To be secular or not to be

As far as the UPA is concerned, it is ironical to note that almost all the significant elections recently have witnessed the Congress losing influence over the electorate. The middle class is reeling under inflation and price rise and the disenchantment of the farming community is evident in the rise in suicides by farmers, which have created an atmosphere of gloom for the ruling party.

In spite of an anti-Congress sentiment, anyone who is broadly secular will have to agree that under the given circumstances, the Congress is definitely a lesser evil than the communal NDA. Hence the total marginalisation of the Congress in national politics is definitely going to weaken the secular forces. Politics in Uttar Pradesh which has 80 parliamentary seats has become bipolar and the Congress needs to examine its lost relevance in that state, otherwise the NDA’s victory march cannot be stopped. Unfortunately, the Congress, BJP and BSP were in absolute tandem in systematically attacking the SP. In the process the BSP alone could reap the benefits of their united onslaught, as the Congress and BJP lack a sustainable base at the grassroot level. A reversal in BSP fortunes could be made possible by the reversal of the earlier political alignment. Undoubtedly, such a reversal would benefit the SP more than others.

It is not incidental that the BSP is contesting elections all over India. This is not for strengthening its base in states other than UP. It is playing sectarian politics by splitting the secular vote, resulting in the defeat of the Congress in Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and now in Karnataka. If we look at Mayawati’s past track record, she became chief minister thrice with the support of the BJP in UP. She campaigned in Gujarat for Narendra Modi in the august company of A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. She is the product of the politics of pathological hatred. The earlier ideological plank of the BSP was ‘Tilak taraju aur talwar, inko maro jootey char’. The BSP, with the exception of the last assembly polls, used to be in third position in UP, always preferred by the Atal-Advani-Joshi troika. This was a professed political choice to prevent the emergence of Mulayam Singh, perceived to be an enemy of aggressive Hindutva.

This time it will be Delhi instead of Lucknow. In UP the BJP’s aim was to stop Mulayam Singh from coming to power and at the national level the party is likely to align with Mayawati to check the rise of Sonia Gandhi. The situation will be disastrous with the politics of negativity taking precedence over the politics of logic.

The beginning of the rise of the BJP was evident in the municipal polls in Delhi followed by assembly polls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Karnataka. In HP the BSP secured 7.3 per cent of the vote, in Karnataka it secured 2.7 per cent, resulting in the victory of the BJP. I am convinced that the BSP is the B-team of the BJP.

The need of the hour is cohesion among the secular forces in spite of their anti-Congress stand in their respective areas. The TDP, INLD and AGP are competing with the Congress, but all of them adhere to the principles of secularism. We have to carefully study the political behaviour of the Left and Congress in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. They don’t compromise politically and electorally in their respective states but in Delhi the UPA is preferred over the NDA despite differences in terms of ideology.

The SP was challenged by the Congress, BSP and BJP collectively during the last assembly polls in UP. The UPA government at the Centre not only opposed the SP-led government but its leadership wanted the dismissal of the democratically elected state government. In spite of this bitterness, the SP continued to support the UPA government in the larger interest of secularism. It is a different story that the Congress withdrew its support during the last assembly polls. Yet the SP has not taken a different stand as far as its secular credentials are concerned — it prefers the UPA to the communal NDA.

This had been clearly demonstrated in the last presidential and vice-presidential elections. While the UNPA was not asked to vote for Pratibha Patil, the official candidate of the UPA, the UNPA ensured her victory by abstaining. The UNPA was also not consulted for the vice-presidential candidate and hence the UNPA fielded its own candidate, Rashid Masood, which indirectly helped Hamid Ansari, the official candidate of the UPA. Bitter personal experiences and serious misunderstandings must not be the basis of political attitude and strategy. They have to be based on ideology. That is why one should not read anything political in the Mulayam Singh-Mayawati meeting, which was nothing but a constitutional requirement for the formation of the state human rights commission.

Unfortunately, the trend of treating political rivals as the enemy has become the norm in Indian politics. The consistent adherence to principled politics has caused inconvenience to the SP, but those who live their lives by their own set of principles and ideologies have to face the consequences for doing so. Today the UPA government is facing anti-incumbency and beginning to lose one election after another. Notwithstanding the upheavals and uncertainties, the present scenario calls for a viable consolidation of these regional secular forces along with the Left parties, otherwise it will be difficult to oppose the UPA and NDA in 2009 with a politically vibrant viable third alternative.

The writer is an MP and spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party and UNPA