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Sunday, Sep 12, 2004

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An election without issues

By Kalpana Sharma

The coming Maharashtra Assembly elections are being keenly watched for a number of reasons. First, they are the first major electoral battle since the change of Government at the Centre. Second, Maharashtra is a State where the two main alliances, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena are almost evenly balanced. The major difference this time around as compared to 1999, when the last Assembly elections were held, is that the Congress-NCP have a pre-poll alliance and are also part of the ruling coalition at the Centre. In 1999, despite having fought separately, they managed to win enough seats to clobber together a post-election alliance and form a government. Will they do better this time?

Strategy not ready

These are still early days as the parties have not yet finalised their list of candidates. However, already one thing is evident — the absence of real issues. The Saffron parties have announced their intention of making the supposed insult to Veer Savarkar an election issue. Yet there is little to suggest that this will appeal to anyone beyond a few urban pockets. For the starving tribals in North Maharashtra, or the debt-ridden farmers of Vidarbha, this is hardly likely to invoke any emotion.

The Shiv Sena has also begun to raise extremely local issues, particularly in Mumbai, which will be important for both combines. Mumbai city and suburbs have 34 Assembly segments. In 1999, the saffron parties had won the majority of the seats in the city. But in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won five out of the six seats, with the Shiv Sena winning just in one closely-contested fight in Mumbai South Central.

Wooing urban voter

To gain the sympathy of the urban voter, the Shiv Sena has taken up issues such as challenging the order of the railways prohibiting bhajan mandalis (groups of bhajan singers who occupy entire railway compartments) on the suburban trains. It has dropped its "Me Mumbaikar" (I am a Mumbaikar) campaign which was the brainchild of the Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's son and heir-apparent, Uddhav Thackeray. The Sena is also trying to live down its anti-outsider (specially anti-North Indian) stance of earlier this year. It is clear that in the Lok Sabha elections this was a factor that led to the BJP-Shiv Sena losing ground in constituencies like Mumbai North where five times MP, Ram Naik, lost to the actor, Govinda.

Anti-incumbency factor

The Democratic Front is not much better off. It will have to fight the anti-incumbency factor particularly as its performance has been less than spectacular. On the contrary, the State is deep in debt with a deficit exceeding Rs. 93,000 crores, it has mismanaged the farm sector as is evident from the farmers' suicides in Vidarbha and it has failed to explain the inexcusable neglect of the tribal population resulting in many infant deaths. Also, Maharashtra is losing its edge as an industrialised state because of the Government's inability to manage efficiently the power sector. And as if this was not enough, the Government has been plagued by one of the biggest scams uncovered in recent times, the Telgi scam.

Vidarbha holds key

The key to these elections will be Vidarbha where the Congress-NCP lost ground to the Saffron parties in the general elections. There are 66 Assembly segments in that region and roughly half of these were held by the Congress-NCP. They will be closely contested this time. Apart from the demand for a separate state, Vidarbha's vote will be determined by the choice of the Dalits. With the Republican Party of India divided into four factions, and the entry of the Bahujan Samaj Party, which plans to contest all the 288 Assembly seats, no party can take the Dalit vote for granted.

Over 10 per cent of Maharashtra's population is Muslim. Although Muslims voted strategically in the Lok Sabha elections and did not allow the "secular" vote to be divided, it is far from certain that this pattern will repeat itself in the Assembly polls. There are many pockets where Muslims have specific grievances against the State Government in its use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

To win back this vote, the Congress-NCP has little to offer. The absence of a major "leader", apart from Sharad Pawar, who can appeal to all sections, is striking. The alliance will have to depend on the drawing power of national leaders during the campaign. Whether this will translate into votes in a closely contested election, where local factors often overrule national issues, is a moot point.

Lacklustre campaigns

One factor that would go against both sets of parties is the proximity of these elections to the general elections. Will the parties be able to generate enough excitement to draw out the voter for another election, one for which there are few interesting candidates and certainly no tantalising or controversial issues?

An indication of the mood is the response to recent public events. The Shiv Sena's chappal hitting rally in its home ground of Shivaji Park drew less than 8,000 people, mostly Shiv Sainiks. And the NCP's campaign launch last week in Mumbai was similarly a lacklustre affair despite the presence of Sharad Pawar. However, for the parties in power, a low turnout could help them scrape through.

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An election without issues