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November 30, 1999

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E-Mail this column to a friend Kuldip Nayar

Millennium politics

Indian politics has now an air of inevitability about it. The two main parties, the BJP and the Congress, have entrenched themselves. Between them they have some 300 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha. No third force or an alternative is on the horizon. Nor is anybody worth noticing is talking about such a possibility. Even the Communists, who at times propose a new front, have lost credibility after their support to the Congress.

Leaders of the two parties, Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP and Sonia Gandhi of the Congress, are also secure in their position. There is no challenge to them from within or without. Indeed, the politics of both parties has come to revolve around them. Even dissenters within the two parties have come to accept the fact that there is no going away from them.

Not long ago, one heard rumblings in the BJP, the hardliners pinpricking the liberals. After the election even whispering has stopped because of the realisation that it was Vajpayee who won, not the party. Home Minister L K Advani goes out of the way these days to attribute the BJP victory to Vajpayee.

Had the hardliners still any say, Kalyan Singh would not have stepped down from the chief ministership of UP. It took RSS ideologue Govindacharya more than a month to discipline him after Vajpayee said that he must go. His supporters among the hardliners vainly tried against his removal.

Ultimately, Kalyan Singh announced that he would quit the moment the prime minister told him to do so. This was a belated effort to placate Vajpayee. Even otherwise all except his arch rival, Mulayam Singh, stopped noticing him. That explains why his attack on Vajpayee did not create a ripple although he purposely launched his attack from Ayodhya, where his government had connived at the destruction of the Babri Masjid.

Subsequently, Kalyan Singh visited Varanasi where the BJP's agenda is that the mosque, which shares the same premises with the old Hindu temple, should be vacated. He rounded his trip off with a trip to Mathura, another place where the mosque and the temple stand side by side. But no attention was paid to him or to his statement on the handling over of the mosque to the Hindus.

What he and the likes of him in the BJP do not realise is that the claim on the mosques in Varanasi and Mathura does not evoke emotions. Hindutva does not sell any more. Were they to stir up things again in its name, they would find people unresponsive because, primarily, they do not like to mix religion with politics. Vajpayee himself has been trying to occupy the middle space which the Congress has been reluctantly vacating due to the faulty policies it is following.

Advani has realised this. He did not even try to save Kalyan Singh because the latter wanted to go back to the days of the mandir. Advani may, however, try to capture the BJP to have a place of influence by the time the question of Vajpayee's succession arises. From No 2 to No 1 position in the government is far more difficult than from the BJP's presidentship to prime ministership. There are already reports that Advani would like to succeed BJP president Kushabhau Thakre, who ends his second tenure in May.

Advani is moving closer to the organisation for another reason. The unstable conditions within the Ram Prakash Gupta ministry in UP may necessitate a mid-term poll, probably along with an election in Bihar in March. Advani is in charge of elections in the BJP and he wants the party in his grip. This does not, however, in any way affect the position of Vajpayee, who is considered a 'must' for the party. In fact, the BJP's biggest dilemma is: After Vajpayee who? Will the party split after him despite the underpinning of the RSS, its cadre and concept of Hindu rashtra?

The fear of split also haunts the Congress if ever Sonia Gandhi decides to step down. In fact, the party has a bigger problem: it cannot do with her and also without her. She is the center where the divergent elements within the Congress meet. Without her, the party may split into two or three parts. At the same time, the party is going downward under her leadership. It appears that people still accept her as the Congress president. When it comes to her heading the government, they seem to be dragging their feet.

The Antony committee looking into the causes for the Congress reverses dares not pinpoint this. No doubt, factions within the party have contributed to the defeat of many Congress candidates. The real reason is that she does not sell beyond a point. The Congress leaders know this. But they are afraid to say so to her face.

It is not dynastic politics, which scared the electorate at the polls. It is her foreign origin. There is no questioning of her devotion or dedication to India. But the voters are not yet ready to make her the prime minister. The longer she takes in appreciating this point, the less are the chances of the Congress making any headway. The party has lost the government in Goa. Delhi is next in line. And there is no likelihood of the cyclone-devastated Orissa returning the Congress again in the assembly election early next year because her visit to the state has made no impact. If the Congress loses in Bihar, her problems will only multiply.

Sonia Gandhi fails to appreciate another point of inevitability in Indian politics. People have stopped trusting one-party rule at the Centre. They want the government at New Delhi to reflect local sentiments, which they express through regional parties. The BJP has realised this. The government of 24 parties looks more of a jamboree. But there is no other option at present. The BJP feels confident that the wider base does not give power to any single party to point at it the gun as the AIADMK did during the last BJP-led coalition regime.

How long will this position continue is not difficult to foresee. The Vajpayee government faces no danger for another two years or so. The situation may change if it fails to perform by then. Once the BJP allies find out that people are turning their back on the government because of its failures they too may become restive and revolt. The National Democratic Alliance will begin to show cracks. Then the Kalyan Singh types will have more voice within the BJP as well.

The problem with the Congress is a bit different. It does not have any leader of stature except Sonia Gandhi. Like Indira Gandhi, she too has cut leaders within the party to size. She forced Sharad Pawar and P A Sangma to quit because they could challenge her. She may one day realise, if she has not already done so, that the Congress cannot make the government under her leadership. Once that happens, she may make a categorical announcement that she will not want to be India's prime minister.

But it looks as if she would like to nominate her son, Rahul, her successor as Indira Gandhi had done in the case of Rajiv Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka took to politics like a duck to water. But she has through Congress spokesmen announced that Priyanka would not join politics.

Till Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi are entrenched in their respective party, the Indian politics will not undergo any significant change. Even heat and dust will be missing in the next two years. That is why there is an air of inevitability in the country. Or, is it an atmosphere of resignation?

Kuldip Nayar

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