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Politics and Public Policy in India

May 28, 2012 • 7:46 am 2

BJP in Karnataka must avoid the Congress’ Andhra mistakes – OpEd in The Pioneer

Originally published in The Pioneer

Just when there seemed to be no bottom to the Congress’s blundering in Andhra Pradesh, we now have the unprecedented spectacle of the Congress scripting its path to recovery in Andhra Pradesh by hitting the self-destruct mode. The internecine battle that has broken out among the various factions of the Congress inside and outside the party has not only put governance in the State on the backseat but has also created the opportunity for new political configurations to emerge.

The Congress in Andhra Pradesh is now perilously close to going from sending the largest contingent of Lok Sabha MPs to becoming a bit player in the State, shorn of all credibility. The contempt with which the Congress leadership has treated a State that has been its mainstay is evident from the fact that neither Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul Gandhi have set foot in the State since the blundering over Telangana began after YSR’s death. The management of the Congress’s affairs has been left to backroom operators and bit players with no mass base.

It is telling that the Congress’s grand strategy in Andhra for a recovery hinges on turning on its own indiscriminately even at the risk of high collateral damage. It has had the bizarre consequence of Congress leaders playing the Hindu card to politically corner the late YSR’s son Jagan, a Christian. For the first time in the history of that State, a serving Cabinet Minister has been arrested by the CBI. The resulting environment of distrust it has created within the Congress in Andhra Pradesh has had a  curious fallout where the different factions can no longer tell friend from foe.

The BJP in Karnataka cannot afford to make the Congress’s Andhra mistake in a State that sends the largest number of MPs from that party.

The just concluded National Executive of the BJP in Mumbai ended on a high note with a photo-op of its future leadership. A notable omission from that photo-op was the BJP’s representation from the south of Vindhyas. In the battle for 2014 the BJP’s prospects depend on a number of factors coming together in its favour. But towering all of them is the need for a repeat performance in Karnataka. Karnataka’s political significance to the BJP lies not just in the number of the party’s MPs it sends to the Lok Sabha but also in its symbolic significance to the BJP, giving it a footprint south of Vindhyas.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who emerged as the tallest leader of the BJP at the National Executive, made a pertinent point in his blistering speech ripping apart the UPA at a public rally in Mumbai. Speaking of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s vision of interlinking rivers, Mr Modi lamented the UPA’s delinquency when it came to building infrastructure. The BJP’s economic resolution as well dwelt on length on the political commitment to infrastructure development and capacity building.

It is noteworthy that, despite all the political turmoil, the BJP Government in Karnataka has accomplished a continuity of sorts in its mission to develop and add capacity to public transport in Bangalore. Many of the initiatives conceived during Mr Yeddyurappa’s reign continue to be sponsored through Mr DV Sadananda Gowda’s rule. But there is a real risk in Karnataka that the efforts put into infrastructure by the BJP could end up in a manner similar to the efforts into the National Highway system by the Vajpayee-led NDA. With the record number of Volvo buses, there was already a perceptible difference in the quality of commute in Bangalore. With the plans to integrate the Metro with the bus system and further applying technology to streamline the fleet, there is immense promise for a transformed public transport experience.

If continuity in political commitment saw the BJP sustain some of its efforts in Bangalore, the absence of the same continuity from the NDA-era into the UPA regime saw the National Highway expansion efforts stall. Hence, it becomes doubly important that the BJP not just avoid the Congress’s Andhra Pradesh mistake but to immediately and urgently take positive steps to shore up its political prospects in Karnataka.

The just concluded National Executive of the BJP signals the advent of an era where the party sees its strength in its federated power centres — in its performing Chief Ministers across the various States. It is incumbent upon the BJP to add Karnataka to the list of its showcase States. Mr Yeddyurappa, and Mr Gowda, sees Narendra Modi as a role model.

Leveraging his first among equals status, Mr Modi must expend some serious political capital to help the BJP set right its affairs in Karnataka urgently, by bringing together both of his understudies to thrash a way forward that is markedly different from the path chosen by the Congress in Andhra Pradesh to secure its southern mainstay.

Filed under: Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Telangana, UPA-II Critical Appraisal

May 25, 2012 • 9:58 pm 15

Narendra Modi at National Executive – BJP settles its leadership question

The BJP National Executive in Mumbai has turned out to be quite a roller coaster.

Before it even started there was ambiguity and a question mark on the legitimacy of its agenda. With Narendra Modi’s speech today that ambiguity has been settled for good even in the minds of the worst of the BJP’s critics and skeptics.

In a blog post last week this blogger had raised the question on how the BJP could come to terms with the imperatives of mass politics within a federal polity. In a column last week Pratap Bhanu Mehta raised many questions of the BJP and its affairs.  It is now clear that we are seeing the advent of an end state where the BJP sees its strength in its federated power centers – its performing Chief Ministers in the states, combined with a mechanism by which these centers coalesce around a mass leader ahead of an election.

Narendra Modi’s speech was significant for 3 reasons:

- it was a direct strike on the UPA, signaling the campaign for the next general election had begun

- it was also a strike against the UPA’s entitlement politics with  the Nirmal Baba and Rasgulla analogy

- it also showed that the path to power lies in a new Federal Coalition making common cause with other non-Congress, non-NDA Chief Ministers like Jayalalitha

A rough english summary of Mr. Modi’s speech in Hindi below

Gujarat has suffered famine for several years, we have a desert terrain, bordering pakistan, we are proud that for the past 10 years there has been no food shortage. we have an irrigation network. if there was a nda govt if vajpayee’s leadership was there, if his vision to interlink rivers had been realized then we  would not have this agrarian and food crisis, farmer suicides.

Vajpayee had a dream to interlink rivers, upa shattered that dream. the food crisis is a direct result of it.

The govt in delhi has neither a leader nor a policy nor any morality.

These days nirmal baba  is a popular topic on tv . The govt in delhi is like nirmal baba’s  durbar. It doles out entitlements like rasgulla and much like Nirmal Baba it asks you to forget all other problems. nirmal baba is on trial in criminal court. the upa govt will be on trial in the people’s court.

On coalition compulsions and congress ministers – why does ur FM read speech in portugese. why is there a conflict with armed forces, why is the defense preparedness in shambles,

On Sonia Gandhi’s comment  ”no promises, only performance” – who is she is counselling, is she admitting that they have only been promising from IG garibi hatao, vote bank politics – no performance.

There used to be performance monitoring by planning commission on 20 point program – nda and non-cong states outperform congress states. instead of getting cong states to perform they have now stopped monitoring.

On the PM’s  achievements - agri growth of 1% growth while 11% in Gujarat alone.

You the people need to decide do u want to be lead by laggards while the country  sinks, goes hungry ?

The PM claims 20,000 mw power production as an achievement while there is a power crisis, farmers, industry, kids schools . The coal shortage resulting from policy paralysis on account of corruption has resulted in idle power plants operating below capacity.

On Federalism

The UPA has their failure in the report card with the admission on the need to improve  relations with states. It reflects on the fact that  they have not treated states with respect.

CM of Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha  has said that the UPA treated CMs and states as municipalities. This Delhi sultanate has damaged the federal structure far more than any other by misusing constitutional offices.

India is young nation. we are competing aagainst china. 21st century can be ours if we harness our young. skills development in china. where is acheivement on skill development in progress report.

India’s dream of emerging as a power in 21st century will remain a pipe dream with this govt in delhi

Is there any respect in delhi for india’s aspirations ?

Every day this govt is in power, the country pays a steep price with its economy and its security.

Filed under: Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari

May 17, 2012 • 6:46 am 9

BJP and its affairs

Well before the Uttar Pradesh elections were beginning to look like a complete washout for the BJP one witnessed a curious phenomenon play out in the media – a series of unattributed reports that sought to prempt the outcome to suggest that a negative outcome would be of no consequence to a possible second term for the current incumbent.

How the BJP chooses to conduct its internal affairs is a matter between it and its members. To those of us on the outside and sympathetic to its cause, the opaqueness of this conduct is of mild curiosity most of the time but of late it has turned into a matter of acute concern.

It would be redundant to recount all of the episodes and reasons, it would also be speculative given the backroom intrigue surrounding most of them.

But it is in order to point out where the concern mainly arises from:

#1 – The manner in which the BJP has emulated the Congress in turning “failure” into a resume enhancer. This is not the first time it was sought to be argued that choice of Organizational Leadership was divorced from success or failure in elections.

#2 – The manner in which the BJP has further emulated the Congress in scapegoating regional leaders

#3 – The manner in which the BJP and some in the Sangh look to the Communists as a role model for touting the flawed idea of collective leadership as an excuse to either undermine mass leadership or to pass the buck on accountability.

All of the above have in varying degrees contributed to the drift in BJP since the loss in 2004.

Nitin Gadkari’s elevation as BJP President brought the promise of a refreshing change. To some degree that did happen. For the first time you had a BJP leader on television in Delhi who didnt sound angry or outraged all the time. It is hard not to like Gadkari given his disarming humor and relaxed demeanor.  He also brought a sense of energy to campaigns.

But a dispassionate appraisal of the Gadkari term would reveal 3 marked failings:

#1 - Failure to chart a clear path to power in Delhi - BJP has failed to recover ground it previously held in with the exception of Goa. It has not broken any new ground with the exception of the odd bypoll win in Telangana.

#2 – Failure to make bold moves - BJP continues to take muddled positions on most issues with a reactive stance. In states where it has attempted a recovery it has failed to project new credible leadership while it its attempt to recycle old faces has fallen flat.

#3 – Failure to a create a positive “for wave” - Far too much energy and time has been spent on scams, expressing anger and outrage rather than on creating a positive wave “for the BJP”.

The BJP in Delhi has come to be a party of “scam chasers” much like Accident Lawyers in the West who are “Ambulance Chasers”. The “anger” constituency has far too many claimants. And “anger against Congress” is an opportunity with diminishing returns. There is a fatigue factor from frequent superlative claims of scams where the only visible impact is disruption in Parliament and a circuitous Legal Process that barely lends itself to political one-upmanship.

A second term for Mr.Gadkari may have its merits (see discussion below on weak party system) but the opaqueness of the process of decision making and the backroom intrigue surrounding it leaves us no more enlightened on how he or the BJP proposes to address the above three marked failings.

Making this opaqueness worse are the juvenile political games being played in the media. How the BJP proposes to manage its affairs is its business, but this backroom intrigue is clearly not helping it keep our sympathies or earn new sympathies.

One doesn’t have to look too far to extrapolate on what happens to a Party that is unable to reconcile mass politics with dogmatic loyalties to a clique. Those who look to the Communists as a role model on how to run the organization must realize a fate not much unlike the Communists will likely befall them.

A far more relevant role model for the BJP is the “weak party” system that is predominant in western democracies where concentration of power is  federated across regional leaders within a political party and where the national organ of the political party plays largely a secondary role of campaign coordination and funding.

In such a “weak party system” it doesnt really matter who the National President for the Party Organization. A key aspect of that model though is  the Institutionalized Mechanism by which all the regional power centers and the national organ coalesce around a Mass Leader ahead of an election once chosen.  While the process of federating power has been underway in the BJP for sometime it is clear that its core DNA is still at odds with the imperatives of mass politics.

The sooner the BJP reconciles this contradiction and comes to terms with the imperatives of Mass Politics within a “Weak Party” system the better prepared it will be for 2014 or whenever the next General Election may be.

Filed under: Gujarat Polls 2012, Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari

March 21, 2012 • 9:17 pm 4

Making the Third Front redundant perhaps even irrelevant – Rediff Column and a Podcast

Originally published on Rediff.com. Also listen to related podcast conversation with @dubash of phalaka.com on the same topic.

The electoral outcome from last week’s five assembly elections have, interestingly, triggered more speculation on the revival of a third front than on the likelihood of a mid-term poll. A mid-term poll maybe a slim possibility at this point in time but that slim possibility, however, has not tamped down speculation on a possible third front or, as some would rather call it, a “federal front”. Much number-crunching has been doing the rounds on the clout a third front could carry with another grand coming together of regional parties from Bengal to Punjab [ Images ] circling the two coasts.

One can point to at least three reasons for the heightened third front speculation in recent days. First is that Mulayam Singh has freed himself up for a potential job in Delhi [ Images ]. Second, are the dire straits in which both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party [ Images ] find themselves in the largest state in the country, which feeds into the dominant narrative on the growing clout of regional parties. Last is the Delhi punditry’s soft corner for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, hence any speculation on a 3rd front finds a natural resonance in a Delhi that nurtures fond hopes of his prime ministerial candidacy.

None of the above reasons, however, indicate a structural shift that would make a third front government any more viable than it was in the late 1980s-1990 during the VP  Singh, Chandra Shekhar era or in the mid-1990s during the Deve Gowda [ Images ], IK Gujral era.  In fact, one would wonder why any successful regional satrap who today enjoys absolute power in the state capitals would want to suffer the ignominy that befell Deve Gowda. 

Who in their right mind would want to become the Deve Gowda of the 2010s?

The political reality of every regional party that is in power today is that they are all one-man, one-woman shows with neither an institutionalized mechanism for succession nor a culture of tolerance for alternate power centres within the party. With the exception of a Mulayam Singh in Uttar Pradesh [ Images ] and a Prakash Singh Badal in Punjab, both of who are relatively in a better place to bequeath their legacy in the states for a stint at the Centre, the rest of the regional satraps can barely afford to jeopardise their iron grip on affairs in their respective states.

It is conceivable that a Mulayam Singh or a Sharad Pawar [ Images ] may fall for the same temptation that Chandra Shekhar did for a stint in 7 Race Course Road, howsoever short that stint might turn out to be, given the steroid boost to their legacy from such a stint in their twilight years.

But a Mulayam or Pawar’s morbid desire for a posthumous legacy can hardly be the reason for either the BJP or the Congress and even Delhi’s punditry to cheerlead a Third Front government into power.

In fact, the Congress, which has the distinction of having propped up every third front government to date with the exception of VP Singh’s National Front government, ought to be highly circumspect of playing kingmaker in Delhi given its dubious track record. The Congress’s natural instincts are at odds with playing kingmaker. Any third front experiment that expects to be propped up by the Congress can be considered to be inherently unstable pending a clinical death.

It is also hard to foresee a scenario where the BJP would willingly prop up a third front government given how regional parties have expanded at its expense over the years.

In fact, the only likely scenario for a third front is a repeat of 1996 when the Congress, the Left and other regional parties went out of their way to thwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s [ Images ] ascendancy to power. It is conceivable that such a scenario could very well play out with a Narendra Modi-led BJP being isolated by most parties barring all-weather allies like the Shiv Sena [ Images ] and the Akali Dal.

Such a scenario may actually be in the BJP’s interest just as it played out in 1996 in the case of Vajpayee who made a come-back twice riding on a groundswell of public support against the politics of untouchability. There aremany barriers against such a scenario playing out, not the least from within the BJP.

There is, however, a less talked about parallel and it has to do with the original third or rather second front government from the late 1970s. The Janata Party experiment saw multiple regional and supra-regional parties merge their identity in favour of a common national symbol. The Janata experiment first came apart on the issue of dual membership before ultimately falling prey to personality differences.

In this season of federalism it may not be far-fetched to attempt to forge a new federal compact ascribing a new meaning to the idea of dual membership. It is not inconceivable that elections in India can be fought by a party maintaining a distinct regional identity in state elections while merging to fight on a common symbol in the national elections.

Such a truly federal front would be the ideal second front to challenge the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance [Images ]. Such a federal front would make the need for a third or fourth front redundant, perhaps even irrelevant. 

Filed under: federalism, Mayawati, Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, nitish kumar, Offstumped Podcasts

RSS Now Playing on Offstumped Live

  • On Third Front day dreams and Uttar Pradesh nightmares – Wrap up Podcast March 14, 2012
    A podcast conversation with  @dubash (http://phalaka.com) where we wrap up the Uttar Pradesh polls discussion with a look at the final numbers and analysis of vote shares. We also look ahead on all the buzz around Akhilesh Yadav, the rise of the Samajwadi Party and all of the day-dreaming over a possible Third Front Government [...]
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