As Parties UP the Glam Quotient ...... Power & Politics / The Sunday Standard / March 27, 2016

As Parties Up the Glam Quotient, Ideology May Become Fading Star of Indian Politics

Politics and entertainment have long been brothers—both require a measure of magnetism, a talent for self-promotion and an instinctive feel for media manipulation. No wonder, come election time, the world of politics likes to pull in the stars and the trappings of stardom. Ideological icons fall by the wayside as glamazons from the world of cinema and sports clamber onto political bandwagons for electioneering, and political campaigns morph into entertainment shows. This year promises to be no different. For the elections in five states, even mighty leaders like Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have despatched their best hunters to scout for cine stars and sports icons as well as literati and chatterati who can expand their share of the political market. In situations where the party has no more than a symbolic presence in the region or state, local celebs, who’re au courant with regional politics, have been roped in to move the electorate.

Last week, the BJP announced that it was fielding former cricketer S Sreesanth as its candidate for Thiruvananthapuram. Since Sreesanth has become known more for match-fixing and dancing than for his medium pace bowling, he was banned for life from playing cricket by the BCCI in 2013. But, clearly, the ruling party at the Centre believes that he is still capable of bowling out its rivals in a state where it’s struggling to open an account.

Now, Tamil Nadu has been dominated by screen stars for the past 50 years, as was undivided Andhra Pradesh (with NT Rama Rao, who was as successful in the political arena as he was in cinema, along with Jayaprada, Chiranjeevi, Mohan Babu, Kota Srinivas Rao and, more recently, Pawan Kalyan). In Tamil Nadu, the state’s biggest film stars created political parties for personal ambition rather than ideology. It was easy, as the charisma of MG Ramachandran, Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa easily moved the masses to bring them to power even as many others turned out to be also-rans. Of late, both the Congress and BJP have been struggling to persuade Tamil filmstars like Vijaykanth, who formed the DMDK in 2005, to join them as an ally to increase their political share, but with little success.

In West Bengal and Assam, too, the parties have identified famous persons from sports, art, culture, cinema and society to help them with their electoral mission. The BJP, for instance, has decided to field a member of the Subhas Chandra Bose family against CM Mamata Banerjee. This despite the Bose family having nothing to do with the Sangh Parivar except for the fact that Modi went out of the way to make some secret documents public and hosted the Bose family at 7 RCR.

But then, all political parties without exception have been diluting their declared ideology over the past few decades. The process began with the catapulting of Indira Gandhi to the top in 1969 when she took over the Congress after the first split. The khadi dhoti- and Gandhi cap-wearing leaders were purged and a new crop of people bearing personal loyalty to Indira was drafted into the party. Though the Congress still swore by secularism and Garibi Hatao, Indira was seen as the Congress. Later on, Dev Kant Barooah, the portly and balding party president, redefined the party’s ideology by giving a slogan: Indira is India. Congress leaders of the time insisted that the personality of their leader reflected what the party stood for: socialism, secularism and democracy. Indira Gandhi, for sure, didn’t depend on glamour or corporate leaders to win an election. In fact, the joke at the time was that even a lamp post could win an election if it was backed by her.

It was Rajiv Gandhi who introduced glamour and a corporate culture into the Congress. A natural charmer, he inducted technocrats Arun Singh and Arun Nehru into politics, took India into the 21st century through technology and responsive government, and gave a new twist to Congress’ ideology. But he also relied on glamour from sports and Bollywood. He brought his friend Amitabh Bachchan in to defeat the formidable Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna. Later on, biggies like Rajesh Khanna, Sunil Dutt, Raj Babbar, Govinda and Ramya from Karnataka too came in to fight elections on behalf of the party. The Congress was also the first to field former cricketer Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi as its candidate from Bhopal (but he lost). The trend continues till today, with over a dozen filmstars and sportspersons holding key positions at the Centre or the states.

With Congress using the glam quotient (GQ) to maul its powerful leaders, the BJP also decided to fall back on its fair and lovely supporters. Lal Krishna Advani, a film buff and cricket enthusiast, opened the party doors for both film and sports stars. He brought in Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Khanna, Hema Malini from Bollywood and cricketers Navjot Sidhu, Chetan Chauhan and Kirti Azad for their vote-catching capacity. Now the Modi-Shah duo is taking forward the strategy of using GQ to bolster the party’s electoral chances.

The GQ bug has even hit regional parties like the Trinamool Congress, Biju Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party and, specially, Aam Aadmi Party, which has mastered the art of roping in the maximum number of local and national icons for expanding its base.

With each party fighting to maximise its GQ, the Indian political establishment has the globe’s largest number of movers and shakers from the glamorous world working for it. With over 40 prominent film personalities and some 20 sportspersons, India is leading the world followed by the Philippines and the US. The UK, the mother of democracy, has been able to absorb less than a dozen leaders from non-political background.  In Europe too, political parties rarely rope in film stars or sportspersons to win elections for them as they feel that the shelf life of the bold and beautiful paratroopers is limited.

Back home in India, however, the story is quite different. This despite the fact that, with the exception of some regional parties, the nation has seen all its ‘political celebrities’ vanishing without leaving any trace of an ideological contribution. If this continues and parties fail to create credible, acceptable leaders from their shrinking base of committed cadres, ideologically led Indian politics will be replaced with musings of egoist leaders and ideologically bankrupt-but-highly successful stars from the film and sports arena rather than the real world of the politics of heat and dust.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Assembly Polls will decide ...... Power & Politics / The Sunday Standard/ March 06, 2016

Assembly Polls Will Decide Which Way the Fortune Cookie Crumbles for the Big Five

(From left) Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, J Jayalalithaa, M Karunanadhi and Mamata Banerjee

Opportunism trumps ideology, come election time. The axiom appears to be metamorphosising into a fact in the ongoing countdown for the Assembly elections. During the next few weeks, over 170 million voters in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will vote and elect 824 new leaders. But, even before a single nomination has been filed in any of the states, political parties and their supreme leaders have begun looking for new allies and causes for seeking a legitimate mandate. Since politics is the art of converting symbolic-egotistic impossibility into a remunerative possibility, the leaders are working on a negative agenda, where the others’ defeat is more important than their own victory.

In Tamil Nadu, the Karunanidhi clan wants to dislodge current Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa by forging an alliance with those who have hardly anything in common with the DMK, including caste or religion. In West Bengal, the Reds have gone forth and merged with the tricolour to defeat Mamata Didi. Never before has a formal alliance between the Marxists and Congress taken place in the state just to trounce a ruling political deity. In Kerala, the BJP is out to cohabit with caste-led small parties only to stop both the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic front from grabbing power. The BJP doesn’t and can’t become the ruling party in the state but, in anticipation of a photofinish outcome, it wants to win at least a couple of seats and thereby play kingmaker. In Assam too, the BJP is confident of forming its first legitimately elected government in the Northeast by polarising the entire electorate along regional and communal lines. It has been able to instal a rebel Congress government in Arunanchal Pradesh by breaking it. In Assam too, the BJP has split the Congress by admitting a large number of partymen during the past few months.

A prerequisite to winning the battle for ballots is a meticulous deployment of logical contours and formations. Hence, breaking parties matters more than projecting an alternative leader or an agenda for governance. From Thiruvananthapuram to Guwahati, thus, political parties have unleashed deal-makers to strike visible and invisible deals with caste dons, religious gurus, corporate promoters and local opinion-makers to market their parties. But none of them have put forth even a strategy that’s synchronised with its ideology or leadership for seeking the mandate.

The outcome of the coming elections has serious implications for five individuals: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, DMK chief Karunanidhi, and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. All of them have points to prove. But the stake is especially high for the BJP, which is still battling the dilemma of whether or not to fight the elections in the name of the Prime Minister. Of the 824 Assembly seats, the BJP won less than double digits during the 2011 state elections. Riding on the massive Modi wave, however, the party led over its rivals in 114 Assembly segments in the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Currently, the BJP has the highest number of about 1,000 MLAs in all the states put together; that is some 100 more than the Congress. 

But the BJP doesn’t expect to form the government in any of the states except Assam. It is neither a ruling party nor an influential group in any of these states. After its ignonimous defeat in Delhi and Bihar, Shah and his team need to reverse the downward turn in the electoral fortunes of the party. The beating in the two northern states was seen as a mark of the diminishing appeal of the Prime Minister and the fallibility of Shah as master strategist. 

But the saffron party doesn’t have a single local leader in any one of the four states, much like Bihar and Delhi. In fact, it is confronted with formidable local leaders. Even a 79-year-old chief minister like Tarun Gagoi is giving the BJP a serious fight in Assam after remaining in power for just over a decade. Though the BJP has formally forged an alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad and appointed a new state party chief, it is still depending on the Congress rebels to give it a majority. Buoyed by winning seven of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, the BJP is confident of forming a government on its own. The party led in 79 of the 126 Assembly segments during the Lok Sabha elections although it had won barely five seats in 2011. Its share of popular votes rose tremendously from 11.45  per cent in 2011 to 36.50 per cent in 2014. 

According to party managers, both Modi and Shah have decided to move manpower and resources to Assam and win it at any cost. Though it has indirectly projected Union Minister of State for Sports Sarbananda Sonawal as its chief ministerial candidate against Gogoi, it dreads an unprecedented backlash from the Muslim community, which determines the outcome in about 30 seats. The Muslim-dominated AIUDF won 16 of the minority seats and led in 24 segments in 2014. The Congress party is already trying to strike a strategic alliance with the Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF to defeat the BJP+AGP combination. West Bengal’s case is more dire. There, the BJP is faced with the same threat of polarisation of votes along religious lines to prevent the division of anti-Mamata votes. The party has only one MLA in the current Assembly and has not been able to groom a state-level leader even after leading in 24 Assembly segments. In southern states, the party is conspicuous by its token presence outside the state Assemblies. 

Well, 2016 is not 2014 when Narendra Damodardas Modi was taller than all the other leaders put together. In 2016, he may still be the tallest leader individually, but the BJP has failed to create anyone who can stand up to the likes of Mamata, Jayalalithaa and Nitish Kumar. Going by the early signals, both Mamata and Jayalalithaa are likely to romp home with handsome victories while the Left may stage a comeback in Kerala. For the BJP to prove to the country that the Modi-Shah partnership wasn’t a one-knock wonder, it needs to beat or at least repeat its 2014 Lok Sabha performance in terms of vote share.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Verdict 2014 in Jammu & Kashmir ..... Power & Politics/The Sunday Standard/December 28, 2014

Verdict 2014 in Jammu and Kashmir a Vote for Inclusive Growth Model and a Genuinely Secular State

The art of interpretation, at times, is a jumbled jigsaw when applied to fractured electoral verdicts. Last week, when Jammu and Kashmir got a hung Assembly, India’s semi-psephologists preened on their perches, hawking inane interpretations. Most of them declared it a divided verdict between J&K. Undoubtedly, Jammu voted for the BJP, while the Valley and Ladakh batted for the Mufti-led PDP, Congress and National Conference (NC). But don’t voters of different regions in states like Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh vote for different parties? Isn’t it a fact that Vidarbha and the rest of Maharashtra have been choosing opposing parties in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections? But no neo-liberal columnist or self-anointed social scientist has pronounced such outcomes as divisive.

When it comes to J&K, faux-pundits come out in droves to debase and distort the verdict, conveniently forgetting that it is also a state with three different regions, which vote according to their respective priorities. Jammu had been denying the BJP a majority for the past six decades. The party has never won more than a dozen seats until now. The remaining 22 seats went to the ‘secular’ or regional parties. Even during the 2002 and 2008 Assembly elections, Kashmir voted for regional parties and Jammu primarily for the Congress. But then it wasn’t christened a divided verdict. Because for most Westernised Indians, Kashmir’s democratic process ends at the Valley. For them, only those who win there should form the government and lead it, even if they haven’t captured the majority of votes in the entire state. They assert that the party that seizes the most votes shouldn’t be a part of the ruling dispensation and those which got patchwork verdicts should forge a grand alliance to keep it out. This is not only a dangerous interpretation, but also poses an ominous threat to the principle of democracy.

For the first time, Verdict 2014 in J&K cannot be termed fractured. Around five million residents of J&K voted for an inclusive growth model and a genuinely secular state. In political terms, it is a decisive mandate in favour of restoring its secular character, which was amputated after the mass exodus of persecuted Kashmiri Pundits. Look at the statistics. The BJP won 25 seats with 23 per cent of the votes polled, followed by the PDP, which garnered 28 seats with 22.7 per cent votes. The NC, which ruled the state with the Congress for six years, polled 20.8 per cent votes and bagged just 15 seats as against 28 in 2008. The Congress came fourth, with just 12 seats and a vote share of 18 per cent. The people of J&K used their ballots to defeat the bullets from across the border. The record voter turnout symbolises their faith in India and its instruments of impartial governance.

The message is clear. The country’s most beautiful state can no longer be governed by the perverse ideology of the past. If it has to survive as a unified entity, Jammu has to be an integral part of the government. It is also clear that the special status granted to J&K under Article 370 cannot be used exclusively for the residents of only one part of the state. In addition, the distortions introduced in Article 370, which denies full citizenship to all its residents, have to be corrected. Though PM Narendra Modi removed Article 370 from the party’s election manifesto, his charm and warmth could not melt the heart of the frozen Valley. The party could not win a single seat in either the Valley or Ladakh. Of the 34 BJP candidates who contested from the Valley, 33 lost their deposits. The BJP’s Muslim candidates, however, won in Jammu.

Now, the state needs to move towards full integration with the rest of India. With the development agenda and a stable government, the legislature is expected to remove all the rules and laws that discriminate between one Kashmiri and the other. Since the BJP seems to have given up on annulling Article 370, the state politicians must restore full political empowerment to those who have been denied their right to participate in the Assembly elections, even though they can choose their Lok Sabha candidate. To begin with, the Modi government must undo the damage done in May 1954 by the Nehru government, which clandestinely amended Article 368 to introduce Article 35A which was enforced only in J&K. It was perhaps for the first time that a constitutional amendment was passed through a presidential order and not by Parliament. Article 35A enables the J&K Constituent Assembly to deny citizenship rights to refugees from West Pakistan as well as to other Indians, barring permanent residents of the state. Armed with absolute powers, the Constituent Assembly adopted Section 6, which states that no person who crossed over to the state after May 1944 would be eligible for citizenship. Hence, over two lakh residents psychologically exist in no man’s land.

But what happened in 1990 was much worse. A pogrom was unleashed to change the Valley’s demographic character. Over four lakh Pundits were ejected from their homes to become refugees in their own country and around 300 were slaughtered. Even after 26 years since Holocaust Day, no serious attempt has been made to restore them to their homes. Most surprisingly, those who stage protests over the killings of members of other communities have never sought an enquiry into the worst case of human displacement after Partition. Even a panel appointed by the UPA government, headed by a senior journalist, to suggest a framework to resolve Kashmir’s issues ignored the plight of exiled Kashmiri Pundits. The transition from Kashmiriyat to haiwaniyat (demonisation) during the past 25 years has provided permanent careers to foreign-funded intellectuals. But the mandate of 2014 is a good omen for the state to return to the philosophy of insaniyat (humanity) propounded by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It is a litmus test for Modi, Abdullah and Mufti to follow the Vajpayee doctrine or push the state into a vortex of anarchy, turning it into a playground of blood-thirsty terrorists.

Prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com ; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Kashmiris Biting Bullet ...... Power & Politics/ The Sunday Standard/December 07, 2014

Kashmiris Biting Bullet for Ballot Shows Their Resolve to be Part of India Growth Story

Special is the word t h a t d e s c r i b e s Jammu and Kashmir the best. It is the only state in India that enjoys Special Category status with over 70 per cent of its government expenditure being funded through Central grants. It has its own constitution, and even its own flag. With less than 1 per cent of India’s population, it occupies over 3 per cent of the nation’s geographical area. Encircled by snowy peaks, the land of shimmering lakes, golden chinar forests, dancing streams and the legendary Chenab should be a global destination for tourists looking for peace and paradise. However, despite New Delhi pumping in money like Dal Lake’s water, Kashmir has been converted into a battlefield, where jihadists from across the border and the Indian security forces are engaged in a macabre duel of death.

Last week, the guns were back in the Valley with a vengeance. In less than 12 hours, 22 people, including a Lt Colonel of the army, lost their lives in terrorist attacks. Professional doves saw the Black Friday massacre as an attempt to establish the supremacy of bullets over ballots. But the hawks in the establishment considered it as a growing threat to India’s stability and unity from a brutal force motivated purely by faith. The former would be distressed to learn that statistics show no connection between the spurt in terrorist violence and voter turnout. The people of J&K have broken all previous records by turning out in massive numbers during the last two phases of the polls. But in 2008, too, the turnout had broken records. It means Kashmiris have just been following the national trend of rising voter participation in elections. As they assimilate more into the national mainstream through education, connectivity and aspirations, they don’t wish to be stereotyped as the ones against the democratic process. Since the late 1990s, Kashmiris all over the state have been rejecting boycott calls by separatists. According to records, over 60 per cent of voters participated in choosing their government in 2008—a 17 per cent higher turnout than in 2002. Did it lead to an increase in terror attacks? The numbers tell the story. Of the 34 killed in November 2008 when the elections were held, 29 were terrorists. There were 541 fatalities in the Valley in 2008, of which 382 were jihadists and 90 were from the security forces. During the current state polls, in which voter turnout is expected to cross 70 per cent, 22 persons, including 10 terrorists, have been killed. In the first week of December alone, 21 have fallen to bullets. Significantly, more people were gunned down in August when elections had not yet begun. Sadly, 2014 seems to be the Year of Terror in Kashmir. With three weeks left for the year to close, 185 people have already been shot against 181 last year.

It is becoming quite clear that the revival of terror attacks has nothing to do with the elections. The combined might of the Pakistani establishment and jihadis consider stability in Kashmir as a threat to their unholy mission of spreading tenebrous tentacles throughout India. The conflict has become a war between medievalminded, gun-toting mercenaries and a democratic India. For the past few years, the terrorists have chosen the security forces—a symbol of Indian state power—to create panic in the Valley. Earlier they were striking at will and killing more civilians than securitymen. According to reports, around 15,000 civilians lost their lives as against 6,200 members of the armed forces in J&K since 1988. The maximum number of civilian deaths (1,333) occurred in 1996. This fell to just 20 in 2013. Even the number of security personnel who died in terror action declined from 376 to 61 during the same period. But this year, more army men lost their lives than civilians. It is a sobering thought that despite killing over 23,000 terrorists in the last 25 years, there is no let-up in their resolve to demolish India. It is a matter of record that the maximum number of jihadists killed (2,850) was in 2001 when NDA was ruling the country. The credit for quelling militancy goes to our security forces. If fewer and fewer civilians have fallen to bombs and bullets, it is due to better intelligence inputs and effective use of the military establishment.

Despite the exemplary performance of India’s security forces, numerous NGOs and political leaders have been mounting pressure on the Centre to dilute the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which empowers the Army to deal with jihadis with maximum force. As one officer put it, “Our jawans are getting killed so that civilians can live in peace. Imagine what would happen to unarmed ordinary people if we are locked up in our barracks with our hands tied behind our backs.”

It could be argued that diplomatic pressures and a favourable environment for dialogue have led to diminished tensions on the borders. But that doesn’t explain the rise in unprovoked incursions and open support given by Pakistan’s political leadership to Hafiz Saeed, the prophet of holy war in India. A section of Pakistani civil society has been providing financial and strategic support to India’s enemies while simultaneously demanding dialogue.

Last month, over two dozen wise men from Pakistan and India assembled in Delhi to push India for talks and encourage commercial and cultural exchanges. They hardly mentioned LeT or other terror outfits which are openly working against India’s interests. India and its neo-secular liberals have so far been more than indulgent in ignoring national interests while pleading for jaw-jaw. During the past two decades, ersatz peaceniks have compelled various Indian governments to appoint commissions, special groups and even Union ministers to deal with Kashmir affairs so that separatists and terrorists can run the state with guns and primitive laws. But PM Narendra Modi doesn’t look like a pushover. While Manmohan Singh wanted to create dubious history by converting the LoC into international territory, Modi is determined to hoist the saffron flag at Lal Chowk and chant Vande Matram in the J&K Assembly. The Valley may witness more blood spilling in the weeks to come, but the growing faith of Kashmiris in the Indian state is encouraging them to walk through the torrent of bullets to reach for ballots to become an equal partner in the unity and growth of the nation.

 prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Modi will Create History .......Power & Politics /The Sunday Standard/ November 09, 2014

Modi Will Create History if he Succeeds in Making People of Uttar Pradesh Accept a Gujju as Saviour

Poverty is often the petri dish of power. Uttar Pradesh is one of India’s most deprived states, but politically, the most powerful. Every seventh Lok Sabha MP is from there. Before Narendra Modi became the PM, eight of India’s 13 PMs were from UP. Since Independence, they have collectively ruled the nation for 47 years. For Modi, the ninth PM to be elected from UP, the state’s political numerology is significant. Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the BJP’s first PM, because one-third of BJP Lok Sabha members came from UP. In 2014, the party won a record number 0f 71 seats. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first PM, and Modi, the present PM, are both from the state. Other PMs who were launched in UP were Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh, Chandrasekhar and Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

Last week, various parties and leaders, including Modi, initiated moves aimed at acquiring dominance over UP. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, fearing the total decimation of his outfit, decided to bring the ossified Janata Parivar factions together, hoping that it would keep their traditional vote bank intact. The RSS has also scaled up its activities in UP, with its top leadership spending more time in the state, deploying additional forces to consolidate its base and capture new pastures. Last week, the PM chose to stay overnight in his constituency, Varanasi, as part of an unfolding plan to consolidate his grip over the state. He chose to represent the holy city because it is a symbol of Hindu heritage and one of the most sacred of Gangetic destinations. Aware of the fact that he is the first non-UP leader to become the PM after getting a handsome mandate from Varanasi’s voters, Modi has decided to return the favour. He doesn’t belong to any of its dominant castes such as Brahmins, Thakurs and upper caste Kayasthas like Shastri, but it hasn’t stopped Modi from getting the new Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar (who is likely to be elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh within 24 hours of his swearing-in). This reflects his intention to raise the level of UP’s participation in his Cabinet. It is for the first time that the PM, the home minister and the defence minister, all represent Uttar Pradesh in Parliament. Though both Modi and Parrikar aren’t from UP, along with Rajnath Singh, they make a formidable troika that can demolish all hostile political combinations. 

With the induction of Parrikar and other ministers, UP will have the maximum representation in the Central government—Uma Bharti, Kalraj Mishra, Maneka Gandhi, Santosh Gangwar, Gen. V K Singh and Sanjeev Kumar Balyan. Previously, such a situation had happened only during Morarji Desai’s reign, during which he inducted four Cabinet ministers from UP, including Chaudhury Charan Singh as the home minister. Rajiv Gandhi ensured that powerful leaders like Narain Dutt Tiwari, V P Singh, K C Pant and Mohsina Kidwai were given prominent positions. Barring G B Pant, who was India’s first Home Minister from UP (then the United Provinces), it was only Charan Singh who held the honour. Additionally, for the first time, three of the five members of the all-powerful Cabinet Committee on Security represent Uttar Pradesh. It is not just a coincidence that they enjoy the full confidence of the RSS leadership. Although Modi has his eyes fixed on Bihar and UP since almost half the Lok Sabha seats the party won are from these two states, it is the only in UP where his twin mantra of Hindutva and development can deliver handsome dividends. On the face of it, UP is caste-ridden, communally polarised and is bereft of any national leader. But for a large number of aspirational UP-ites, Modi has projected himself as the messiah of modernisation, a liberal Hindu and a leader with nationwide appeal.

If the future contours and content of BJP’s Operation UP is an indication, Modi would be spending about 20 days every year in the state. He has already established a full-fledged office equipped with state-of-the-art technology to monitor not only Varanasi but also the entire state. A special cell is to be set up in the PMO under a senior officer who would keep a real time watch on all developments in Uttar Pradesh. But Modi’s trump card appears to be the Ganga. By putting Uma Bharti, a Ganga devotee, in charge of the river rejuvenation project, he expects to influence the voters of 45 Lok Sabha seats and of over 200 Assembly seats situated along and around Ganga’s path. UP is the only state in which the RSS, the Union government and the state BJP work in perfect coordination. While RSS workers identify relevant issues at the ground level and present their wish list to their leadership, the state unit of the BJP forwards it to Om Mathur, the Central leader in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

It was Amit Shah who chose Mathur, who had assisted him in the Gujarat and Maharashtra Assembly elections for the job. He is supported by a few trusted political aides from Gujarat and other states. In addition, all the infrastructure ministries have been instructed to pay special attention to pending projects in UP, give them the extra push to take off, and also pump in generous funds. Both Bharti and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari have done a detailed study of various water- and road-related issues and will be spending their maximum time in the state. Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu has been pushing for the development of the maximum number of smart cities in UP. If Gujarat was the laboratory for the Hindutva experiment, Modi is turning Uttar Pradesh into an exhibition venue to showcase his development agenda, while retaining Hindutva as the core ingredient. His plan is to restore the state’s national status it had lost in the churning of regional politics. Team Modi is now marketing the PM in the state as a leader who would replace titans like Nehru, Indira and Vajpayee. Modi will create political history again if he succeeds in making the Hindi-speaking and god-fearing UP bhaiyyas accept a Gujju as their saviour.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Congress turns negative into positive.. Power and Politics/ The Sunday Standard/ December 23, 2012

Congress turns negative into positive, but BJP faces a peril of its own making

In 2012, the Congress has followed Fuller faithfully. Meanwhile, the BJP ignored this well-tested prophesy to its detriment. If the electoral verdicts of 2012 are any indication, it is the Congress that anticipated the prevailing public anger, while the BJP failed to read the writing on the wall. Despite scams, lack of leadership, ideological confusion, an ineffective central administration and assertive allies, the Congress gained electorally while the BJP failed to even retain what it had earlier. The saffron party’s third consecutive victory under Narendra Modi’s leadership in Gujarat is hardly a consolation for its slide in other parts of India. The BJP lost both Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, where it had ruled for five years. It polled fewer votes and won less seats in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Assam. The BJP had a total of 276 MLAs combined in the seven states of Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, which went to the hustings in 2012; its tally fell to 252 while that of the Congress rose from 215 to 254.  The ignominious defeat in Assam and Himachal Pradesh exposed the hollowness of its overrated election strategists. It also proved the larger point that only strong leaders like Modi and Virbhadra Singh can win elections, and not paratroopers from Delhi or elsewhere. One cannot ignore the stark reality that the Congress has more chief ministers than the BJP at the end of this year than at its beginning. Earlier, it snatched Kerala from the Left. Meanwhile, the saffron party took pride in winning in various municipal elections.

2012 has been a Year of Consolation for the Congress and despair for the entire Opposition. The BJP may have many prime ministerial aspirants who expect the people to vote out the Congress, but it is the Congress, with just a Gandhi as its potential prime minister, that is laughing all the way to the votebank. As the BJP underplayed Modi’s victory, middle-level Congress leaders took pride in the fact that in Gujarat, the party won whereever Rahul campaigned during his whistle-stop forays. The Congress has been able to successfully exploit both the BJP’s ideological isolation and the insufferable arrogance of its top leadership. For the past 10 months, the Congress not only encouraged but also fuelled the battle for prime ministership within the BJP. Its camp followers ensured that Modi remained the factual point of deliberations not only within the BJP but also in the media. He has become the new political narrative around which the nation has been polarised. Consequently, the BJP leadership walked into the trap and started demolishing not only each other but also the organisation in various states. The battle of Assam was lost not because the party was careless, but because its Central leadership was fighting over the control of funds and publicity. Uttar Pradesh proved to be a disaster because its feuding Central leaders were promoting their own groups. A classic case is the BJP’s humiliating defeat in Himachal Pradesh, where the father-son duo of chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and Anurag Thakur became puppets in the hands of a Central leader and his haywire strategy. They committed the cardinal error of targeting Virbhadra personally, rather than focusing on their genuine achievements. While Modi made his a fight between development and the Congress, the BJP strategist converted the Himachal battle into one between Dhumal and Virbhadra. The Raja of Theog won.

Yet, the BJP refuses to learn lessons from its slide. A bigger challenge lies ahead in 2013. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi are going to the polls. Unless the RSS decides to purge the top leadership of the party, the saffron shadow over India’s political map is going to shrink further. With powerless and rootless Central leaders deciding the fate of the state’s popular leaders, Karnataka is likely to slip out of the BJP’s hands, signalling the end of its short-lived control over a southern state. According to an opinion poll, the BJP’s tally is likely to slip to under 50 as against over 115 now. In Rajasthan, where its chances are bright, a coterie of insecure Central leaders have ensured that its former chief minister not be given favourable treatment. It is only in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where both Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh have carved out their own invincible niches, that cult-hungry Central leaders has been forced to keep their hands off. In Delhi, the condition is pathetic. Its fat cats dictate and decide the future of others. According to one party functionary, the BJP doesn’t even have candidates for 23 of the 70 Assembly constituencies. An 80-year-old leads, because his supporters stop grassroots workers from coming up.



On the other hand, the Congress, under its 76-year-old chief minister, is already in election mode. Its poll strategy and administrative plans are well in place.Even at the Central level, the Congress has mapped out the dangers ahead in Andhra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, since these states will set the mood for the 2014 elections. While the Congress appears to be battle-ready, it is the BJP that has already assumed that power is waiting to be plucked. It has neither noticed the troubled spots nor remembers that it is still an opposition party not on a roll. A party with a positive perception is performing pathetically against the Congress, which suffers from negative perception. Without a purge at the top level, peril stares the BJP in the face in 2013.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabwhuChawla

The Real Contest .... Power & Politics/ The Sunday Standard/ December 16, 2012

The real contest in Gujarat is Modi vs Modi, and nobody else matters

In the age of minute-by-minute verdicts on every subject, from potatoes to politics, logical analysis is the loser. Media pundits as well as industry icons have become experts in delivering instant judgments even on complex issues like elections. The Battle for Gujarat is a classic case in which those whose connection with the state is as tenuous as that of casual visitors or political tourists are delivering verdicts on the outcome. I must confess that I am one of the many who visited Gujarat last week looking for fresh facts and unknown trends.

Surprisingly, there is unanimity about the outcome. The only conflicts are either on the margin of victory or the reasons for Narendra Modi’s third consecutive triumph—a record for any BJP chief minister—if he makes it. After a couple of days in Gujarat, I returned to New Delhi a contrarian. It is not a fight between the BJP and Congress. Nor is it between Modi and the Congress. Giving it the tag of Modi vs Rahul or Sonia sounds glamorous, but it is an imaginary description, as none of them would replace Modi. It is not a battle between developmental reality and mythical opposition either. No doubt, Modi is Gujarat’s most effective and successful chief minister ever. But his personal gain has been at the cost of the organisation and a split in the Sangh Parivar.

It’s a war between Modi and Modi. Others are just symbolic opponents. Chief Minister Narendra Modi is involved in a fierce battle with Narendra Modi the individual. The Modi model of governance is his asset, but arrogance is his most formidable foe. There is no BJP on the ground in Gujarat. It has a symbolic presence in the form of an office and a formal institutional framework. Contrary to public perception, it is Modi who strategises his own politics and election agenda. He does invite and hire some from outside for help in press conferences, writing media statements, putting up billboards and interacting with English-speaking opinion-moulders from New Delhi, Mumbai and New York. The collapse of the BJP as an organisation in Gujarat has been steeper than the rise of Modi as an institution. As he became inaccessible to the cadres and easily accessible to the monarchs from Mumbai, Modi’s connectivity with his core constituents has drastically thinned.

For Modi, it is the number of visitors from abroad and New Delhi that reflects his acceptability as a leader and not meetings with his own MLAs and officebearers. In the past five years, many senior leaders—including two former chief ministers and half-a-dozen former ministers—quit the party because of Modi’s assertive personality. Undoubtedly, the BJP cadres take pride in the performance of their chief minister, but are also seriously concerned about the erosion of their  organisational base. Modi has kept both the VHP and RSS at arm’s length as he feels that they interfere too much but they have been providing footsoldiers and ensuring mobilisation of voters. Modi rarely talks about Vajpayee, Deen Dayal Upadhyay or any other BJP stalwart. His innovative 3D campaign has minimised the visibility of other leaders in the six-week-old campaign. Party workers are symbolically but not emotionally involved. Perhaps it was to offset the lack of enthusiasm within his own cadres that Modi admitted former Congress leader Narhari Amin and others into the BJP fold, and shared the platform with the not-so-successful cricketer Irfan Pathan. It reflected Modi’s lack of confidence in his own charisma.

Taking a leaf out of Indira Gandhi’s book,  Modi has made the party irrelevant. He has rallied the fence-sitters and ideologically neutral middle class behind him. By shifting his goalposts, he has left his detractors high and dry. When they found that his development agenda was selling, they started finding fault with his achievements. Suddenly, a couple of economists-turned-columnists started questioning Modi’s claims on every economic indicator. Others went to the extent of blaming him for the state’s backwardness because he failed to encourage teaching English in the state, as if Gujarati is a language of the backwards and the illiterate. Such ridiculous faultfinding has compensated Modi for the loss of cadre support. He is the only BJP leader to survive organisational isolation, being one of three who were sent to their respective states in 2001 to become chief ministers. The other two were Vasundhara Raje Scindia and Uma Bharti. The trio led the BJP to impressive victories. But Uma and Vasundhara couldn’t survive the hostility of the party leadership in Delhi and the Sangh Parivar’s in their states and have been marginalised. Modi learned his lessons and never allowed the party to dominate him.

Modi is omnipresent while others are conspicuous by their absence. Modi has quietly forgotten the skills of weaving an organisation together, which he learned as a full-time RSS pracharak. He hardly ever holds regular meetings with district-level coordination panels where representatives from all Sangh Parivar organisations are present. He is hardly on speaking terms with most top functionaries of the RSS and VHP. He is feared, but hardly respected in his own party. On the other hand, he is revered and admired by those who called him names soon after the 2002 carnage. Even the politically correct auto tycoon Anand Mahindra speculated positively about Modi’s—not the BJP’s—victory in Gujarat. Other industrialists like Ratan Tata don’t find it embarrassing now to get photographed with Modi. Even foreign diplomats who earlier led a cacophony of hatred against Modi have made it a point to make pilgrimages to Ahmedabad.

In 2002, Modi was the messiah of Sangh Parivar. In 2012, he is the Darling of the Dollaratis for whom quick returns on investment and land allotments are the most acceptable indicators of a leader’s success. They smell a future prime minister. But his metamorphosis from a hardcore right-wing Hindu leader to a nationalist secular leader depends on acceptability within his own Parivar. Neither his passion for hard work nor his victory has ever been in doubt. But if Modi wants to play an important national role, he has to set his own house in order. With his political enemies totally mauled, it is time for Modi to lead others, not himself alone. Only then can he replace Vajpayee, who became a national icon despite the Sangh Parivar’s meddling. If Modi doesn’t follow the patriarch’s example, the detractors in his own party will keep him caged in Ahmedabad as he is only Narendrabhai, not Atalji.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Race Course Road/The Sunday Standard/May 05, 2011

Lucknow speechfest showcases lost BJP

All political parties, except the BJP, have chosen their slogans and fixed their agendas for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. As Mayawati wooed farmers and Mulayam Singh Yadav held district-level agitations, the BJP leadership descended 0n Lucknow for a speechfest on national issues. Both print and electronic media mostly ignored them as Baba Ramdev monopolised mindspace and media space. The BJP did political yoga beside the Gomti River on the Ram Temple issue, forgetting that its leaders consider it an issue of political convenience and not ideological conviction. The party has failed dismally in reviving itself in a state it had once ruled—59 MPs from Uttar Pradesh supporting the NDA government. It is now left with 10 MPs and fewer than 50 MLAs in the state. After much haggling, BJP President Nitin Gadkari appointed Kalraj Mishra as the chairman of the Campaign Committee. He is depending on a survey conducted by a novice psephologist whose poll predictions on Assam went haywire. A collective BJP leadership in the state is needed, comprising Rajputs, Brahmins, backward castes and Dalits to counter the upper caste-dominated Congress, the Dalit-led BSP and the Muslim-Yadav combination in the Samajawadi Party. The BJP’s local cadres favour Rajnath Singh, Mishra, Uma Bharti and Swami Chinmayanand. The youth want Varun Gandhi in the team. But the cabal at 11 Ashoka Road sneer at local leaders; a Bhumihar—a community that hardly matters in the poll calculus—has been made UP state president. Most central leaders are blocking Bharti’s comeback, fearing a challenge to their clout in Delhi. Varun is considered immature and acerbic; his rising popularity has become his major liability. It is tragic that both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani—who created BJP’s GenNext after nurturing it for 60 years—are forced to watch helplessly as the inheritors not only destroy themselves, but also the party.

Mamata Clones PMO in Bengal

Mamata Banerjee may not have enough experience to run a big state like West Bengal, but she believes that the size and aura of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) will do it for her. According to the Writers’ Building grapevine, Banerjee has ordered the creation of the most powerful CMO the state has ever seen. Since she is suspicious of most West Bengal cadre IAS officers, a senior Railway Ministry official will manage the CMO. Besides her principal secretary, it will have over a dozen other secretaries and joint secretaries, most of them from the railways and the Trinamool. She seeks to replicate the structure of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). In the PMO, various officials are assigned to monitor specific ministries. PMO officials vet specific proposals which are then sent back to the concerned ministers after the prime minister’s approval. Banerjee is determined to replicate the same in her own state. If she succeeds, all her ministers and their decisions will be monitored by the CMO. Didi has already received the personal details of over 100 aspirants. Instead of using the state intelligence machinery to check their antecedents, she has drafted her political aides for a thorough investigation of each one of them. Banerjee is still relying on instinct and style.

Singh Goes by Seniority

The crises-plagued UPA government is caught in a bureaucratic logjam, unable to formulate a policy to fill vacant secretarial positions. Interestingly, it made two appointments after Finance Secretary Sushma Nath retired last week. Since Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was busy with crisis management and the West Bengal elections, and no reshuffle in his ministry could be done without consulting him, the prime minister found a simple and temporary solution. Revenue Secretary Sunil Mitra, a West Bengal cadre officer, has been made finance secretary though he retires by month end. Similarly, when Sudhir Chandra, chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, retired on May 31, Prakash Chandra, who will be retiring by August has replaced him. Following the expenditure secretary position falling vacant, Disinvestment Secretary Sumit Bose was moved to North Block and given a double job. It is clear that Pranabda hasn’t been able to get hold of dependable civil servants yet. So, he followed the golden rule—when in doubt just follow seniority—which keeps everyone happy. Even the prime minister did the same thing last month when he chose the senior-most civil servant Ajit Seth as cabinet secretary.

Seth Warms up With Baba Crisis

While the media focused only on the four Cabinet ministers led by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekar when they visited the airport to meet Baba Ramdev, incoming cabinet secretary Ajit Seth and Alka Sirohi, secretary, Department of Personnel escaped notice. The presence of Seth was significant. Since he is hardly ever seen in public or noticed attending important government meetings, none noted his presence or his role. Seth is currently an Officer on Special Duty and will take over from Chandrasekhar who retires on June 16. The prime minister felt it would be a great beginning for the new chief of the bureaucracy to be involved in the resolution of a complex political crisis. Seth—who hasn’t handled any sensitive assignment in his 35-year career—must have learned some important lessons in how to change positions while dealing with difficult situations in his two-and-a-half hour encounter with Baba Ramdev.

Power & Politics/The Sunday Standard Magazine/May 08, 2011

Congress Senses Victory, but That Could Be The Easy Part

When Home Minister P Chidambaram quite confidently told me “Let us wait for May 13,” the day when the counting of votes for the five Assembly elections takes place, he sounded quite confident about the verdict. It wasn’t just an off-the-cuff remark. It came from a home minister who thinks twice before speaking even once. He was predicting a clean sweep for the Congress.
After an hour-long interview — the first given to a media organisation since the election process began — Chidambaram defined the contours of post-election politics. As the home minister, he has access to umpteen sources, known and unknown, as well as credible and discredited sources of information. He was also one of the star campaigners for his party in most pollbound states. From his body language, it was evident that he felt the civil society movement against corruption, coupled with the detention of former ministers and Congressmen, wouldn’t affect the party’s credibility with the masses. Though he didn’t elaborate, it was obvious that the Congress was expecting a surge to power in the company of its allies in West Bengal, Assam, Puducherry and Kerala but perhaps not Tamil Nadu. An opinion poll, however, conducted by a TV channel predicted a victory for the DMK alliance and further boosted the UPA’s morale. A Congress win in four states will not only change the tone and tenor of the political discourse in the country, but will also make the party much more arrogant and intolerant as both an ally and an adversary.

Chidambaram’s confidence was reflected later in the aggressive posturing of Congress leaders against PAC chairman Murali Manohar Joshi. For the past few weeks, the Congress party has been on the offensive against its opponents in every part of the country. Over half-adozen cabinet ministers led by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal and Communications Minister Kapil Sibal have not missed a single opportunity to take their adversaries head-on. Even the discreet Vayalar Ravi, the Union Civil Aviation Minister and former trade union leader, decided to teach agitating Indian Airlines pilots the lesson of a lifetime, ignoring a possible adverse impact on the party’s electoral prospects.

The Congress is betting on regaining its lost moral authority once the state elections results come in. For the past one year, the UPA has been at the receiving end of national and Opposition disapproval. Many of its leaders, including a chief minister, lost their jobs over corruption charges. Due to a concerted Opposition attack, even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s credibility was eroded. Sensing the public mood, the Congress High Command didn’t involve him in electioneering. But the UPA is confident that happy days will be back again. Waiting to be armed with a popular mandate, the party is gearing up to tackle its opponents from its newly acquired moral high ground.

On the other hand, all the opposition parties have suddenly lost their bite and shine. The BJP mumbles half-heartedly about forming an AGP-BJP government in Assam. The CPI(M) is demoralised at the prospect of losing both West Bengal and Kerala to the Congress and its allies. If it happens, the Left would be left with only tiny Tripura in its kitty for the first time in three decades. The Congress party’s buoyant mood stems from the massive turnout of voters in all the five states. Moreover, the Election Commission was able to contain the misuse of money and state power in all the states. It is for the first time in three decades that the Congress didn’t complain about rigging in the West Bengal elections. With a voter turnout of over 80 per cent — the highest ever since Independence — the party expects the Reds to be reduced to less than 50 seats in West Bengal.
The looming poll verdicts are significant in more than one way. Even if the Congress wins all, its dependence on regional parties for survival at the Centre and ensuring good governance will become much more precarious. The UPA is already a minority government that has survived only thanks to outside support from other parties. With Mamata Banerjee as the chief minister in West Bengal and J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu, the UPA government may face a powerful duo who could dictate the national agenda. Even a demoralised DMK may assert itself and demand its pound of flesh. If all of UPA’s allies come together on a common platform, they can make life much more difficult for the prime minister than what he has been facing before the states went to the ballot box.

A visibly victorious Congress may in reality be a helpless one while persuading its allies to push through Parliament various legislations such as labour reform, the Land Acquisition Act, Foreign Direct Investment in retail, the entry of Foreign Universities and environmental issues. Most allies are disinclined to support the Congress on many of the proposed economic reforms. For the Congress, the biggest headache would be to bring all its allies on board to get its nominee elected as the next president of India. The outcome of the Assembly polls will change the complexion of the Electoral College, which is slated to elect the new president in July 2012.

In 2007, the Congress managed to get Pratibha Patil elected only because of the support it got from the Left that had over 60 MPs and controlled two big states. Now the Congress will have to talk to many more parties in order to reach the magic majority number not only in Parliament but also in all the states. The Congress rules only in 12 of the 28 states and seven Union Territories. Having less than a third of the voting strength needed to secure the presidential election, the party will have to walk that extra mile to persuade others to support its candidate. After all, a president neutral or hostile to the Congress will be a cause of discomfiture to a party that will seek to retain its post-election halo. As the 2014 election countdown begins, the Congress will need all the lights on in Rashtrapati Bhavan if it wants to shine.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com

Power & Politics / The Sunday Standard Magazine/May 01, 2011

National parties wither away as ideology dies

It’s final now. Ideology is dead.

Long live those individuals who have killed their own ideologies.

An analysis of the recently held Assembly elections in four states and one Union Territory has conclusively proved that all political parties have been taken over by a few individuals whose familiarity with ideology is either coincidental or historical. Yet another powerful message coming out of these elections is the marginalisation of all national parties and the elimination of their local leadership in the states. While hardcore workers were made to feel the heat and dust of campaigning, their leaders fought from the air-conditioned comfort of their vehicles, well stocked with cushions, bottles of cool mineral water and hygienically packed food.

The tone and theme for the electoral battles in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry were decided by individuals who had one thing in common— their social and corporate companions. This was most evident in West Bengal where well-spoken and well-heeled former bureaucrats and corporate retainers joined Mission Mamata to provide a pro-poor government. Didi and her brigade marketed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) as a Left-liberal alternative to the dogmatic and authoritative Left Front Government. But the election campaign of the TMC was bright with the United Colours of Corporate India; its well-paid retainers seen in the forefront of leading the Install-Mamata-at-Writer’s- Building movement. Even Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee expressed his regret over the Singur fiasco and swore not to repeat it. But both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi chose the Left Government as a target for their scathing attacks instead of talking about an alternative agenda for the state.

The less said about the BJP leadership the better, as its only objective was to offer its visiting leaders from other states a platform to address the chatterati in Kolkata’s exclusive clubs or brief the media selectively to get TV ratings. The party neither had an ideology nor an individual leadership to offer in a state in which it had put up 160 candidates as against 65 of the Congress. Obviously, once the election results are out, the BJP leadership is certain to claim a sizeable increase in its vote share as a sign of growing popularity, even if it fails to open a single account in West Bengal.

The central BJP leadership’s target wasn’t the CPI(M), but its ideological nemesis Mamata who poses no threat to the BJP in any other part of the country. The BJP has miserably failed to produce any local leaders in Tamil Nadu and Kerala where Sushma Swaraj drew more crowds than its local satraps.

From Kolkata in West Bengal to Kochi in Kerala and Dibrugarh in Assam to Dindigul in Tamil Nadu, the BJP’s frequent fliers from Delhi and elsewhere were chose to launch personal attacks and harp on the failures of others.

The competition between various political parties and their leaders was not for getting more votes but for grabbing more media space and power symbols like chartered planes and helicopters. The joke doing the rounds in BJP circles in Assam and West Bengal is that helicopters were reserved only for only 3Gs—leaders of the Opposition Arun Jaitley and Swaraj, and Party President Nitin Gadkari.

Other netas, including local ones, were asked to use ordinary transport.

State-level BJP leaders were perhaps considered a liability as none of them could attract either votes or media attention.

The situation in the Congress party was equally ridiculous. All its star campaigners were leaders from Delhi who got more prominence than local workers and leaders who were given charge of mobilising voters. Any central leader, while attacking the Opposition, did not take their inputs into account. For example, when AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi questioned the ability of the CPI(M)’s ageing leadership to run a state, the Kerala chief minister hit back by calling him an “Amul Baby”. Though the fight was clearly between incumbent governments and their hopeful successors, poll campaigns were mostly led and decided by those who were not native to each state.

In Tamil Nadu, the Congress had no homegrown leader to take on the AIADMK’s mighty Amma. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the number of seats the Congress eventually wins turns out to be less than the number of factions the party was divided into. The humiliation of local Congress leaders was evident with most not even allowed to share the platform with Chief Minister Karunanidhi who extended that privilege only to Sonia and Manmohan. Ditto for West Bengal, where various Congress leaders were more concerned with defeating the candidates of factions opposed to them. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee showed local Congress leaders their place by sharing the platform only with Sonia, Manmohan and Pranab Mukherjee. Her conduct reflected the further erosion of the Congress clout in almost all of India’s important states. In many big states, allies dictate and lead the Congress’s agenda. Barring Andhra Pradesh, it doesn’t have a single major state in which it can return to power without an ally’s help.

Both the Congress and the BJP may be losing their national legitimacy.

Both have national leaders without a popular base in any state. Those who are popular in their own states are dismissed as regional leaders without national appeal. Both parties are likely to claim victory soon after the verdict is out in May. The Congress is confident of winning four of the five Assembly elections. The BJP will claim a massive increase in its share of popular votes. Even if all this turns out to be true, both the national parties will be at the mercy of local nabobs who are short on vision and big on ego. In the end, it is quite likely that the amount of money spent on the peregrinations of any political leader will more much more than the votes garnered by them. prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com