Now, a charisma count

THE ``MINI-ELECTION'' results should help observers meditate on that most elusive asset of a political leader - charisma, especially a capacity to garner votes. In particular, the outcome would need to be dissected in terms of the presumed deepening of the Vajpayee acceptability on an all-India basis. The results would provide a pointer whether Mr. Vajpayee's appeal has acquired such acceptability that his appearance and campaigning can make a significant difference even in those electoral contests where the stakes are decidedly less than the prime ministerial office.

A charismatic leader by words and deeds evokes that potent mix of hopes, fears, aspirations, and apprehensions that helps the crowds/electorate to feel that salvation is possible out of the despair of the moment. A Mamata Banerjee, for example, provides just that flicker of hope to those sections of the West Bengal electorate which believe that the Left Front regime has been too violent, too sectarian and has lasted too long. A Jayalalitha fan in Tamil Nadu, who would wait 12 hours for a glimpse of the leader, does not care two hoots for the Election Commission or its circular that ``debars'' a ``convicted'' leader. An acolyte cheerfully puts aside all doubts and reservations, and submits unreservedly to the charismatic leader's presumed curative power.

On his part, a charismatic leader moves the disinterested voter, convinces the sullen supporter and re-energises the alienated cadre to work for the party and its candidates. Charisma is, thus, much more than and very different from the curiosity that a filmstar provokes or Ms. Sonia Gandhi evoked the first time she hit the campaign trail. Charisma helps overcome the limitations of the party organisation as well as the indifferent record of a party government. A charismatic leader can be deemed to have acquired an all-India potency if he/she helps overcome the anti- incumbency factor, fatigue with the State-level leader, tiredness with familiar faces at the district level; helps stick a band-aid over non-performance of regional Governments. Jawaharlal Nehru performed this task effortlessly for the first 15 years after Independence; Indira Gandhi did precisely that, at least, till 1977; but Rajiv Gandhi had lost the magic within a year of that massive 1984 verdict.

Mr. Vajpayee's appeal was not deep enough, for example, in October 1998, to help neutralise the voters' anger against the BJP regimes in Delhi and Rajasthan. But the next year he appears to have made a substantial difference in the electoral fortunes of the Telugu Desam, the DMK and the Trinamool Congress. Now, for inexplicable reasons, the Prime Minister's handlers chose to pitchfork him in Assam where the BJP had limited presence. May be they though the `Hero of Kargil' had reinforced and deepened his all-India acceptability. The question, then, is whether the Vajpayee factor would help lift the BJP-AGP combine to safety.

In the event, Mr. Vajpayee attracted a crowd of less than 2,000 at the Judges' Field in Guwahati. This included policemen, in uniform and plainclothes, as one newspaper report pointed out.

If Mr. Vajpayee's experience of expanding his acceptability base was unrewarding, Mr. L.K. Advani had an equally miserable time. The question was whether three years of stewardship of the Union Home Ministry, frequent travelling in the entire northeast, incessant publicity on Doordarshan and All India Radio, would have value-added to Mr. Advani's profile and stature, yielding a modicum of acceptability beyond the Hindi-belt, an acceptability that could keep the fires of prime ministerial ambitions burning. In the event, Mr. Advani could attract crowds of less than 500 in Assam.

On the other side of the divide, Ms. Sonia Gandhi was the star campaigner for the Congress(I). But she avoided Tamil Nadu altogether, thereby not allowing any evaluation of her charisma. In fact, party mangers very cleverly confined her visits to strongholds in Kerala, Assam and West Bengal. The question would remain unanswered whether she provided any value-addition to the Congress(I) vote and the pro-Congress(I) sentiment in Assam and Kerala, a sentiment that is grounded in the perceptions of the AGP and the LDF regimes' inefficiency and non-performance. In West Bengal, she and the Congress(I) were happy to play second fiddle to Ms. Mamata Banerjee.

A charisma count would nonetheless become inevitable in the days to come. Once the votes get counted, the Sangh Parivar would have to make a judgment whether the BJP can rely on the Vajpayee charisma to bail it out of the mess that is Uttar Pradesh. If the verdict is that the Vajpayee magic is still intact, even if waning, then the party may be rushed into a judgment towards a mid-term poll before a post-Vajpayee contingency presents itself.

Over at the AICC, a judgment would be sought to be contrived that Ms. Sonia Gandhi was after all the vote-catcher she had been touted to be by her courtiers and intriguers. Such a judgment could force the Congress(I) into blunders, just as it mistook the 1998 anti-incumbency wave in Delhi and Rajasthan as a resuscitation of the dynasty's magical potency.

- H.K.

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