Assembly elections 2008
By Rasheeda Bhagat December 9, 2008 Muslim India
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The biggest lesson from the Assembly polls in five States is a warning to political parties not to make capital out of human tragedy. The people have done well to show that they will vote politicians in or out based on their performance and delivery on promises, and not on their capacity to fan the flames of communal hatred, for which this country is already paying a price, says RASHEEDA BHAGAT.
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The biggest lesson from the Assembly polls in five States is a warning to political parties not to make capital out of human tragedy. The people have done well to show that they will vote politicians in or out based on their performance and delivery on promises, and not on their capacity to fan the flames of communal hatred, for which this country is already paying a price, says RASHEEDA BHAGAT.
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As in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, this time around too, the Congress leadership will be most surprised at the party’s impressive performance in the Assembly elections in five States. Winning decisively in Delhi and Mizoram and emerging the single largest party in Rajasthan, where the Congress is all set to form the government in the State, are achievements beyond the party’s most optimistic projections post-Mumbai.
But the day clearly belonged to Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dikshit, who managed a decisive hat-trick. Quite obviously, she was the most worried person as voting in Delhi took place in the thick of the Mumbai attacks and the mounting wrath of Indian citizens at their governments in Maharashtra and the Centre — both led by the Congress — failing to prevent the diabolic attacks.
But despite most Congress leaders admitting that the Mumbai terror attacks would hurt the party the most in an urban constituency like Delhi, Ms Dikshit was able to achieve a decisive win. This could mean one of several things: One, in State Assembly elections local issues are at the top of the mind of the voters. Despite Delhi itself being the target of bomb blasts, and registering a rising crime graph, people of the State have given her the thumbs-up.
It could also mean that, this time around, the near absence of internal dissidence and squabbling in the Delhi Congress helped her.
Triumph for Sheila
The BJP’s top leadership will, of course, go into a huddle to determine why it was not able to press the anti-incumbency factor against Ms Dikshit and prevent her from making history in Delhi. With this decisive win, she enters the elite club of veteran and charismatic politicians like Jyoti Basu and M .G. Ramachandran.
The latter won an election in Tamil Nadu even from his hospital bed in the US, where he was undergoing treatment for a severe stroke attack. In the 1984 Tamil Nadu assembly elections, MGR was battling for his life in a Brooklyn hospital, and just recorded images of the chief minister waving out to people from his hospital bed were enough to help the AIADMK win the election.
With her victory Ms Dikshit has upset several surmises; the first one being that the BJP would benefit immensely from the “soft” UPA government’s failure to prevent terror attacks. On the other hand, the opposite effect might have worked on the voters’ psyche; angry people, not only in Mumbai, but all over the country — particularly Delhi, it now seems — have rejected the politicians’ ploy of getting votes by polarising people along communal lines.
This is not to say that the communal, and caste, planks do not work. They work splendidly or else our politicians would have dumped them long ago. But, in the immediate aftermath of Mumbai, they have failed to work.
Another assumption Ms Dikshit has shattered is that Indians are fed up of old politicians. In fact, several supporters of BJP as well as political pundits and media analysts have attributed the choice of an “old politician” like Mr Malhotra as the reason for the BJP’s defeat in Delhi. Well, at 71, Ms Dikshit is not young either. But she is seen as a suave and soft-spoken politician who does not indulge in shrill attacks against opponents — something Mr Malhotra revels in.
Lacking both charisma and promise, he could have been the worst possible BJP candidate as Delhi’s chief minister. Pitched against him, even Mr Madan Lal Khurana appears preferable. In hindsight the BJP’s top leadership must be ruing the fact that it did not field the younger, smarter, suave, articulate and charismatic Arun Jaitley to take on Ms Dikshit.
He was the first choice, but turned down the proposal as he sees himself as a thinker and strategist for the party and wishes to carve out a more important role for himself at the national level. In party circles, he and the Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, are seen as the party’s future. And then, of course, Ms Dikshit had delivered on critical issues, such as giving Delhi a network of flyovers that have vastly improved traffic, CNG buses and streamlined Blue Line buses and she can also take part of the credit for the wonderful Delhi Metro.
Thanking the Delhi electorate for its support Ms Dikshit said that despite the Opposition’s endeavour to use the terrorism plank against her “the only issue that has worked with the people is that of development, coupled with the future of Delhi”.
Vasundhara rejected
But the day clearly belonged to Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dikshit, who managed a decisive hat-trick. Quite obviously, she was the most worried person as voting in Delhi took place in the thick of the Mumbai attacks and the mounting wrath of Indian citizens at their governments in Maharashtra and the Centre — both led by the Congress — failing to prevent the diabolic attacks.
But despite most Congress leaders admitting that the Mumbai terror attacks would hurt the party the most in an urban constituency like Delhi, Ms Dikshit was able to achieve a decisive win. This could mean one of several things: One, in State Assembly elections local issues are at the top of the mind of the voters. Despite Delhi itself being the target of bomb blasts, and registering a rising crime graph, people of the State have given her the thumbs-up.
It could also mean that, this time around, the near absence of internal dissidence and squabbling in the Delhi Congress helped her.
Triumph for Sheila
The BJP’s top leadership will, of course, go into a huddle to determine why it was not able to press the anti-incumbency factor against Ms Dikshit and prevent her from making history in Delhi. With this decisive win, she enters the elite club of veteran and charismatic politicians like Jyoti Basu and M .G. Ramachandran.
The latter won an election in Tamil Nadu even from his hospital bed in the US, where he was undergoing treatment for a severe stroke attack. In the 1984 Tamil Nadu assembly elections, MGR was battling for his life in a Brooklyn hospital, and just recorded images of the chief minister waving out to people from his hospital bed were enough to help the AIADMK win the election.
With her victory Ms Dikshit has upset several surmises; the first one being that the BJP would benefit immensely from the “soft” UPA government’s failure to prevent terror attacks. On the other hand, the opposite effect might have worked on the voters’ psyche; angry people, not only in Mumbai, but all over the country — particularly Delhi, it now seems — have rejected the politicians’ ploy of getting votes by polarising people along communal lines.
This is not to say that the communal, and caste, planks do not work. They work splendidly or else our politicians would have dumped them long ago. But, in the immediate aftermath of Mumbai, they have failed to work.
Another assumption Ms Dikshit has shattered is that Indians are fed up of old politicians. In fact, several supporters of BJP as well as political pundits and media analysts have attributed the choice of an “old politician” like Mr Malhotra as the reason for the BJP’s defeat in Delhi. Well, at 71, Ms Dikshit is not young either. But she is seen as a suave and soft-spoken politician who does not indulge in shrill attacks against opponents — something Mr Malhotra revels in.
Lacking both charisma and promise, he could have been the worst possible BJP candidate as Delhi’s chief minister. Pitched against him, even Mr Madan Lal Khurana appears preferable. In hindsight the BJP’s top leadership must be ruing the fact that it did not field the younger, smarter, suave, articulate and charismatic Arun Jaitley to take on Ms Dikshit.
He was the first choice, but turned down the proposal as he sees himself as a thinker and strategist for the party and wishes to carve out a more important role for himself at the national level. In party circles, he and the Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, are seen as the party’s future. And then, of course, Ms Dikshit had delivered on critical issues, such as giving Delhi a network of flyovers that have vastly improved traffic, CNG buses and streamlined Blue Line buses and she can also take part of the credit for the wonderful Delhi Metro.
Thanking the Delhi electorate for its support Ms Dikshit said that despite the Opposition’s endeavour to use the terrorism plank against her “the only issue that has worked with the people is that of development, coupled with the future of Delhi”.
Vasundhara rejected
Despite delivering on the development and infrastructure fronts, as also such issues as education of girls, women’s economic empowerment, etc., in Rajasthan, Ms Vasundhara Raje lost the battle to the Congress for several reasons. Being projected by her supporters as someone who could play a “national role” in the BJP in the coming years did not exactly help her cause.
Unfortunately, she was seen as both elitist and arrogant; apparently the RSS did not like her, and a senior and powerful BJP leader from Rajasthan, Mr Jaswant Singh, has had long-standing problems with her and had actively worked for her removal as Chief Minister when the Meena-Gujjar strife in the State reached a peak last year.
With dissidence within the party and too many enemies within the Sangh Parivar, she was fighting a losing battle. Jaipur’s widened and pot-free roads, as well as several flyovers, and its beautification to improve revenues from tourism, did not help either.
In Madhya Pradesh, however, better infrastructure, coupled with ego-clashes among several Congress netas in the State, apparently helped the incumbent BJP Chief Minister, Shivraj Chauhan, to post a handsome win in the largest of the five States that went to the polls.
In Chhattisgarh, which turned out to be a saviour for the BJP — or else the report card in what the BJP leaders were calling till yesterday the “semi-final” would have read a dismal 4-1 — it was the good old populist measure, subsidised rice, that earned the State’s chief minister the title of chaawal baba.
Mixed signals
So this “semi-final”, apart from springing many surprises, sends many important signals for the final, to be held around April. It clearly states that at the end of the day, somebody like Ms Dikshit can battle the challenge of incumbency by providing effective governance, by dignified demeanour and restrained language and convincing the electorate that she had tried to do the best she could.
It also sends the message that individual ego trips and internal squabbling will finally pull down not only individuals, but the entire party, as the BJP found in Rajasthan and the Congress in Madhya Pradesh.
It shows Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party making slow but sure inroads in improving its vote share. Data churning and detailed analysis will later reveal for which party it proved to be a major spoiler. But what is evident immediately is that is has picked up 8-9 seats in MP, six in Rajasthan, and two each in Delhi and Chhattisgarh.
The mighty elephant (the BSP symbol) that is threatening to trample the two main national parties and carry Ms Mayawati to the Prime Minister’s chair in Delhi in the coming Lok Sabha poll, might not have made the desired impact now in terms of seats but its vote share is undoubtedly going up — in Delhi it has doubled from 5 to 10 per cent. Of course, South India will be another ball game for UP’s bahenji as regional parties hold sway here, particularly in Tamil Nadu.
But the biggest takeaway from this election is a warning to political parties and their leaders not to make capital out of human tragedy. What happened in Mumbai was horrendous and the people of these five States have done well to show our politicians that they will vote them in or out based on their performance and delivery of promises, and not on their capacity to fan the flames of communal hatred, for which this country is already paying a price.
These elections and their results are a great salute to our democracy and the voters, who cannot be taken for a ride all the time.
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Photo credit: Ms Sheila Dikshit is seen as a suave and soft -spoken politician who has delivered on promises in many critical areas.- R.V.Moorthy
Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in
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