A few months back, when talks of a ‘federal front’ were gaining momentum, KCR and Mamata Banerjee reached out to each other and projected themselves as being at the forefront of this new dawn in Indian politics. Almost every non-BJP regional satrap was slated to join this front, and the front both with or without the Congress Party, came across as a formidable challenge to the BJP and sent a shiver down the spine of many Bhakts. Last week, KCR opted for early elections in Telangana in a move that is likely to benefit the BJP, and made it clear in no uncertain terms that the elections would be fought on an anti-Congress plank.
What explains this decision to jeopardize opposition unity, barely a few months after being at the forefront of it? A realization seems to have dawned on KCR, the same one that dawned on both Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar in the last few months. It’s quite simple really- even if, for argument’s sake, things were to go perfectly for the federal front, how wise is it to be part of such a coalition of unreliable players where everyone is struggling hard to get their pound of flesh and anyone can upset the apple-cart in a second? Isn’t it wiser to be the kingmaker, and to extract your pound of flesh in a long-term, sustainable manner? And while mulling over these two options, one also has to take into account the probability of the execution going south when it comes to a federal front. It hasn’t really worked before, and the idea itself doesn’t seem to inspire much confidence. The choice is quite obvious for any pragmatist. Expect many more to make the same choice in the run-up to the elections. When it comes to the federal front, the apple-cart has already been upset.
The question of Uttar Pradesh though, still looms large. Despite the BJP’s vote-share rising steadily, even in an election like Kairana which showcased peak opposition unity, the fact remains that Uttar Pradesh is the most important state for the BJP to return to power, and that an alliance between the two major regional parties, the Congress Party and the RLD would be a huge challenge to surmount. At the moment though, it is the so-called Mahagathbandhan which has a lot more to worry about than the BJP. For starters, a split in the Samajwadi Party seems imminent now. Unfortunately for the opposition, Akhilesh has been the face of the party for the last six years, but Shivpal has been the organizational backbone. This raises a multitude of questions- which faction will the Samajwadi base go with? Which faction will join the Mahagathbandhan? Will the faction joining the Mahagathbandhan contest the same number of seats that were reserved for a united Samajwadi Party, or would its share reduce proportionally to its strength on the ground? Will this be acceptable to the faction in question?
The BSP on the other hand, might well be the next party to follow in the footsteps of Nitish, Naveen and KCR. Mayawati’s prime ministerial ambitions might still be high despite terrible performances in 2014 and 2017, but she might just have to swallow her pride this time around. With a shrinking vote-bank and corruption cases looming large, reports suggest that Mayawati has stopped meeting Akhilesh Yadav. She is also running a hard bargain with the Congress for the upcoming assembly elections, where she wants an all-or-nothing arrangement. The interesting part though is that this impasse with the Congress has been ongoing for months. If she does get into an alliance with SP for 2019 and is fighting a battle for survival, there is also the question of whether she will allow the alliance to give the mother-son duo their pocket-boroughs to contest from, considering it’s not looking good for them. Her dislike for Ajit Singh and the RLD is also well-known. When it comes to Uttar Pradesh, it looks like all the optimism around the federal front was make-belief.
This brings us to the Congress Party, the only party which, after a lot of coaxing and consensus -building, can serve as some sort of glue or a bulwark for all those coming together in the federal front. Unfortunately for the Congress Party, a party that is still to put its own house in order cannot be expected to bring together an entire federal front and set the front’s house in order. Essentially, irrespective of how the party fares in 2019, it had two challenges before itself. One was to reorganize itself and get serious again in between 2014 and 2019, and the other was to build enough clout to build a front around itself and at least present a challenge to the BJP which would not be half-assed. The party seems to have failed royally on both fronts.
The state elections right before the general elections- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan- could have been the perfect opportunity for the Congress Party to emerge as the go-to alternative. Anti-incumbency against the BJP in all three states and the fact that all three are deadbeat contests, made these elections a gateway for national revival. But barely three months before these elections, the state units seem to be in disarray. The messaging seems to be incoherent, and the campaign isn’t making much of a splash. This has been the story everywhere, and it can be extrapolated to the national level too. The infighting between the old-guard and the new-guard is rampant, issues like Rafale which clearly are not making enough of a dent are being taken up, Mansarovar Yatras and Gaushalas on one side and the slaughter of a calf and minority appeasement on the other are sending out a contradictory signals, and the president is unable to inspire the cadre, understand situations and act with alacrity. How the likes of Mani Shankar Aiyar are running amok, how Rahul is being lured into embarrassing foreign trips just months before the elections and forced to undertake Mansarovar Yatras and temple runs just to prove a point, clearly expose the Congress Party’s inability to set the narrative. They are on the defensive, and are unable to function or communicate cohesively.
On the united opposition front, there have been huge misses on the part of the Congress Party, misses that are likely to cost them. To begin with, Mayawati has refused to ally with the Congress unless the Congress joins hands with her in all three upcoming assembly elections. This decision has been in a limbo for months. Another important state where the Congress could have hit the BJP hard was Maharashtra. But once again, it has failed to reach out to the Shiv Sena, a disgruntled ally of the BJP which could have helped the Congress create a strong anti- BJP front in the state. Two anti-BJP parties have refused to join hands with the Congress, namely the TMC and AAP. The situation could have been handled better. Both the BSP and SP, who are slated to fight the elections in alliance with the Congress, have gone ahead and named their leaders as prime ministerial candidates. This could have been avoided. The Congress was keen to bring Nitish Kumar on board, but was stopped by its ally RJD in Bihar. Not only will this prove to be expensive, but the entire situation could have been handled more discreetly. Down south, it will be increasingly difficult to fight the Communists in Kerala while fighting with them in Bengal, and to fight the TDP in Andhra Pradesh while fighting with them in Telangana. More than the voter, this will affect the party at the organizational level and the post-poll arithmetic. The Congress’ footprint too seems to be shrinking generally in the south, while the BJP seems to be investing in three long-term firebrand crowd-pullers: Mohanlal for Kerala, Rajnikanth for Tamil Nadu and Swami Paripoornananda for Telangana.
Over the weekend, the BJP held an important strategy meeting for 2019. The takeaways from that meeting- a rather mediocre slogan, an assertion that they will remain in power for the next 50 years, a message for the cadre to work hard and debunk the opposition’s lies- were mundane and predictable. But here’s the thing- this is a party which seems to have its house in order, which seems to be getting ready for the elections and which seems to be functioning as one cohesive unit. The only threat to the party, electoral arithmetic, seems to be slowly collapsing. One would be a fool to think that these threats are collapsing by themselves. Whether it is KCR or Mayawati or the Samajwadi split, an educated guess would suggest that behind the façade of boring “strategy meetings”, calculative backroom parleys are underway. Unlike the opposition, the BJP’s social engineering has been relatively covert, and the recent moves regarding the SC/STs indicate that things are underway on that front as well. The BJP has no intention of fighting all odds to emerge victorious. Instead, it is removing these odds altogether.
As 2019 nears, the difference in having Rahul Gandhi and Amit Shah as the respective leaders of the two most important parties will be felt increasingly. One is simply unable to get things done or come up with a winning strategy, while the other is attempting to win before the elections are even underway.