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Monday, Apr 19, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

An uphill task for the BJP

Arunkumar Bhatt

SOLAPUR, Maharashtra

In Solapur, the stakes have never been so high as they are this time. While the BJP wants to retain the seat, bagged just few months ago, the Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde needs to wrest it back since Solapur is his home constituency and the Congress nominee is his wife, Ujwalatai Shinde. The NCP is doing its best to demonstrate its strength to its alliance partner, the Congress and the clout of its Deputy Chief Minister, Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil. The BJP has only one Unique Selling Proposition (USP), the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, against the combined personal strength of the chief minister and his deputy.

The Congress had won this seat eight times before 1996 when it lost to the BJP because the anti-BJP vote had split with the Janata Dal nominee, Ravikant Patil, taking 1.66 lakh votes. The Congress decided to bring in Mr. Shinde, then a Rajya Sabha MP, in 1998.

The move, coupled with the absence of Mr. Patil, was a success, with the party winning by a margin of 17.21 per cent. Mr. Shinde repeated the feat in 1999, albeit with a smaller margin of 12.76 per cent despite the split in the party.

But on becoming the chief minister and winning an Assembly election, Mr. Shinde had to vacate it, only to watch the Congress losing the seat to the BJP in the bye-election held last September. It was a BJP masterstroke, executed in connivance with the NCP. The saffron party fielded Mr. Pratapsinh Mohite-Patil, aka Papa, a brother of the deputy chief minister. The NCP extended clandestine support to the BJP, also to teach a lesson to a section of the Congress that had been advocating a break with the NCP.

The situation has since changed. The two partners of the Democratic Front, the Congress and NCP have also become poll allies. Mr. Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil has become the Deputy Chief Minister and overseer of the combine's campaign in this part of the State. He has prevailed upon his brother to spurn the BJP ticket and not to even campaign for the BJP.

The BJP has been forced to opt for the former MLC, Subhash Deshmukh, popularly known as Bapu. While the BJP was celebrating its victory a few months ago, Mr. Shinde was carefully studying the outcome. His party nominee, Anandrao Devkate had lost by one lakh votes the seat that he had won by a comfortable margin of 77,000 votes. Mr. Shinde then worked out a number of sops for Solapur.

These included a package to bail out the debt-ridden power loom industry, the mainstay of the local economy, Rs. 2.5 crore to provide amenities to the pilgrims in Solapur's famous Siddheswar temple and the announcement of the setting up of the Solapur University.

He also withdrew POTA cases filed after the communal riots here two years ago to influence the minority votes. Being a Dalit himself, Mr. Shinde enjoys near-monopoly over that community.

Under the circumstances, the BJP is facing is an uphill. Its `feel good' and `India shining' will not work in this drought-affected area. But the party has succeeded in reducing the campaign to a single point: who should be the prime minister, an Indian or a foreigner? Its nominee, Mr. Deshmukh has started several labour-intensive and high visibility projects such as a sugar mill and a milk distribution network. His bid to acquire closed spinning mills has been received well by the unemployed. Besides, the BJP is trying to win friends among the OBC communities.

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