight Nitish Kumar’s non-performing government only by putting up his
wife and daughter as Lok Sabha candidates from safe seats. In the east,
even Mamata Banerjee, considered to be a down-to-earth leader who
believes in simple living, has fallen victim to the glamour quotient by
sponsoring political novices as candidates. She feels Kollywood
glitterati, sports personalities and novelists are best suited to carry
forward her alternative agenda for good governance. She has been picking
up former corporate lobbyists, journalists and ad honchos to compensate
for the absence of thought leaders. But none of her protégés are known
to have revealed any knowledge about Mamatanomics and Didipolitik.
Most
constituents of the failed Third Front depend more on individuals and
relatives to boost their chances. Mulayam Singh Yadav has never given up
his right to nominate half-a-dozen relatives as SP candidates in the
coming elections. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, India’s most powerful
leaders are looking only for individuals who can add a few votes; track
records be damned. Tragically, India is likely to get a PM whose
anointment was managed through visible and invisible affidations with
individuals and opportunistic parties and not because of a mandate from Maximum India.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
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