Turning point

The verdict ends Congress hopes of holding midterm polls and brings Hindutva back into the discourse.

in New Delhi and Ahmedabad

TURNING Point. This phrase, used by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran Lal Krishna Advani in his first reaction to the Gujarat Assembly election results, summed up the poll outcome in a more or less comprehensive manner.

Right through the campaign, large sections of the political class as well as observers had perceived the elections in Gujarat essentially as a forerunner to midterm polls to the Lok Sabha. Almost all the developments in national politics in the run-up to the Gujarat elections, including the twists and turns in the longstanding tussle between the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left parties on the India-United States civilian nuclear deal, pointed towards this.

So much so that the BJP thought it fit to project Advani as its prime ministerial candidate and held a special media conference to announce this right in the middle of the Gujarat campaign. But all those hurried preparations seem to be of no real value in the context of the Gujarat election results. In fact, the Gujarat results have, in one stroke, virtually pushed back the possibility of immediate midterm elections to the Lok Sabha.

The most important aspect of the verdicts qualitative dimensions is not the BJPs return to power under the leadership of its demagogic Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, but the scale of its victory. The BJP won 117 of the 182 seats in the Assembly, merely 10 short of the tally that the Hindutva-oriented party rustled up in a communally charged election in 2002. After five years in government, Modi warded off the potential for the rise of an anti-incumbency factor and returned to power with a score that is tantalisingly close to a two-thirds majority. It is the enormity of the electoral victory that has pushed back the possibility of midterm general elections. This aspect has, in many ways, divested the Congress and the UPA leadership of the vital element of political confidence. As a senior Congress leader said in private, political confidence is a vital element to fight any electoral battle, and after the thrashing in Gujarat it is in severe short supply within the party.

Before the results came out, large sections of the Congress were confident that the party could face midterm elections successfully. According to a number of senior and middle-level leaders in the All India Congress Committee (AICC), prospective political events were visualised broadly in two streams. Both perspectives centred on a strong showing by the Congress in Gujarat, which would either lead to an upset victory or reduce Narendra Modis party to a thin majority.

The first perspective visualised a scenario where the partys central leadership would give clearance to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make efforts to complete the formalities for operationalising the nuclear deal. The calculation was that in such a situation the Left parties would withdraw support to the UPA government, thus paving the way for midterm elections.

The second perspective, endorsed by a large number of Congress leaders, envisaged continuing negotiations between the Left and the Prime Minister on the nuclear deal, with the government having the upper hand on the strength of the Congress electoral performance in Gujarat. The negotiations, it was believed, would continue until late February, when the government would present a feel good Budget, and then the UPA would call for midterm elections on its own.

All these projections have come to naught with Modis resounding victory. It remains to be seen what the governments strategy will be on the nuclear deal and how it will go about implementing it.

But the turning point created by the Modi victory is not confined to the questions of midterm elections and the nuclear deal. As Advani himself iterated, another significant effect created by the Gujarat election results is that the BJPs core ideology of Hindutva has come back into the mainstream political discourse.

Over the past three years, the BJP, and the larger Sangh Parivar led by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), made lackadaisical efforts to rediscover Hindutva with new tactical thrusts, and failed. The victory in Gujarat has given it an opportunity to impart this new thrust. The thematic and ideological contours of this thrust are getting defined within the Sangh Parivar. Broadly, the new Hindutva would have a rhetoric that combines anti-terrorist, anti-jehad and nationalistic perspectives.

Apart from the impact on these ideological and political issues, the Gujarat results have had a striking effect on the organisational structure of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Given the scale of his victory, Modi has virtually settled the struggle for the top position in the BJPs second line of leadership.

As a Lucknow-based senior RSS activist pointed out, with this mandate he has dwarfed even Rajnath Singh, whom the RSS top brass chose to replace Advani as party president. In fact, in an audacious display of this message, slogans were raised against Rajnath Singh when he went to the BJPs Ahmedabad office after the results. More important, said the senior activist, was the manner in which Modi achieved this self-promotion.

According to the senior activist, the method Modi adopted to climb up the political-organisational ladder was something even the big two Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani had not dared to do. He took on everybody, including large sections of the local leadership of the RSS and other Sangh Parivar outfits such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad [VHP]. He faced rebels led by senior leaders such as Keshubhai Patel and Suresh Mehta and put them in their place. In a nutshell, the senior activist said, for the first time the authority of the RSS over the BJP was under threat. Modi has shown that it is possible to advocate a new brand of Hindutva politics that does not blindly follow RSS diktats, the senior activist said. Modi even had the audacity to promote a personality cult, he added.

The perspective put forth by the RSS activist affirmed that given the success of his game plan in Gujarat, Modi would set his sights on national leadership. The senior RSS activist and many others in similar positions in other Sangh Parivar outfits believe that this movement towards the Centre could happen much earlier than expected. There is little doubt that Modis triumph in Gujarat has instilled a new enthusiasm and verve in the average worker of the Sangh Parivar, whatever the reservations of the top leadership in the RSS and other Hindutva organisations, said the senior RSS activist. He pointed out that slogans such as Gali gali mein nara hai, aaj Gujarat, kal Delhi hamara hai (the whole world is saying, today Gujarat tomorrow Delhi) coined by Vande Gujarat, a group supporting Modi, are indicative of this enthusiasm among the lower-level workers.

In purely organisational terms, if Modi has to cash in on this enthusiasm among the rank and file, he would have to make his moves fast. Especially so because the euphoria related to an election victory may not last long.

But the very advantages that Modi has in terms of addressing and rallying the rank and file of the Sangh Parivar outfits could well prove to be handicaps in asserting his presence in national politics. In terms of categories, Modis appeal rests on aggressive anti-Muslim rhetoric, the pursuit of a development agenda and the advancement of himself as the foremost representative of Gujarati sub-nationalism. Even the BJPs partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) may not be entirely enamoured of this political-ideological combination. An indication of this was available when Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar decided to give the go-by to Modis swearing-in ceremony.

According to veteran political analyst Hariraj Singh Tyagi, Modi would have to do major readjustments in the style, orientation and approach of his politics if he is to fit in with the present phase in national politics, which is marked by a predominance of coalition politics. He said, A party like the BJP had to give up its core issues, such as the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, the abrogation of Article 370 and the institution of a common civil code, to form a coalition with other parties and to come to power. Modis brand of aggressive politics may work in Gujarat but to replicate it at the national level, at present, is a tall order.

Tyagi said it would be interesting to see how Modi matched up to the challenge of adjusting to the pressures of national politics. If he succeeds in that challenge, then Advanis use of the phrase turning point would acquire an enduring value, said Tyagi. Whether this happens or not, there is little doubt that in terms of short- and medium-term implications, Modis victory in Gujarat does signify a turning point in national politics.