A Wee Swing To The Right

If politicians are considered slippery, the electorate is proving slipperier. Just six months ago, as Vajpayee and the BJP flopped and floundered, opinion polls were giving the Congress a clear mandate at the Centre. Then Kargil happened, and everyone, expert and layperson, declared it would be a sweep for the BJP. Now the Outlook-cms poll shows the electorate's mood is not such an easily divined thing. The BJP and its allies will make it back to power, but likely by a surprisingly slim majority. Vajpayee, fuelled by Kargil, will be the singular engine of the BJP's return. And, wonders, Sonia Gandhi personally is not doing badly at all and is, by a long shot, the only leader who stands up to Vajpayee's ratings.

The savvy parents' guide for school-going children-it doesn't matter how you do for 11 years as long as you max the board exams-is working beautifully for Vajpayee. The charisma of the "first non-Congress politician with a pan-Indian identity" has multiplied and his popularity cuts across most social barriers. The Outlook-cms poll has revealed that for the first time in Independent India, the BJP is likely to overtake the Congress as the single largest party in terms of votes polled: at 27.5 per cent (up 2 per cent from last time) compared to the Congress, which is set to poll 23.85 per cent (down 2 per cent).

Ironically, it was just seven months ago that Vajpayee was widely pitied as a nice man but poor PM; his coalition partners were raising merry hell, the Sangh took him on in spectacular fashion, the government seemed unable to arrest the slide in the law and order situation and gave the impression of lacking cohesion. Then came a price rise which, by end '98, focused public resentment against the incumbent. A resurgent Congress under an increasingly aggressive Sonia swept the assembly elections and opinion polls were predicting 300 seats for the Congress. Today, the nation's collective memory doesn't seem to stretch beyond Kargil; at best, to the bomb.

Both factors ensured that enhancing national security is perceived as the BJP's greatest achievement. As a BJP leader says, "Indira Gandhi was identified with the nationalisation of banks; we're identified with nationalism in India." Says i&b minister Pramod Mahajan, "We may have begun weak, but things were falling into place pre-Kargil. The real test of leadership comes in a crisis and nobody can contest that we won a decisive military and diplomatic victory."

Such is the confidence of the BJP think-tank post-Kargil that it feels factionalism in the party and the damage in states like Maharashtra, UP, Punjab and Gujarat-where anti-incumbency feelings run high and there is widespread resentment against the infighting-can be contained. Says a senior BJP leader from MP, another faction-ridden state, "If the 'onion wave' could give Sonia victory in three states, the Kargil wave will definitely instal Vajpayee as PM again." In addition, the inflation rate is at a 20-year low and this has provided a much-needed boost to a government whose biggest single failing, according to the Outlook-cms poll, has been its inability to keep prices in check.

In fact, the destiny of the BJP and the Congress are intertwined; there are chinks in the BJP armour provided the Congress aims right. Take the twin issues of stability and high prices; respondents to the Outlook-cms poll listed them as the issues which concern them most. The BJP, with its alliance troubles and relatively lower rating on managing the economy, knows it needs to be careful on both counts. "We'll be campaigning on both these issues, along with the allegations of favouritism and corruption emanating from the telecom scam and the unacceptable behaviour of the caretaker regime and Vajpayee himself on other counts," says a Congressman.

But the key, psephologists and politicians agree, will be Kargil. The penny seems to have dropped for the Congress and Sonia has given instructions for a campaign blitz on the issue. Already, the attacks on Vajpayee for Kargil have begun and initial reports from Tamil Nadu indicate that Jayalalitha, contrary to the spin doctors' assertions, is getting a degree of popular response. More on the lines of "bar, bar, pooche yeh dil, kyon hua Kargil", in the words of Kamal Nath, is expected. But the Congress has a lot of catching up to do. And the formidable BJP machinery to tangle with, which has converted the initial stage of the campaign into a BJP vs Congress battle with Vajpayee above it all, already the "undeclared winner".

The Congress' decline and the corresponding increase in saffron clout over the past few years has led to the BJP speaking with a new authority as the voice of the establishment. But the problem for the Opposition on Kargil has been that attacking the government for its lapses is being construed as an attack on the armed forces. "We have completely identified ourselves with the army," says a senior BJP leader in the campaign committee. "Vajpayee made it clear that we tried for peace but when war was forced upon us, we gave Pakistan a bloody nose while continuing to behave responsibly. The choice for the Congress was to either try and be more nationalist than us and start saying cross the LoC, bomb Pakistan or end up looking like sympathising with the enemy." In a nationalism-on-steroids sort of scenario, Congressmen admit privately, any questioning of Kargil is spun as the carping of critics and anti-nationals.

But the Congress, its allies and the Left are also counting on the fizzling out of the Kargil euphoria-already, there is a discernible difference in the national mood from two weeks ago. Others believe that Kargil hasn't been as big in the south (the BJP feedback on Kargil in an internal survey was restricted to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan).

Of the other potential stumbling blocks, there are no takers for the nda-is-an-unwieldy-coalition plank, insists the BJP. "Who has been responsible for creating instability? None other than the Congress," Vajpayee told Outlook after losing the confidence vote. But this argument may not be enough if the newly "unified" Janata Dal continues its bickering, or takes the extreme step of breaking with the nda. While the BJP is convinced that Fernandes & Co are upping the ante to land a larger number of seats and increase their post-poll bargaining power, the buzz is that the "socialists" aren't averse to aiming for bigger things.

The other seat-sharing problems within the nda (the deadlocked tdp-BJP talks and the trouble with the mdmk in Tamil Nadu are good examples) are already more cause for trouble and the Congress knows that harping on these factors-apart from raising the Vajpayee-is-a-front-for-the-rss slogan-will undermine the nda's stability plank. "The circus is getting new members, the nda is falling apart" are now regular comments from Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal. Combined with widespread acceptability for Sonia as the Congress leader-the Outlook-cms poll shows over 58 per cent saying that the future of the Congress without Sonia was bleak-and an aggressive campaign where she will be pitting herself against Vajpayee in an attempt to re-forge the Congress' old social coalition. A difficult task, as the survey predicts a fall in terms of votes polled (though its aggregate with its allies will increase compared to '98).

But the Congress, too, has problems it can't just wish away. Two big ones are likely to be in Rajasthan and Maharashtra where it swept the polls the last time but is likely to suffer reverses now, thanks to the Jat reservation fiasco and the Pawar rebellion, respectively. If the bsp remains intransigent and a poll tie-up does not come through, the party's recovery in the north will receive a jolt.

The actions of the caretaker government, whether on the telecom issue, sops for farmers and government employees, or the move to get Indian Airlines to buy new planes, will be used by the Congress (with a little help from the Left) to at least sow the seed of doubt in the minds of the populace which seems to have made up its mind; the poll findings indicate that only 9 per cent of the electorate is undecided, a relatively low figure. The Congress has a long way to go, but Sonia sounds confident. And aggressive.

For the third force, Elections '99 are likely to be a moment of truth. The polls are likely to throw up many small groupings but most of them, if push comes to shove, are likely to ally with either of the two big parties. The cpi, cpi(m), Tamil Maanila Congress, tdp and agp are good examples. As for Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and the Samajwadi Party, their only hope of emerging as dark horses with breakaway factions from the nda and Congress camp is if the current trend is bucked and a hung parliament emerges. For the moment, at the start of what promises to be a bruising two-month campaign, the BJP-led alliance has a definite edge.