Offstumped – Commentary on Indian Politics

Originally published in The Pioneer

The election to the Uttar Pradesh State Assembly has now reached the half-way mark. It is a reflection on how much of a lame duck the UPA Government in Delhi has become that almost all analysis and speculation is now centered on the outcome in Uttar Pradesh. It would be an understatement to say the post-Uttar Pradesh poll political scenario is pregnant with possibilities. Three dynamics are clearly visible. The first has to do with what the outcome in Uttar Pradesh means to Rahul Gandhi’s future and by extension how that will shape what remains of Manmohan Singh’s second term in office.

The second has to do with events both in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat and how they shape the leadership question in BJP in the run up to the next election, whenever it is held. The last has to do with the emergence of a second front based on ‘federalism’ that extends from Gujarat on the west coast all the way to Bengal on the east coast.

Much speculation and anxiety has developed over the outcome in Uttar Pradesh. There is a clear and significant spike in voter turnout in Uttar Pradesh, making that outcome all the more uncertain. The significance of a higher turnout perhaps will be most pronounced in the third phase even though in absolute terms it saw a lower turnout relative to the first two phases. If one looks at the historical turnout data from the seats that went to polls in the third phase, it would become apparent that these are seats that have seen low turnouts in past election cycles.

Much more recently in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, one would also notice that many of the seats that went to the polls in the third phase saw close contests where the outcome was settled by a difference of a few thousand votes. The increase in the turnout in these seats thus puts the issue of who has exactly benefitted from it, in uncertain territory.

There can be two theories on what the spike in turnout means. The first theory posits that this may be a ‘wave election’ while the second one could mean it is really a case of ‘turning out the base’. On the face of it a ‘wave election’ should benefit the Congress or the Samajwadi Party, since both of them played the youth card in a big way hoping to build momentum on the appeal of Mr Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav respectively. A ‘turnout the base’ election on the other hand should benefit the BSP or the BJP.

The BSP is perhaps the only party going into this election with a committed voter base to bank on while the BJP has made it amply clear that its low key strategy was premised mainly on micro-targetting and booth level voter mobilisation. In recent weeks there has been talk of a “BJP surge” by seasoned observers of UP politics. One has also seen Twitter scoops of BJP’s internal surveys from Delhi-based journalists suggesting such a “surge”. Whether this optimism holds true on March 6 when results will be out or not, one thing is clear: Any outcome for the BJP that is less than a second place finish is not just inconsequential in the UP scheme of things but is also bound to pose tough questions in the Delhi scheme of things.

It is now clear that irrespective of whether the Congress finishes third or fourth, the spin will be on how Mr Gandhi has improved its prospects relative to the 2007 election, while conveniently forgetting the 2009 election. A third or fourth place finish by the BJP on the other hand will bring in to sharp focus the below the surface debate on the leadership issue. One can already see an increasing noise level over the Gujarat 2002 riots within the Delhi based media and the Congress’s extended NGO eco-system of Left-liberal activists.

With Gujarat set for polls later this year, it is inevitable that the media will increasingly focus on the Narendra Modi versus Rahul Gandhi contrast. One already saw glimpses of it in the Uttar Pradesh campaign in the election speeches of Mr Gandhi’s OBC poster boy, Beni Prasad Verma. Irrespective of how the BJP in Delhi feels post-State poll, it will have to deal with the inevitability of this contrast being the dominant political theme for the next many months.

A first or second place finish by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh may have the unintended effect of hastening the process of a realignment of coalitions. A stronger or resurgent Congress is hardly in the interest of a Sharad Pawar or a Mamata Banerjee. One has already started to see a coalescing of interests from West Bengal to Gujarat and Bihar to Tamil Nadu over the anti-federal impulses of the Congress. In the past, grand anti-Congress coalitions while rooted in federal sentiments were mostly incoherent on issues and policies.

These experiments ultimately came apart on account of irreconcilable personality differences. This time around there is more coherence on issues and the stance of the various players against the anti-federal policies of the Congress than there is chemistry between the various personalities. This paradox perhaps may be a blessing in disguise to perhaps result in a far more durable second front against the Congress with the levers of political power shifting to the states.

A first test of how durable such a second front could be will come during the Presidential elections due in a few months. The shift in political leverage to the States is real with even the American Strategic Community waking up to this shift to recognise what the Brookings Institute calls India’s G-7. It matters little how Priyanka Vadra dresses her hair or if Robert Vadra’s aspirations have embarrassed Mr Gandhi. The political shots are now being called by the G-5 non-Congress Chief Ministers within India’s G-7 — Mr Naveen Patnaik, Mr Nitish Kumar, Ms J Jayalalithaa, Ms Mamata Banerjee and Mr Narendra Modi.

Filed under: उत्तर प्रदेश २०१२, Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, OpEds on Uttar Pradesh Polls 2012, Uttar Pradesh Polls 2007 Archive