Opinion Maharashtra muddle

Mumbai has 36 assembly constituencies out of a total of 288. But Mumbai influences the voting pattern in adjoining Thane,which is a sort of suburban extension incorporating New Mumbai. Thane has 24 constituencies. Together,they have 60. But the character of these 60 seats is qualitatively and even quantitatively different from the rest of Maharashtra. About two crore people — nearly one-fourth of the state’s population — share the Maximum City. Every single region of the state,every state in the country,each linguistic community,all castes and religions,gender and age group are represented in these 60 constituencies as nowhere else in India. Therefore,not only Maharashtra,but Mumbai and Thane will reflect,without exaggeration,the national sentiment following the Lok Sabha election.

Mumbai gets into the national media only when the Khans (Shah Rukh,Salman or Aamir) storm movie and TV screens or when the Thackeray brothers inflame the city’s streets. Yet,notwithstanding the Thackerays,the city has still retained its DNA of liberal pluralism. This is mainly because of its demographic configuration — but also because of the work-culture that shapes life in Mumbai and Thane.

Not every Marathi-speaking person agrees with the politics and style of Uddhav and Raj,though it is necessary to note that almost all Marathi speakers,irrespective of political hue,share the sentiment they express. The Thackerays have not been able to translate this widespread sentiment into political vision because they are blinded by the crowds and passions they can arouse and therefore cannot visualise a modern Maharashtra. Language and culture can be instruments of broader social consolidation and global vision. And yet,the Thackerays strangely feel compelled to exploit the inbuilt inhibitions and inferiority complex of the Marathi manoos. The violence that they manifest in their language and lumpen mobilisation is a reflection of the frustration born of that complex. They get intoxicated by the huge crowds and their collective rage.

The Congress,on the other hand,is a party which thrives on the divided opposition. Now even the Marathi manoos is divided between Uddhav and Raj. Indeed,without the presence of Raj’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena,the Congress-NCP alliance could not have won the 25 Lok Sabha seats it won in May. Further adding to the Congress’s advantage,even the so-called Hindu political psyche is disintegrated. Not only on the Jinnah issue,but also because of internal conflict between Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari. The BJP no longer has its self-styled Machiavelli,Pramod Mahajan,to aid it. Though,truly speaking,his skilful skulduggery did not really help the saffron alliance even in 2004. But in BJP-Sena circles there is still a strange nostalgia for him,as if he could have sorted out the conflicts.

In real terms,the Congress and the NCP have many advantages. The UPA has won the Lok Sabha elections,with the Congress itself raking in a stunning 206 seats; the images of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,as well as those of Sonia and Rahul,still shine and even inspire faith and confidence; the opposition is in disarray — and yet the ruling alliance is so shaky that it could well fail to get the requisite majority of 145 seats. There is no panic in the Congress like there is in the NCP. But its complacence could prove its undoing. The main reason why the Congress-NCP alliance could even lose is because there is an enormous amount of anti-incumbency sentiment — latent today perhaps,but it could well surface and become a wave as the campaign picks up.

We have seen in the recent past — particularly in the other state assembly elections — that performance pays. It is governance that people seek and not any specific ideology. That is why voters elected the BJP in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,and the Congress in Andhra Pradesh and Delhi.

In Maharashtra,the Congress-NCP alliance has been in power now for the past 10 years. In its first avatar,in 1999,the two parties formed the alliance after fighting the elections separately,and against each other. This was because Sharad Pawar had rebelled against Sonia Gandhi that year,over her “foreign origin”. He had initially thought of splitting the Maharashtra Congress vertically. He failed miserably in that objective,as well as in winning more seats than the Congress led by Mrs Gandhi. So his partymen decided to join the government by forming the alliance with her party. The excuse,obviously,was to keep “communal” forces — the BJP-Sena alliance — away from power. The alliance fought the election together for both the Lok Sabha and the assembly in 2004 and for the Lok Sabha in 2009. But in the general elections four months ago,the NCP’s performance was so pathetic that the Congress was emboldened to demand that it fight the assembly election independently.

That will not happen and the Congress-NCP alliance will survive,primarily because neither is sure what the electoral mood actually is. The Congress’s complacency at the senior leadership level apart,there is a distinct feeling among its rank and file that the government’s total non-performance over the past 10 years is going to explode in their face.

This explosion will occur once the ticket distribution process starts. Most of the ticket-seekers,today’s MLAs,the ministers and their sons,are so completely cut off from their roots that they do not even comprehend the mood in the rural areas,let alone in the cities. But they think that it is their ancestral right to get a ticket. At the same time,there is a huge waiting list of those who worked for the past many years,but were not even given recognition,forget tickets. So there is bound to be widespread rebellion in the ranks. That rebellion will then consolidate the anti-incumbency sentiment.

So if the Congress-NCP alliance fares badly,it will not be because the saffron alliance is more credible,but because the governments led by the Vilasraos,the Shindes and the Chavans have lost their credibility and connection with the people.

The writer is editor of ‘Loksatta’

kumar.ketkar@expressindia.com