G D Thirumalavasan
[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ot a day passes without a minor or major event happening on the Indian political landscape, the ramifications of which can be felt in the power corridors of Delhi.
So, it is not prudent to predict a scenario that is still a good six months away. Having said that, it is basic common sense for all political parties to start working in earnest towards the elections in 2014.
The two major national parties of the country have planned their campaigns in their own intrinsic styles. The BJP, by naming Narendra Modi as its Prime Minister-in-waiting for 2014, is adopting a non-accommodative style, breaking old alliances.
Despite a noisy campaign, for the BJP, it is going to be an uphill task to put up a decent showing in elections, even in its traditional stronghold: the Hindi heartland states, including Uttar Pradesh. The less said for eastern and southern India, the better for BJP in this analysis.Taking Pains to Lose Gains
The Grand Old Party of Indian politics, Congress, having squandered the mandate it won in 2009 with votebank politics, corruption, innumerable allegations from the CAG, Supreme Court and other venerable institutions, in the last few months, has fallen back on its own patented style of manipulating the common voter’s mind with divisive identity issues. For the aam aadmi, the Congress alliance means nothing but a bunch of confusing political symbols on the voting machine.
In the parliamentary elections, what is the viable choice for the majority of voters apart from the Congress and BJP? Is it the Left Front?
The Indian Left has for long been a regional party of West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. Even core leftists would be surprised if they get anywhere close to 30 seats across India. That leaves us with the regional parties in each and every state.
No Truck with Bulldozer
Neither the Congress nor the BJP is organisationally strong to take on their regional counterparts in the battlefield states of Tamil Nadu (39 seats), West Bengal (42), Uttar Pradesh (80), Bihar (40), Seemandhra (25) and Odisha (21). These states, each with strong regional parties, have the potential to decide the next government at Delhi. However, other than the Samajwadi Party, all regional parties have once been in the NDA and may be open to do business with BJP — minus Modi. But will BJP make the ultimate sacrifice of Modi for the sake of capturing power? An unlikely situation considering how Modi has just now bulldozed all his potential competitors within BJP.
All these make us consider other seasoned political leaders who have proven skills in real-time politics: Mulayam Singh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh, Nitish Kumar of Bihar, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal and J Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu. Among these, the likelihood of having the most number of MPs and of winning the last lap is with the Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
In fact, in the last two years in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa has delivered on many of her promises, has been pro-poor and welfare-oriented with a targeted mix of subsidies and doleouts. Not many neutral voters in Tamil Nadu are willing to pardon Karunanidhi for his selfish political working style. It is not going to be easy for Jayalalithaa to have all the seats from Tamil Nadu with the opposition coalition receiving tactical support from Sonia Gandhi.
However, Amma, as she is fondly called by partymen, is adept in anticipating the moves of the opposition. She has declared that she will face the electorate alone in 2014. The average Tamil voter is shrewd enough to realise that this would be the best opportunity for a person from the state to become the Prime Minister.
Courtesy :Economic Times
