Opinion Out of my Mind: The game is on
Anti-Congressism could not be a permanent strategy.
Now the BJP has replaced the Congress as the Ogre. There are preparations for a giant coalition of all parties except the members of the NDA. (Representational)
Indian politics is gearing up for its favourite game, Elections. In the old days, the Congress was the big team and the challenge was to build a coalition to defeat it. Ram Manohar Lohia made anti-Congressism into a political ideology. That strategy succeeded in challenging the monopoly the Congress had in the 1967 election. Then, with extra help of JP, the anti-Congress coalition of Janata Party succeeded in defeating Indira Gandhi in the 1977 election. But the Janata coalition did not endure. It broke up into Janata with various parenthetical letters Janata (U), (S) etc. The only fraction which waxed was the Jan Sangh, which rebranded itself as the BJP.
Anti-Congressism could not be a permanent strategy. In 2009, we saw the largest coalition prepared to unseat the UPA. In those days, the BJP was untouchable, so all the rest ganged up against the Congress.
Of course it did not work. UPA II got an even larger majority than UPA I. The reason was simple. The coalition had no coherent ideology or programme except being against the Congress. That may please politicians, but does not impress voters. The Congress then had a programme for development. Its opponents had nothing. The Congress was lucky in its opponents.
Move fast forward and we are back at the same game. Now the BJP has replaced the Congress as the Ogre. There are preparations for a giant coalition of all parties except the members of the NDA. There is no coherence as before. There is no programme except anti-BJPism, which sadly means courting the Muslim vote bank. The example of the Bihar election was touted for a while as a surefire strategy. In Bihar there was a sensible sharing of seats between the RJD and the JD(U). Since then, everyone dreams of repeating Bihar.
This will be difficult. In Uttar Pradesh, the Bihar strategy did not work. Can it be made to work again? The election is yet two years away. But even on the urgent question of the candidate for President, the coalition does not seem to have agreed. They want to re-nominate Pranab Mukherjee. No matter how good a President he has been, this sounds more like disagreement within the coalition over the likely names. Anti-BJPism will have to invent a better story to tell.
The BJP is gearing up to be the sole national party like the Congress used to be. You can hear it in the way Amit Shah lays down his ambitious programme. It is a tried and true formula. It will work as it used to for the Congress. Capture the disgruntled elite of other parties in every region. Principles are secondary; personalities are all. Secure the leaders and the votes will follow.
It works because there is very little difference between the parties on ideological issues. Despite the cacophony of political arguments, there is a depressing homogeneity in the political ideology of all parties. There is neither a strong Left party, the CPM/CPI having become just a bad-tempered version of the Congress. Nor is there a free market party or even a liberal one. This is why the parties need to exaggerate the one thin fault line there is on the Muslim issue. But as a party with national ambitions, the BJP will soon learn how to woo the Muslim vote bank. Latest by 2019.
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