As the Congress-led UPA-II celebrates its first one hundred days in office, the political forces which lost the Lok Sabha elections continue to be in disarray. On the surface, this may look like being a positive for the ruling coalition, but it is not really so. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself said at the end of last week, the crisis in the principal opposition party, the BJP, is not good. It is apparent that the absence of a strong opposition detracts from good governance.
Right from the Left to the Right, the political forces which lost the Lok Sabha elections are still to find back their moorings and direction so that they are able to make a contribution again to the polity.
The party facing the worst crisis is the BJP, which despite holding a chintan baithak (introspection meeting) to chalk out the roadmap for its revival, failed to come up with fresh ideas on putting the party back on track. The only achievement, if it could be called that, of the Shimla conclave was the expulsion of former Union Minister Jaswant Singh from the party on the Jinnah book issue. It is significant that the party is acting upon issues which are no longer of relevance rather than attend to the task of finding a new direction, which can help the party to reinvent itself.
The BJP woes after the shock defeat in the Lok Sabha elections have increased with its seniormost active leader Lal Krishan Advani refusing to see the writing on the wall and quitting to make way for the generation next.
The RSS has finally thrown its hat in the ring though on the surface it says that it does not interfere in the day to day functioning of the allied outfits including the BJP, which is the political wing of the Sangh Parivar. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had meetings with almost all senior BJP leaders in New Delhi at the weekend. The signals are that his interaction not only with Advani, but also with party president Rajnath Singh and younger leaders could lead to significant changes in the BJP organization and its parliamentary wing in the coming months.
By all accounts, the RSS is in favour of a generational change in the BJP and would like the top leaders in Delhi to make way for younger leaders from the states. One immediate effect of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's meetings with BJP leaders has been that they have agreed not to fight in public, as they had been doing since the party debacle in the Lok Sabha elections. Especially in the last fortnight, there were no holds barred attacks on Advani not only from Jaswant Singh, who has been expelled from the party, but also from other leaders like Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha. Hopefully, under RSS prompting, the BJP leaders would find a way of sorting out the leadership issue. It appears that the RSS would like the younger generation to take over the running of the party while it wants elder leaders like Advani to keep advising the new leadership.
The BJP is not alone in finding it difficult to reinvent the party after the debacle in the Lok Sabha elections. Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which was another big loser in the general elections, is also searching for a direction. At its national executive meeting in Agra this month, which coincidentally was held at the same time when the BJP leaders were holding their introspection meeting in Shimla, the party could not decide the issue of continuing or withdrawing support to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. The Samajwadi Party would have liked to withdraw support to the Congress-headed government, as Mulayam Singh Yadav himself had been stating in the recent past, but was held back from doing so because of the realization that it could not fight on two fronts at the same time - against Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh and against the Congress-led government at the Centre.
The Left parties, whose strength in the Lok Sabha was cut by more than half in the general elections, are also in a quandary at present, not knowing which way to go. The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamul Congress looks set to end their three-decade long rule in West Bengal when Assembly elections take place there in two years time. The results of the Assembly by-elections held recently indicate that the Trinamul wave in the state continues unabated. Like in the BJP, the top leaders of the Left parties, especially the CPI (M), are still unwilling to accept the basic reasons for the people rejecting them in the Lok Sabha elections - the perception that they put their ideological beliefs above national interest. Both the BJP and the Left parties opposed the Indo-US civil nuclear deal blindly, ignoring the fact that in the long run, it would add to the country's stature at the world level.
Another loser in the Lok Sabha elections, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party has also not been able to find a way of overcoming the crisis of confidence. Mayawati's answer to the defeat has been building more statues of Dalit icons like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and BSP founder Kanshi Ram, apart from Mayawati herself, but this has not done anything to boost the party's image. Mayawati has failed to realise that the voters did not take kindly to over-projection of her persona and what they perceive as wastage of public money.
But the practice of using public funds for building a party or personal image is not confined to the BSP and Mayawati. Recently, there was almost an obscene splurge of advertisements in the print and the electronic media on August 20, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's birthday, which is also observed as Sadbhavna Divas. More recently, the caretaker government in Haryana has launched a media blitzkrieg highlighting its achievements and singing the praises of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The Congress and its government in Haryana appear to believe that the people will not be able to see through the game. But as innumerable elections in India at various levels have shown, the people are able to see through the games played by politicians and put them in their place when they exercise their franchise.
Politicians of all hues, whether on the ruling side or the opposition, need to be more sensitive to the people's perceptions and expectations. The Congress should not think that the disarray in the opposition gives it an opportunity to ride rough shod over democratic traditions and requirements of good governance. In a democracy, the people are the ultimate rulers, and in India they have shown it more than once earlier.
