Alliance route

THE three important political formations in the country the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and the non-Congress, non-BJP formation led by the Left parties may differ on policies and political projections but are bound to agree on one assessment about the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. That is, the most important winning factor is going to be the skill to sew up and retain alliances at the regional and national levels.

Consequently, every day since the March 3 announcement of the polling schedule by the Election Commission has been marked by frenetic discussions. While the NDA has gone ahead with its time-tested policy of having a nationwide alliance with the BJP as the leader, the Congress has refused to accept the demand of smaller parties in the UPA, such as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), for a nationwide alliance and is focussing on regional alliances.

The Left parties are also following a similar strategy with regional forces such as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

Qualitatively, the atmosphere is markedly different from earlier general elections, including the last round in 2004. In that election too, the battle was between two alliances the NDA and a Congress-led alliance, which was yet to acquire the shape and structure of the present UPA but the open acceptance of alliance as the central theme of electioneering had not developed to the current level.

The NDA, in spite of having a fairly consistent alliance, had pitched its campaign essentially on two planks, India Shining and the sagacious leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the NDAs Prime Minister. The Opposition Congress and the Left parties sought to expose these claims hollow. The emotional quotient in the campaign was indeed high. This time around, however, it seems to be very low, at least in the early stages.

There is not a single issue that dominates or seems to have the potential to dominate Elections 2009. The campaign managers of the UPA admit in private that the Manmohan Singh-led government cannot be projected with the same hype as the earlier regimes India Shining campaign.

The Congress thrust is on the stable government that it has provided over the last five years and the initiatives it has taken to address the core issues of the people through programmes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the farmers loan-waiver scheme.

However, as observed by a senior South Indian Minister, who has an important part in planning the campaign, certain deficiencies of the government, such as the inability to control prices or check terrorist activities in a forceful manner, reduce the efficacy of these themes.

Despite the absence of a national-level UPA, as Congress general secretary and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad pointed out, the UPA has stood together as a strong unit over the past five years.

The 13-party UPA, which was formed in 2004, has remained more or less intact except for the departure of some minor parties from it. In Jammu and Kashmir, the PDP [Peoples Democratic Party] has been replaced by the National Conference, while all other allies, be it the NCP in Maharashtra, the RJD and the LJP [Lok Janshakti Party] in Bihar, or the JMM [Jharkhand Mukti Morcha] in Jharkhand, are with us. Moreover, the alliance with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and the S.P. [Samajwadi Party] in Uttar Pradesh will further strengthen us, he pointed out.

The NDA, despite projecting the image of a united national alliance, suffers from the lack of an emotive campaign issue. It has decided to persist with slogans highlighting the failures of the UPA government in terms of internal security in spite of the BJPs inability to develop the issue as an election winner in the last round of Assembly elections.

The BJPs leaders also admit that there is not a single issue that can dominate the elections or catapult the NDA to a big victory.

The non-Congress, non-BJP formation led by the Left parties has technically the advantage of being in a position to highlight the failures and misdemeanours of both the major players, the UPA and the NDA. However, it does not possess the organisational strength or cohesion to convert this advantage into votes. The fact that erstwhile constituents of the NDA, such as the AIADMK and the TDP, have chosen to be part of the non-Congress, non-BJP formation is a pointer that an agenda different from the two principal players of Indian politics could find more takers among regional forces. And this option itself has given greater voice to many smaller parties in the UPA and the NDA.

This trend is manifest in the manner in which smaller parties such as the S.P., the NCP and the RJD have spoken out against the Congress and in the confabulations between the NCP, and the Shiv Sena, NDA ally in Maharashtra.

The BJPs NDA partner in Bihar, the Janata Dal (United), has made bold to question the senior partners political sagacity on many counts. The NCPs party organ, Rashtrawadi, went to the extent of lampooning the Congress leadership. It pointed out that if Sharad Pawar or Lalu Prasad wants to be Prime Minister, it is called being power-hungry, but if Rahul Gandhi wants to be Prime Minister, it is in the interest of the country.

The NCP organ added, It is because of this arrogance that an inexperienced youth like Rahul is trying to teach senior leaders. On the other side, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav has repeatedly warned the BJP leadership that his party will not brook a revival of the extremist Hindutva agenda, as suggested by some BJP leaders, including party president Rajnath Singh.

According to many leaders of the BJP and the Congress, the smaller parties are following a strategy of criticising, the alliance leaders and later bargaining for greater electoral and political gains. The prevailing political atmosphere and the options available to the smaller parties compel the bigger parties to tolerate this and not rock the boat.

Emphasising this aspect, the political analyst Indra Bhushan Singh pointed out that the main challenge before the BJP and the Congress is to increase their respective tallies. Unless these two main parties increase their individual tallies, they will not be in a position to push for the leadership of the government. It is in this context, Indra Bhushan Singh added, that forging and maintaining alliances becomes the most important task.

Winning in this arithmetical game is not all that easy for the two main players. The Congress has 150 seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha and these seats essentially came from the good performance it had in States such as Andhra Pradesh (30 out of 42 contested), Maharashtra (13 out of 28), Gujarat (12 out of 25), Haryana (8 out of 9) and Assam (9 out of 14). The partys own calculation is that this performance cannot be repeated in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Assam.

However, it hopes to improve in the States that it fared badly in, in 2004. These are Kerala (nil out of 20), Madhya Pradesh (5 out of 29), Karnataka (9 out of 28), Rajasthan (4 out of 25), Punjab (2 out of 13), Orissa (2 out of 21) and Chhattisgarh (1 out of 9). The party hopes that the alliance with the Trinamool Congress and the understanding with the S.P. in some seats will fetch good results.

The allies of the Congress, such as the DMK in Tamil Nadu (16 in 2004), and the RJD in Bihar (24), do not have any alternative places to make up their losses and are bound to fail in retaining their tallies. However, the NCP (11) and the Ramvilas Paswan-led LJP (4) are expected to retain or even improve their tallies.

For the BJP, there is not much scope to improve its tally in States such as Madhya Pradesh (19 out of 29 in 2004), Chhattisgarh (8 out of 11), Karnataka (16 out of 28) and Rajasthan (19 out of 25). The party leadership is more or less reconciled to suffering losses in these States. The party, however, hopes to better its score in Gujarat (13 out of 26 in 2004) and Maharashtra (11 out of 24 contested).

However, Uttar Pradesh, a one-time bastion of the Hindutva party, offers no hope of revival. In 2004, the party won eight of the 80 seats. With former Chief Minister Kalyan Singhs departure from the party, BJP insiders say, even retaining that score would be seen as a major victory. The contest in the most populous State in the country continues to be between the S.P. and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

The Left parties, are also not expected to improve on their 2004 tally. In 2004, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) swept Kerala (19 out of 20 seats) and held on to its supremacy in West Bengal (35 out of 42). Given the spate of anti-government protests in West Bengal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)s internal problems in Kerala, a repetition of the result looks impossible. However, the Left should hold an important position in the next Lok Sabha too, especially in the context of the tendency of the regional parties in the UPA and the NDA to assert themselves.

Already, the AIADMK, the Janata Dal (Secular) and the TDP have shown that a grouping with the Left is an option. The BSP also saw the Left as a powerful ally during the vote on the no-confidence motion against the UPA government on the India-United States nuclear deal. But the party decided not to extend this cooperation to the electoral arena and go it alone. Still, there is a possibility that the Left can attract many regional players, including the BSP and other existing partners of the NDA and the UPA, if it is able to nurture the dissenting trend among the smaller parties in realpolitik terms.

On the whole, it is more or less clear that neither the ruling UPA nor the principal Opposition NDA will reach anywhere close to the magic figure of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha. Given that premise, what the run-up to Lok Sabha Elections 2009 underscores is the importance that coalition politics and smaller parties have made big gains in India.