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Thursday, Dec 09, 2004

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UNHAPPY COHABITATION

THE LOCAL BODY election in Andhra Pradesh is turning out to be an opportunity for both the Telugu Desam Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party to review alliance options after the drubbing they received in the 2004 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Neither party wants an abrupt end to the six-year-old partnership before testing the waters in the coming municipal election. Thus while the BJP has authorised its district units to decide on a tie-up with the regional partner, the TDP president, N. Chandrababu Naidu, has hinted at the possibility of allying with the Left parties. For the BJP, this is an occasion to assess its strength without necessarily piggybacking on the TDP; however, realism rules out any political alliance other than with the TDP. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi is at this juncture a partner in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre. The choice before the district units of the BJP is between an alliance with the TDP and no alliance at all. Even so, in a situation where the TDP is yet to show signs of improving its electoral stock, the BJP would rather grab the chance to fight the local body poll alone than suffer in the company of a politically discredited ally.

For the TDP, the calculations are quite different. The regional party did exceedingly well in alliance with the BJP in 1999, but lost badly this year. One major difference between 1999 and 2004 is that the Congress in the interim has strengthened its hands through seat-sharing agreements with the TRS and the Left parties. Although gross insensitivity to mass rural distress was definitely a contributing factor to the electoral defeat of the TDP, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu could not but have recognised the powerful arithmetic of the alliance ranged against him. The statements of the TDP president on the relative merits of an alliance with the BJP and a seat-sharing arrangement with the Left parties should be seen in this context. If only to undo the polarisation seen during the 14th general election between the Congress-led front and the BJP-TDP alliance, Mr. Naidu must have visualised a political realignment. With the Communist Party of India (Marxist) pointing to the TDP's alliance with the BJP and also its economic policies as disqualifying factors for a possible tie-up, Mr. Naidu felt compelled to defend his party's economic policies, although not its truck with the BJP.

In the near future neither the TDP nor the BJP can hope to find allies from the Congress camp. The Left parties are certainly not in any hurry to forgive the TDP for its "anti-people policies" of the last nine years, especially since the Congress Government in the State seems to be doing a decent job of undoing them. The BJP cannot think of any ally other than the TRS, but for this it knows it will have to bide its time. Unless the TRS-Congress alliance breaks up on the issue of Statehood for the Telangana region, there is no prospect of the TRS crossing over. But the BJP also knows that partnering the TRS will not yield political dividends outside the Telangana region. To complicate matters, the TRS and the BJP are vying for the same political space in the region. In this scenario, notwithstanding pulls and pressures, the TDP and the BJP seem destined to spend time in each other's company, in a sort of grumpy cohabitation. The local body election is unlikely to end up as anything more than a testing ground for the two allies to assess their independent strengths and weaknesses.

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