Opinion By the ballot alone

There are two such larger questions. One is,when do parties (in the Indian context) resort to electing leaders by a vote and what are its likely consequences? An answer to this question will also tell us why this does not — or need not — become a norm. When a party is deeply factionalised and when it loses sight of any larger vision,it can survive only by allowing a free play to competing claims within the party. In the current Karnataka episode,the state BJP was hopelessly fractured and was facing a real possibility of a split over the leadership issue. A decision by a majority vote could,for now,avert that risk. It is almost certain,however,that the developments in Karnataka will widen the fissures in the state BJP in the time to come. This predicament is common to any large party and raises difficult questions about running a mass-based party in a “democratic” manner.

Argument for “consensus”: the decision to resort to voting apart,the situation leading to that decision actually indicates (yet again) that,notwithstanding the absence or presence of formal democratic mechanisms and procedures,large parties do have something like internal democracy. Protagonists of intra-party democracy would rightly ask,why then not institutionalise the practice of electing the leader by a vote? While this may seem very attractive,let us consider for a moment what this will lead to: knowing that the leadership issue will be settled not by mutual give-and-take or “consensus”,but by a vote,potential contenders will start strategising during the process of candidate selection and election campaign. So,even while we democratise the space called intra-party competition,it would lead to much more chaos and power-mongering than we currently experience. Without belittling the BJP’s efforts at crisis management through a democratic mechanism,we therefore need to look at the “consensus” that India’s parties are so fond of discovering and constructing.

The idea of consensus by no means negates competition,nor does it deny differences and counter-claims within the party on issues of power-sharing and policy preferences. Yet,it seeks to build a wall of limits over internal competition. Building a consensus within the party is not just about negotiating individual ambitions,it is as much about balancing individual ambition with broader efforts at arriving at the idea of executable collective interest. The Congress party,which itself has been the architect of the consensus approach,caricatured and distorted it in the name of “high command”. But we need to keep aside that distortion and look at the innovativeness in not following the Western model for managing intra-party competition. The consensus approach is premised on the idea that a party is more than a mere power machine.

There is every possibility that in electing its Karnataka leader,the BJP has betrayed its transformation into a power machine above anything else.

Hijacked parties: this takes us to the other and more worrying question. What made a majority of the Karnataka BJP MLAs stand behind Yeddyurappa (and his choice) even though the leader was tainted by charges of graft? And this is certainly not a question only about the BJP. It goes beyond the BJP and also beyond matters of formal intra-party democracy. When Ashok Chavan was asked to demit office in the backdrop of the Adarsh scam in Maharashtra,his supporters tried to make a show of strength. One can repeat such instances ad nauseam. Clearly,Yeddyurappa has so much control over the party in the state that he could defy or dictate to the party — and this will be so in the case of Narendra Modi in Gujarat as well. So was the case with Y.S.R. Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. Thus,we have “successful” chief ministers who evolve personal channels of support. In either event,“loyalty” or support to a leader is not based just on political factors — that is,shifting the agenda from collective interest to absolute and mere personal aggrandisement. So,the issue is not just that one leader develops full control over the party in a state; but that the party gets easily transformed into a systematic mechanism to turn government into an instrument for private purposes. The other matter is the open nexus — and again Karnataka is only one example — between parties and powerful private interests.

Leaders like Yeddyurappa successfully become the lynch pins between these two and therein lies their success in controlling a large section of the party. Cement,palmolein,forest resources,mining,urban land — each of these have been arenas for political leadership to build bridges with private interests at the cost of public interest.

The BJP might have weathered the storm for now; it may also take credit for bringing back the democratic practice of selecting the leader. But developments in Karnataka show how the party is vulnerable to entrenched interests. This development portends the death of the idea of party and the survival of factions engaged in a “democratic” fight over competitive extraction of public resources.

The writer teaches political science at the University of Pune,express@expressindia.com