Opinion Vandita Mishra writes: Two stories from Maharashtra’s local polls, one puzzle of India’s politics
Unlikely partnerships stitched up in Ambernath and Akot, between BJP and Congress, and between BJP and AIMIM, point to a pervasive reality: Despite the rhetoric and reality of political-ideological polarisation at the top, there is a fuzziness down below
Maharashtra is no exception in this Great Indian Political Switcheroo, and in fact, it deserves special mention. (Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee) Two sub-stories in the ongoing Maharashtra local body polls saga merit a second look. At Ambernath in Thane, the BJP formed the Ambernath Vikas Aghadi by joining hands with sworn enemy Congress, to keep out the Shinde Sena, its partner in the state’s ruling alliance. And at Akot in Akola, the BJP crossed another ideological red line when it openly tied up with the “Muslim” party, AIMIM, in the newly-minted Akot Vikas Manch, to gain majority control of the civic body.
These strikingly strange local alliances crumbled soon after they came under the national spotlight. Senior leaders of all three parties — BJP, Congress, AIMIM — expressed loud dismay, issued showcause notices. In Ambernath, the matter has taken a further twist since — Congress suspended all its corporators, they all joined the BJP, but that still didn’t help the BJP wrest control of the municipal council, because the Shinde Sena outmanoeuvred it by luring corporators from other parties.
At one level, the tableaus in Ambernath and Akot point to the specificity and separateness of the political calculus at each level of a multi-layered polity — the local view may or may not coincide with the bigger picture in the state or nationally. The Ambernath Vikas Aghadi and Akot Vikas March could also point to party high commands’ limited control over their local units (though this argument is more applicable to Congress than the BJP, which has a considerably better oiled and centralised organisational machinery).
But that is not the whole explanation.
In a larger sense, the unlikely partnerships stitched up in Ambernath and Akot point to a pervasive puzzle of India’s politics. Despite the political-ideological polarisation at the top, there is a fuzziness down below.
While reporting on elections in different states, I have been struck by the routine and normalised smudging of party lines on the ground. Many candidates in the fray have back stories of belonging to parties they currently oppose, large numbers have switched sides more than once, and most pay no electoral-political penalty.
Maharashtra is no exception to the Great Indian Political Switcheroo. In fact, it deserves special mention. In recent years, the state has seen large-scale political “tod phod” or destruction, and a dramatic reset of alliances, the cloak-and-dagger making and unmaking of governments, the split of two regional parties under the shadow of rampaging central agencies. Now, it is a pioneer in what could be another dangerous new trend — of BJP and BJP-alliance candidates getting elected unopposed. In the municipal polls, a large number of non-BJP candidates have withdrawn from the electoral fray before the casting of votes.
So, how do we reconcile the sharpening polarisation between Congress and BJP at the national level with the free-wheeling criss-crossing of their leaders at the local level across party boundaries? Arguably, these two tendencies co-exist because they help parties expand their areas of influence while reinforcing their identity — but they also present a challenge that must be negotiated by the two parties.
The challenge is this: The party must project its ideological sharpness while blunting it by taking in non-ideological actors and operators. The BJP has found a way of navigating this.
It does so by framing and reiterating a vocabulary of ideologically-charged symbols that its cadres can identify with amid the confusion, and that demarcate it from the ground-level messiness for the people. This includes the Somnath Swabhiman Parv that has just been marked, the PM taking the lead, recurring invocations in BJP leaders’ speeches of the abrogated Article 370, spectre-mongering around the figure of the “ghuspaithiya (illegal immigrant)”, anxieties worked up on “love jihad” and beef. This repertoire also includes emblems and signifiers of its ideological opposite, like “JNU”, which was back in the news last week for students’ slogans once again criminalised as “anti-national”.
In comparison, Congress is hobbled at both levels. It does not have the organisational resources to stake out a larger territory in the local free-for-all. And it does not have the ideologically primed keywords and re-upped symbols nationally.
Admittedly, Congress has historically been the more amorphous party, with fewer sharp edges. At its best, this helped it to be a coalition within a party, mirroring the nation’s diversities. But against an opponent that is reconstituting the rules of the game, one that is also shrewd in playing it from both ends, it is high time Congress reinvents its toolkit.
The writer is national opinion editor, The Indian Express. vandita.mishra@expressindia.com
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