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Monday, Sep 20, 2004

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Maharashtra: closer than it looks

By P. Sainath

The elections to the Maharashtra Assembly will be a close run race between the ruling Congress-NCP combine and the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance.

THE CONGRESS-NCP alliance in Maharashtra has worked hard this year at re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. No matter how bad things have been in the countryside both before and after the Lok Sabha polls, it has been business as usual for the Government. One whose leaders promise free power to farmers. And speak, in the same breath, of reviving Enron's project in the State.

Resurrecting a rip-off that has blown a highway-sized hole in its finances is just part of the logic. This State had already seen hunger deaths, farmers' suicides, the crushing of former mill workers, drought and countless scams. Yet the one great issue peddled by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) during the Lok Sabha polls was that over the James Laine `controversy.'

The party feared, rightly, that large chunks of the Marathas were drifting away from it. And the idea was that the outrage over Laine's book would somehow bind that community once again to the NCP. The move flopped. The Marathas kept drifting. More, the attack on the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune, driven by the hysteria, outraged most people and even drove a wedge between sections of Brahmins and Marathas.

The appeasing of the State's sugar barons in the countryside and its urban builders' lobby only accelerates. As does the pouring of money down the bottomless pit of fraud-ridden cooperative banks. All the while, the distress of the mill workers in Mumbai city only deepens. That sends a chilling signal to working people across the State.

The new phase of the Enron game is unique. The Congress first struck the deal in the early 1990s. In the 1995 polls, the Shiv Sena-BJP combine trounced the Congress (then led by Sharad Pawar) on the issue. It promised "to throw Enron into the Arabian Sea." On being elected, it cancelled the project, only to reinstate it soon after. With even more gains for the MNC. In 1999, the Enron disaster helped defeat the Sena-BJP Government. Today, all four parties, Congress, NCP, Shiv Sena and BJP, are talking of reviving Enron.

The fight in the Assembly polls in October seems very tight. Just a few months ago, it was simpler: numbers favoured the Congress-NCP. Politics favoured the Sena-BJP. The Lok Sabha results brought some changes to the numbers. While the Sena-BJP led in 141 Assembly segments, the Congress-NCP-Republican Party of India (Athavle) led in 139. In the remaining eight, the CPI (M) led in two, the Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWPI) in two, Kadu (a Congress rebel) in three, and Arun Gawli in one. That makes up the 288 seats to be contested in the Assembly polls in October.

However, the overall Congress-NCP lead of around 1.8 per cent exists because of western Maharashtra. In which region they are so dominant, it is hard to add any more seats. And there is this question: has anything happened since May to endear the ruling alliance to voters?

The Sena-BJP's strategy is basic and coherent. Western Maharashtra, where the rival alliance outscored it by over 12 per cent in May, is not a priority. Nor is it banking on gaining Dalit votes. Just on the Bahujan Samaj Party damaging the Congress even worse than in the Lok Sabha polls. In Marathwada and Vidharbha, the BJP-Sena alliance believes — quite reasonably — that the crisis and bad governance favours it.

Take Marathwada. In the Lok Sabha polls, the Sena-BJP led in twice the number of Assembly segments that the Congress-NCP did. That is 32 to 16. In Vidharbha, the Sena-BJP blasted the ruling alliance 46 to 17, greatly aided by the bright showing of the BSP. The BSP grabbed close to seven per cent of the vote in that region. The difference between the Congress and BJP-led fronts was 5.24 per cent.

In Khandesh, the BJP-Sena led in 19 segments to the rivals' 16. But the latter got the higher vote percentage. So it is a very tight race there. In the Mumbai-Konkan region, the Congress-NCP combine surprised many by taking a lead of close to five per cent in the vote.

What the BJP-Sena now concentrate on is three cities: Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur. The setback in Mumbai shocked the combine. In Vidharbha, the only Lok Sabha seat it lost was Nagpur (headquarters of the RSS). And in Pune, it senses a pool of voters exists that is more receptive. The October contests in nearly 48 seats in these three cities will be, in Sena-BJP eyes, the turning point.

Hence, all its major actions have been directed at those sections it believes it lost here. The Savarkar issue does not speak to the State's devastated farmers. But it does touch passions in Mumbai and Pune. Likewise, the Sena's `struggle' for the `right' to have bhajan mandalis belting out their devotion on all suburban trains is solely a Mumbai issue. The physical attack on Mahanagar editor Nikhil Wagle was also aimed at the Sena-BJP's urban constituency.

Then there is the great anger with the Congress-NCP Government. The damage done to the Public Distribution System (PDS) in this State will surely hurt it. As will the discontent of the middle classes over the commercialisation of education. This State is further down that road than many others. And it hurts. The top education barons are from the Congress and NCP. And people can see that.

Even Congressmen are not keen to defend their record in the countryside. Growing indebtedness, repeated crop failure and malnourishment have ravaged Maharashtra. As have the hunger deaths (mainly amongst Adivasis). The response of the ruling alliance to these has been a disgrace.

Is there hope then for the Congress-NCP alliance at all? Well, yes. But that depends on several complex factors.

One, the choice and announcement of candidates will, as always in this State, have a profound fallout. The Congress comes out with its list at the last moment to give its many potential rebels less time to do their damage. The BSP, which put up a strong show in Vidharbha in the Lok Sabha polls, did give the ticket to Congress rebels there. Win them back and the Congress is in business. But if the BSP cuts even more votes this time, it is different. And if those who voted for the BSP in April included large chunks of the RPI's Mahar voters, then the Congress is in deep trouble. So managing the BSP factor will be crucial.

Also, the Congress unwisely ceded to the NCP seats that party had no chance of winning in Vidharbha and Marathwada. Repeating that error could be fatal. Correcting it could vastly improve things. For the Assembly polls, this has become vital.

Two, the old solid lead of the Congress-NCP is gone. The gap between the two fronts is narrow. But managing the rebels might help. And with good rainfall and sowing in the zones of electoral loss, some mending is possible, even if quite hard to do. The Congress and its allies believe the good monsoon might reduce the intensity of anti-incumbent feeling. Also, the unattractive nature of the alternative could help.

Three, a deft handling of alliances might help them scrape through. The winning margins of the Sena-BJP were very small in many places. The Samajwadi Party is now irrelevant in this election. And the PWPI and the Janata Dal (Secular) will not go with the Congress. If the Congress-NCP can draw and hold together the diverse RPI factions, some retrieval of the Dalit vote could happen. That means getting the Athavle, Ambedkar, Gavai and Kawade groups together. And pulling back rebels from the BSP. Difficult but not impossible.

Striking a deal with the CPI (M) could also help the Congress-NCP consolidate in up to eight seats now out of its grasp.

Four, after turning down the Prime Minister's post, Sonia Gandhi's prestige shot up. Importantly this touched even crucial Vidharbha, where she has always been a crowd puller. It would be wrong to underestimate the anger of the poor in that region and Marathwada. But her campaigning there can make a big difference to her party.

Five, some Central Government promises should, in theory, favour the Congress. The problem is just that — it is still theory and promises. The pledge of greater rural credit, for instance, might cut some ice because Sharad Pawar is now Agriculture Minister. So too, the State Government's talk of free power and loan waiver could aid it. The question is whether it really means it and if people believe it. If they do, it could help the ruling alliance.

Lastly, with much in their favour, the BJP-Sena have not been able to fully ride the huge rural discontent. The tiranga yatra has bombed and State-level BJP leaders view it as a harmful distraction. And the party's inner struggles for power, between Pramod Mahajan and Uma Bharati and others, helps deepen this divide. Meanwhile, the BJP-Sena's urban focus could also prove a drawback. Even while they are yet to prove they have pulled back the alienated north Indian vote in Mumbai.

For those factors to click for the Congress-NCP, they would need to work in ways they have not known in a long time. The task is much tougher than it looks and the candidate lists will launch the next phase. Once those are out, the dice roll with the campaign. Only, they are loaded against the people of Maharashtra, faced with such a poor, uninspiring choice.

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