The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : A no-holds-barred contest

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Sunday, May 02, 2004

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Opinion - News Analysis

A no-holds-barred contest

The net result in Uttar Pradesh will be decided by how far the BJP will be able to stop the shift in its core vote base, says Venkitesh Ramakrishnan.

ON THE evening of April 26, even as the first round of polling for 32 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh concluded, the Bharatiya Janata Party's State election campaign control room in Lucknow was buzzing with activity. Hundreds of instructions to various parts of the State flowed out of the office over diverse communication lines even as groups of leaders and activists huddled together to make sense of the information that was coming in. Yes, preparations were already on for the next two rounds of the battle in the remaining 48 seats of the State.

Throughout the evening and in the following days, the level of commotion in the BJP control room was greater than in the offices of its rivals such as the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress. The reasons for this were not far to seek. The hullabaloo was a direct consequence of the panic that had gripped the BJP rank and file.

The saffron party's leadership had great hopes of improving its tally in the State — it had 27 in 1999 — but indications from the first round of polling in the 32 seats of eastern Uttar Pradesh were not really heartening. Reports from the Sangh Parivar activists themselves, a senior BJP leader told The Hindu , pointed to an unprecedented depletion in the party's core `upper' caste vote base.

In all the elections in the past 15 years, the BJP had drawn great support from the Brahmin and Rajput communities. But what the polling trend in eastern Uttar Pradesh suggested was that large sections of Brahmin voters were shifting allegiance to the Congress and equally large sections of Rajputs were moving towards the SP.

One of the BJP's major manoeuvres in the context of this election was to bring back former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, who had been expelled from the party. This was done with the specific intention of winning back the backward caste Lodh votes. The calculation at that point of time was that the Lodh vote would supplement the `upper' caste votes, and thus help the party reach a decent tally in the country's most populous State, which also has the highest number of Lok Sabha seats. However with the core vote base itself being eroded, of what good was a mere addition of Lodh votes — this was the question before the BJP leadership after the first round of election.

Assessments circulated within the party affirmed that several factors, including the enthusiastic reaction to the entry of Rahul Gandhi into electoral politics and the resultant improvement in the electoral chances of the Congress, had contributed to this slide. The disillusionment with the NDA's "India Shining" and "feel good" campaigns, as well as the BJP's failure to enthuse the pro-Hindutva voters through an "extremist" line or capture the minority votes through a "genuinely moderate" approach were highlighted as the other factors adding to the decline in the party's popular appeal.

The BJP had to evolve new strategies and tactics to shore up its prospects and this was naturally reflected in the increased pace of activity in the control room. One of the important measures taken was the import of the organisational strategist, Sudhanshu Mittal, considered within the Sangh Parivar as one of the architects of the surprising BJP victory in the election to the Rajasthan Assembly last year. It was under his directions that the new tactics were being employed. And information from the BJP establishment is that there will be renewed efforts to aggravate the split among the anti-BJP voters, especially those belonging to the minority community.

By all indications, this will be a no-holds barred war that will not be limited by considerations such as ideology, politics or righteousness. Political and electoral exigencies, said a party leader, would be the principal terms of reference.

There are even plans to fund independent candidates to cut into the votes of backward castes and Muslims, traditional supporters of the SP, the number one opponent of the BJP in the State. A BJP insider said the party would even "help Congress candidates if they can attract some votes from the SP and the BSP."

Manifestations of this new line were visible almost immediately after April 26, when none other than Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself wondered aloud at a meeting in Lucknow why the minorities were deserting the SP and its leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, at this point of time. "Why are Muslims going to the Congress, even though the party has not taken any new, concrete measure to deserve a renewal of faith," he asked.

The political intent of Mr. Vajpayee's question was clearly to further divide the minority votes so that the BJP benefits. Simultaneously, the party has also decided to unleash an array of leaders, including Narendra Modi and Uma Bharti, in select constituencies where the Hindutva spirit can be rekindled in a short span of time.

All this and Mr. Mittal's special appeal to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to mobilise its cadre is, reportedly, making an impact. In the early stages of the campaign, a large number of RSS and VHP activists had refrained from campaigning for the BJP, denouncing the "watering down of the Hindutva ideology by Vajpayee and Co."

Pramod Mahajan, BJP general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh elections, is working closely with Mr. Mittal in fine-tuning the new thrust of this strategy. Mr. Mahajan apparently believes that the new drive can help the BJP win up to 17 seats out of the 30 seats that will go to the polls on May 5. In 1999, the party had only 7 out of these, way behind the SP's 14. Mr. Mittal and his team are supposed to have assessed the seats in terms of winnability and have supposedly found out that it will not be difficult to retain the existing seats.

A former legislator, Hariraj Singh Tyagi, is of the view that such computer calculations do not reflect the popular mood or the actual situation on the ground. Mr. Tyagi claimed that the BJP would find it difficult to even retain Allahabad, held by the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, not to speak of seats such as Fatehpur and Bilhaur which the party won by wafer-thin margins in 1999.

The SP and the BSP are countering the BJP's frenzied activity through their own caste-oriented politics. Leaders of the SP say they have their act tied up for the next rounds of polling. "The region that goes to the polls on May 5 is our bastion," Mr. Yadav, SP leader and Chief Minister, told The Hindu. He also claimed that there had been no drain from the SP's support base in this region and that the party's alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal would help it make new gains in western Uttar Pradesh on May 10.

The BSP is also banking on its core support base of Dalits and making moves to attract more and more minority community voters to its side to raise its tally from the 14 it held in 1999. The Congress, however, seems to have fallen into a kind of inactive mood after an enthusiastic performance in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Whatever the impact of the manoeuvres of the SP, the BSP and the Congress, one thing is clear. The net result will be decided by how far the BJP will be able to stop the shift in its core vote base.

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