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Wednesday, Mar 16, 2005

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VICTORY AT LAST

THE EXPECTED HAS happened in Jharkhand with Chief Minister Arjun Munda winning the vote of confidence in the State Assembly. Yet the final figures, 40 for the National Democratic Alliance and 37 for the United Progressive Alliance, tell a story of their own — a story of back room manoeuvres, poaching, and anxious moments spent before the final count. Consider the statistics. In a House of 81, the NDA claimed the backing of 41 legislators — when it took its flock of supporters for a parade before the Governor, and later when it dramatically produced the lot at Rashtrapati Bhavan. For all that the numbers constituted a clear majority on paper, there was a twist in the tale in the form of the Speaker's election. The NDA knew that once it nominated one of its members for this post, it would be faced with a 40-40 tie. And although there was an escape route by way of the Speaker's casting vote, the situation seemed unacceptably risky for NDA managers working overtime to ensure Mr. Munda's victory. Thus it was that two legislators supporting the UPA did the disappearing act: Kamlesh Singh of the Nationalist Congress Party re-admitted himself to hospital and Joba Manjhi of the United Goans Democratic Party arrived too late for the vote, claiming she had been delayed by a car breakdown. A third MLA, Sukhram Oraon of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, was sighted in the House but had apparently failed to sign the attendance register. That all three MLAs belong to recognised political parties — as opposed to independents who can exercise their free will while voting — only underscores the farcical nature of the voting. Indeed, these three — as well as a fourth one, Enos Ekka of the Jharkhand Party — stand to be disqualified under the now ostensibly more stringent anti-defection law, although it is anybody's guess whether the Speaker will be in any hurry to proceed against them. The manner of the Speaker's conduct of the confidence vote, admittedly in the face of Opposition intransigence, left little doubt about his partisanship.

In the sound effects surrounding the Jharkhand happenings, one ironic detail has got obscured. Shibu Soren's ignominious exit notwithstanding, he was the popular choice for Chief Minister. Mr. Munda, on the other hand, was found to have minimal public backing. A post-poll survey done by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and supported by The Hindu found 23 per cent of respondents preferred Mr. Soren and only 10 per cent favoured Mr. Munda. The Bharatiya Janata Party's Babulal Marandi, the ousted first Chief Minister of the State, was backed for the post by 22 per cent. Mr. Soren also enjoyed higher support than the rival contenders among Adivasis, Dalits, and Muslims. So why did things go so badly for the UPA — in the Assembly election as well as in the way the alliance handled post-election complications? One obvious reason is of course the unravelling of the winning Lok Sabha alliance. A post-facto analysis by the CSDS suggests that had the UPA alliance remained intact, it would have won 44 seats.

The JMM-Congress combination was also affected by the migration of votes towards smaller parties and the independents. This, in turn, appears to have been hastened by the infighting in the JMM and, in particular, by a poor selection of candidates by Mr. Soren. The JMM-Congress blundered all the way — it lost the election and then gracelessly made a grab for power through a pliant Governor. The alliance turned out to have little of the killer instincts of the BJP, which made the most of its stint in the Opposition. It seized the moral high ground, garnered public sympathy, won practical relief from the apex court, and chipped away at Mr. Soren's legislative support. There is a lesson in all this for the UPA. When there is no democratic mandate to rule, it makes sense, eminent sense, to sit in the Opposition.

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