Nitish's ATOM Politics May Well Set Contours of Confrontation for the Next Election
The road to good intentions is paved with hellfire. Any foolproof
planning in Indian politics missing a clear roadmap promises more
chances of failure than fortune. Slogans can ignite riots but cannot
deliver victory in war. Without even waiting for the outcome of the
recent Assembly polls, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has announced his vision
and mission with sass and sauce. PM Narendra Modi wants a Congress Mukt
(Congress-free) India, but Nitish has blown the bugle for all non-BJP
parties to gather under his banner to establish a Sangh Mukt Bharat
(RSS-free Bharat) to save the democracy.
Nitish began his first
stint as the JD(U) chief with the ideological intention to polarise the
two national parties along political groupings. His clarion cry appears
to have united all non-BJP parties to oust Modi in 2019. But both his
admirers and detractors are baffled about this hurry in going public. Is
he convinced that Modi is losing charisma and acceptability faster than
anyone expected? But Nitish’s moves clearly reveal that he has declared
war on the Saffron Parivar. He has projected himself as the only
credible alternative to Modi. His promoters are convinced that he is as
clean as the PM. They feel his Vikas Purush tag is equally convincing if
not more than Modi’s.
Since Nitish has the advantage of rallying
the minorities behind him and attracting a load of liberal and secular
middle class votes, they have decided to demolish the PM’s core
credentials. He had venomously said, “Management is more important than
event management.” It is evident that Nitish has drawn up his field
guide well and formulated a strategy for a long-drawn-out battle. He had
made an attempt to forge a Bihar-type Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance)
in Assam, but failed after the Congress refused to surrender its space.
The
timing and tone, however, of the Bihar CM’s declaration are
interesting. He, along with RJD chief Lalu Prasad, sprang a surprise by
stopping the Modi juggernaut in the state by scoring a decisive victory
over the BJP in 2015. While the BJP’s defeat raised questions over its
invincibility and Modi’s popularity, it also emboldened Nitish to extend
the Bihar experiment to other parts of the country. He is aware of the
ground reality that almost all the non-BJP parties, including the Left,
are feeling insecure under Modi’s dispensation. The Congress dreads the
lethal use of government apparatus to not only topple its governments in
smaller states, but also to dig up dirty pasts of many of its senior
leaders and former and current CMs. To add fuel to the fire, the Modi
government is moving at bullet train speed to dismantle all the
institutions controlled by the Left and anti-RSS elements.
In
reality, Modi’s direct confrontation with non-BJP parties, including
some of its regional allies, is creating a favourable environment for
the creation of a political alternative. Historically, credible
substitutes have emerged against powerful personalities and their
actions, which their opponents projected as a threat to democracy.
Nitish’s plan is to portray Modi as an intolerant and arrogant leader,
who along with the RSS, his ideological mentor, poses a serious threat
to the nation’s unity and secular character. In 1977, Jaiprakash Narayan
brought all non-Congress parties together to oust Indira Gandhi after
she imposed the Emergency and suspended fundamentals rights.
Parties,
from the north to the south, sacrificed their partisan interests with
the singular aim of defeating the Congress and demolishing Indira’s
leviathan leadership. The experiment lasted for less than 30 months, as
the elements, which came together to challenge her, started to squabble.
The first ever anti-Congress initiative died an untimely death with
Indira’s triumphant return to power in 1980.
For the next nine
years, the Congress once again acquired total control over national
politics. It won most of the state polls in 1980 and later harvested a
record number of over 400 seats in the Lok Sabha after Indira Gandhi’s
assassination. Rajiv Gandhi was seen as an agent of change for a better
India. But his charm faded even earlier than his promoters expected.
Once again, corruption emerged as the ubiquitous glue to bring all the
non-Congress parties, from the CPI(M) to the BJP, occupy a single
platform to remove Rajiv and his coterie. There was a difference though.
Unlike 1977 when the Janata Party plunged into the electoral battle
without a PM candidate, the Opposition fought the 1989 election under
the leadership of Congress rebel V P Singh who enjoyed a reputation for
impeccable integrity. Their motto: defeat Rajiv, who was leading a
corrupt government.
For the next decade, Central governments were
formed on the basis of opportunistic alliances in which individuals, not
ideology, played a decisive role. But Modi changed the rules of the
political battle. Soon after winning the Gujarat elections in 2012, he
planned his move in advance to take over 7 Race Course. He tried to
bring smaller parties together, with the weak Manmohan Singh—who was
protecting and leading a corrupt government—as his target. It was for
the first time that a Lok Sabha election was turned into a Presidential
election by another name, in which Team Modi converted the war into a
struggle between the indomitable, clean development man Modi versus
Manmohan. Modi won without even a symbolic fight.
Today Nitish
wants to convert the next Lok Sabha election into a conflict between two
individuals backed by distinctive ideologies. He tried to lead the
anti-BJP coalition when he left the NDA in 2013. It failed to take off.
Even now, his resolve to forge an ATOM (alternative to Modi) has run
into hurdles posed by leaders like Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav, a
section of the Congress and other regional leaders. At the moment,
Nitish enjoys the full backing of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and West
Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. But they can also put spanners in his works
in progress, and both are unacceptable to the Congress. Moreover, the
Congress wouldn’t like anyone to give the impression that it has
accepted Nitish over Rahul to lead the anti-Modi campaign. Rahul has the
advantage over Nitish since his party and family are still a draw
across the country. Nitish, however, has defined the contours of
confrontation for the next election. The Opposition not only wishes Modi
would lose his sheen, but also expects 900 million voters to give a
chance to another individual, ignoring the absence of an ideological
identity. For now, however, it is an uneven battle between the
omnipresent Modi, the vaguely visible Nitish and the occasionally
visible Rahul Gandhi.
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