Declawed, But Still Clinging On

Sharad Pawar's rebellion against Sonia Gandhi in May was a dream come true for Maharashtra's deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde. And he was one of the first to root for simultaneous assembly and Lok Sabha polls. The situation, he felt, was tailor-made for a Sena-BJP victory in which his party, the BJP, could gain an upper hand over Sena, its big brother in the state. Wasn't such enthusiasm misplaced? Considering that barely four months ago all seemed lost with the Sena-BJP assured of a severe drubbing. However, two months is all that it took the BJP to twist Bal Thackeray's arms and persuade him to risk elections and consign six months of his government's term to fate and chance.

Munde, who has been projecting himself as the next chief minister, believes his party will be in the lead, followed by the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (ncp) and the Shiv Sena in that order. Others differ. The ncp, they say, is now better placed. Pawar has managed to convince his allies barring a few seats which he might be prepared to sacrifice to 'friendly fights' with these parties.

Should the pollsters prove right, there is every likelihood of the BJP overtaking the Sena in the assembly. Out of the 288 Vidhan Sabha seats, the ticket distribution pattern has been 171 to the Sena and 117 to to the BJP. The former, according to political observers, is likely to take a beating at the hustings and may not be able to play big brother to the BJP in the post-election scenario. That is precisely why BJP leaders now project Munde as the chief minister. However, knowing Thackeray's talent for back-seat driving, even a BJP chief minister will have to contend with the Sena chief's penchant for the use of the remote control.

Munde's expectation of becoming the next chief minister stems from a BJP-Shiv Sena arrangement according to which an individual whose outfit corners the larger number of seats gets the top job. But all these electoral calculations could go awry as each week redraws the political colours, indicating shifting tides and changing fortunes. That a week could be a long time in politics is closer to the truth for Maharashtra now than ever before.

For instance, if, two weeks short of the polls, the dream-come-true situation seems a bit marred for Munde (who has since privately scaled down his ambition of being a CM to head the opposition), it is because of the infighting that has broken out in the BJP and which took even its own leaders by surprise. And this might well stand the 'advantage alliance' situation on its head, opening a pandora's box of surprises in the end.

A glaring example of this infighting is that of the Pune Lok Sabha seat, where the party first fielded former deputy speaker of assembly Anna Joshi, propped up by the rss. For a party which wears discipline on its sleeve, the public display of anger by partymen against Joshi's nomination early this week caught even BJP insiders unawares. In a last-minute move on August 19, the party asked Joshi to withdraw and fielded Pradeep Rawat. But Joshi feels he has been humiliated since the withdrawal order came after he had already set off with his supporters to file his nomination. The BJP cadre stands divided in this parliamentary constituency. A fallout is inevitable in its six assembly segments.

Besides, the BJP also has to contend with the lack of cooperation from the Shiv Sena. The two parties might be allies going to polls together, but the strong undercurrents of antipathy between the two (for the first time since their alliance both Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani stayed away from the Sena-BJP joint campaign launch on August 9) has led to the Sena working against the BJP candidates.

Also, the Sena,which was again first off the mark with a 'peformance report' of its government, however self-indulgent,was cut up by the BJP's reaction to it. The latter stuck pictures of Vajpayee and Munde wherever Thackeray's face appeared in the booklet. And replaced those of Manohar Joshi, Narayan Rane and Raj and Uddhav Thackeray with that of their own leaders (another bone of contention between the two parties), the BJP's original contribution being a mix-up of geography while referring to Sonia Gandhi as an 'imported pomeranian bitch''.

But who stands to benefit from this? Strangely, despite the Sena chief's animosity for Pawar, the ncp might prove to be the cat that walked away with the fish in the sugar belt of western Maharashtra where it has a stronger presence. In regions like Vidarbha, where the Sena has been attempting to make a dent and has largely been blocked by the BJP, it is the Congress which might gain, unexpectedly.

The BJP, however, refuses to be outdone in this war of wits. In its stronghold of Marathwada, the party is reportedly nibbling away at the Sena's roots by surreptitiously helping the ncp. This is being further compounded by warring Sena leaders. Manohar Joshi and Rane have been ignoring each other at party gatherings. And things were in the open when last week Joshi announced the entry of several 'uttar bharatiyas'' into the Shiv Sena. Clarifying the presence of two 'Joshis' in the list but no 'Ranes', he quipped: 'Yes, there are Joshis joining us but no Ramoshis!'',a needless barb against Rane who, though a Maratha, was equated with the scheduled castes.

Rane has vowed not to forgive the slight.

These factors have created a piquant situation for both the Congress and the ncp in Maharashtra. The two parties face a horizontal split in their vote and are unsure of how much such infighting between and within the Sena-BJP might benefit either of them. Once upon a time, the Congress was a party riddled with factionalism. Now the polarisation is complete because the opposing Congress camps,Pawar supporters and Sonia loyalists,have their own separate outfits. With little or practically no chances of victory in western Maharashtra, there are simply no takers for Congress tickets from this region. As a result, the high command has had to thrust contests on old war horses, their sons and other relatives.

Though strong in their respective fortresses, both the Congress and the ncp have to contend with a division in the votes of their core supporters,Muslims and Dalits. Pawar has taken with him almost 90 per cent of the Marathas, who have been greatly disappointed by the trust they placed in Thackeray after he opposed the renaming of Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. But in Maharashtra, only a Maratha must ultimately rule the roost.

However thrilled they may be with the thought of a Maratha bidding for the top job in the country (and Pawar makes no bones of his ambition at his public meetings), they see him returning to head the state sooner rather than later. But Marathas are only 35 per cent of the voting population in the state and Pawar seems to have kept this in mind when he indicated that Chhagan Bhujbal, an obc, might be a fit chief ministerial candidate.

Pawar's failure to persuade Dalit leaders, except Ramdas Athawale, to run with him is a major setback for his party as was the denial of the charkha and rising sun symbols to the ncp and rpi (Athawale) respectively. Pawar is not unaware that the R.S. Gavai and Prakash Ambedkar factions of the rpi failed to align with him because they were bitterly opposed to a tampering with the Constitution. Now Pawar insists that the same purpose can be achieved through a minor tinkering with the citizenship law but it might be too late insofar as the Dalit vote goes.

The Shiv Sena, too, finds itself deprived of the Dalit vote with Namdeo Dhasal, the firebrand leader of the Dalit Panthers, pulling out of his alliance with Thackeray early this week. The Sena might declare itself to be an unbiased party but it is as casteist as the others, Dhasal declared, before expressing disappointment at its failure to share an adequate number of seats with his party. That creates a level playing field for all political parties in Maharashtra vis-a-vis this crucial vote, leaving the ncp and the Congress to carve up the Muslim vote between themselves.

Despite the fact that the ncp has a tie-up with the Samajwadi Party in Maharashtra, it might prove more a liability than an asset. For Mumbai's Muslims, who are the SP's core supporters, Mulayam has increasingly seemed less like a messiah and more of an opportunist. Add to it the fact that the two persons in the Maharashtra Congress who were unacceptable to them,Pawar and former chief minister Sudhakarrao Naik,are now out of the party and on the same side in the ncp.

In Maharashtra, at least, this is a strange election on other counts as well. The anti-incumbency factor is stronger here than in any other state given the severe misgovernance of the Sena-BJP alliance but hopes of its resurgence ride high. The ripples of public disenchantment, though, are likely to be felt most in Mumbai, where the Sena swept the polls in '95 on the promise of free housing to slum dwellers (60 per cent of the Mumbai population lives in slums). Its ignominous failure on this score might prove to be the Sena's undoing.

That the Sena-BJP is left with practically few issues to take to the public and is dependent mostly on the benefit accruing from a split in the combined Congress vote is evident from the ad campaigns now being run by the party: 'Voters will decide the future of India. (Including lakhs of Bangladeshis staying illegally in India)', it says in bold print above a mug shot of Thackeray. It goes on to ask: 'Is it a crime to be a patriot? This man openly expressed his love for his country. So they punished him by taking away his right to vote. Is it fair? You decide.'

Given the Sena-BJP infighting, it will be for all practical purposes a four-cornered contest. In such a scenario, many ruling alliance insiders admit, it will be no cakewalk for the combine. But given the weaknesses of all four main parties in the fray,which override their strengths,political observers believe that '99 will unravel the actual support base of the parties who are essentially on their own, cutting across ideological lines, to help foes defeat friends.

Methodology

The survey in Maharashtra was conducted in 27 assembly constituencies covering six different regions. In all, 2,700 voters were interviewed. The sample survey is based on time-tested cms pre-poll methodology. The survey looked into the implications of the split in Congress vote. The survey was conducted between August 8 and 14 by psephologist Naveen Surapaneni, Dharmendra Kumar Singh, Vikram Singh and Pankaj Kumar.