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Wednesday, Apr 21, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

There's not much going for the Congress here

Unless the Uma Bharti regime has lost considerable popular support, the BJP is set to sweep the elec

Things look bleak for the Congress in Madhya Pradesh. If the iron law of Indian democracy was to apply here and the BJP repeats its victory in the Assembly elections held four months ago, it will pick up every single Lok Sabha seat in the State. This is because, initially, every single percentage point drop of votes for the BJP will mean a gain of only one Lok Sabha seat for the Congress. It would take nothing short of a five-percentage point swing against the BJP for the Congress to win 9 seats, about the same that it won in 1999, and thus manage a face-saving defeat. In other words, unless the Uma Bharti regime has suddenly lost considerable popular support in just four months, the ruling BJP is set to sweep the State in the Lok Sabha elections.

To make matters worse for the Congress, the BJP has a history of doing better in the Lok Sabha polls than in the Assembly elections here. An analysis of the 230 Assembly seats that now fall in Madhya Pradesh shows that the BJP and the Congress secured a nearly equal proportion of the votes in the 1993 and the 1998 Vidhan Sabha elections. This enabled the Congress to win a larger number of seats in the Assembly. But during this period, the BJP dominated all the Lok Sabha elections winning more than 20 seats in the 1996, 1998 and the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. The Madhya Pradesh voters have backed the BJP's bid for power at the Centre irrespective of their inclinations at the State level.

This time, the State-level and the national-level trends appear to be working in the same direction. Unlike Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the BJP's victory in Madhya Pradesh in the recent round of Assembly elections was quite comprehensive. Although its vote share of 42.5 per cent appears modest when compared with other States, its lead over the Congress was nearly 11 percentage points, large enough to drive the Congress to its most humiliating defeat in the history of the State. The BJP won more than three-fourths of the seats and defeated the Congress in its strongholds.

The Congress' defeat in the Lok Sabha elections of 1999 did not dislodge the party from its traditional stronghold of Mahakoshal. The BJP established a decisive lead in Malwa, the cradle of RSS in the State, but did face reverses in the tribal belt of Malwa. The BJP's victory in the northern belt of Chambal-Vindhya was secured thanks to fragmentation of the votes between the Congress and the BSP. The BJP wave in the recent Vidhan Sabha elections renders all these regional divisions meaningless as it established the party's supremacy everywhere. Not only did the BJP win back its traditional stronghold of Malwa, it inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Congress in the Mahakoshal region as well, aided by the division of Adivasi votes between the Congress and the Gondwana Gantantra Party. The BJP also established a clear lead in the Chambal-Vindhya region; the presence of the BSP helped it sweep the region.

The rainbow social coalition, that has been the hallmark of the Congress in most parts of the country, was also broken in the Vidhan Sabha elections. The BJP was traditionally stronger among the upper castes, but the Congress used to cobble a majority with the help of decisive leads among the OBCs, Dalits and the Adivasis. The BSP took away most of its Dalit votes by the mid-1990s as it emerged a major competitor in the northern region. The BJP brought in Uma Bharti as its State leader with the clear intention of expanding its support among the OBCs; evidence from the CSDS post-poll survey shows that the BJP succeeded in that. The BJP also succeeded in splitting the Adivasi vote with the Congress, partly as a result of the work of the Sangh Parivar organisations and partly as the result of the GGP's entry into the electoral fray. Of all the major social groups, the Congress enjoyed the confidence of only Muslims, a minuscule proportion of the State's population.

There is nothing by way of ground reports or political developments to suggest that these regional patterns and social equations are about to be dramatically upset in this Lok Sabha election. The Congress is still in a state of disarray after its stunning reversal in the Assembly elections. Combined with this, there is also a generational change in its leadership. Arjun Singh wields little clout now. The division of the State has meant that Motilal Vora and Shyama Charan Shukla are no longer active in Madhya Pradesh. The former Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, is still the dominant leader in the State Congress but he has been kept out of the poll process, having been shunted to oversee the elections in Orissa and Assam. Mr. Singh's successors in the State Congress, his former deputies Jamuna Devi and Subhash Yadav, are yet to infuse any life into the party. The party has also been deeply embarrassed by the sensational defection of Laxman Singh, the sitting MP from Rajgarh and Digvijay Singh's brother, to the BJP. The familiar scenarios of infighting and senior leaders seeking ticket for their relatives have weakened the Congress. The party clearly needs to do better if it wants to stage a recovery in the State.

If the BJP appears to be stronger, it is not because its Government has a lot to its credit. Ever since coming to power, the Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, has done little to address the bijli, sadak, pani issues — the famous BSP factor — that led to the defeat of the Congress. Most of the Government's energy seems to have been spent on organising the Ujjain Kumbh Mela and in symbolic declarations — the move to declare parts of Ujjain, Maheshwar and Amarkantak as holy areas, banning the sale and consumption of alcohol and meat in these areas and a prohibition on cow slaughter. The Uma Bharti Government has come in for sharp criticism for the alleged influence of the RSS and its affiliates over the functioning of the Government, with the Chief Minister's political mentor, Govindacharya, lurking in the background. The only other significant recent decision by the Government seems to be the one to reinstate the retrenched daily wage-workers. Nor is all well with the BJP organisationally, since it is undergoing its own generational change. The RSS has played a bigger role than before in deciding upon nominations. There have also been some murmurs in the party over the nominations in certain constituencies. Mr. Laxman Singh's nomination from Rajgarh has led to a virtual rebellion in the local unit. The local SJM leader is contesting as a rebel candidate with support of the Sangh Parivar affiliates. The RSS pracharak and BJP State general secretary, Krishnamurari Moghe's nomination for Khargone has also led to protests. But it is not clear if all this will cost the BJP seats in this election, given that the dice is loaded heavily in its favour.

At this stage, still three weeks before the State completes polling, it appears that the only thing that can withstand the BJP wave is the locality-specific factor. Some constituencies of the State have a unique character and tend to escape any wave. The Chhindwara seat in Mahakoshal was one of the two seats in north India where the Congress won despite the Janata wave of 1977. Kamal Nath is the Congress candidate in this seat, which the party has never lost since 1952. The real challenge to him comes not from the BJP, whose candidate is an outsider, but from the presence of the Gondwana Gantantra Parishad that caused the defeat of Congress in the Assembly constituencies in 2003. The GGP has suffered a split since and if it does not take away a big portion of the Congress votes, Mr. Nath still has a chance. Similarly, the Guna seat has been controlled by the Scindia family for generations, and Jyotiraditya Scindia stands a good chance even if he cannot repeat the spectacular victory he achieved in the byelection held here after his father's death. The denial of a ticket to Dilip Singh Bhuria, the charismatic Adivasi leader now in the BJP, may cost the BJP one seat in Jhabua, the Adivasi constituency that borders Gujarat. The Congress also hopes to benefit from the BJP's infighting in Khargone and the social equations in Indore.

The BSP appears to have stagnated in the State and is not in a position to change the outcome in the absence of an alliance with the Congress. But it can be decisive in Rewa, Satna and Sidhi, and may well pull off a surprise. The Samajwadi Party emerged as the third largest party in the State in the recent Assembly elections and will be pinning its hopes on the Betul seat. Madhya Pradesh, home to many powerful people's movements that have sought to challenge the political establishment, will also witness attempts to offer an alternative kind of politics. This challenge rests on Sunil in Hoshangabad and Shamim Modi in Betul; both are contesting as candidates of the Samajwadi Jan Parishad, a political front for the people's movements. The two candidates are backed by the Jan Sangharsh Morcha in the State, and the People's Political Front at the national level. It may be too much to expect their presence to change the outcome of the elections in such a lop-sided contest, but it may help begin to change the agenda and character of electoral politics in the State.

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