Column

What a huge difference four months can make in politics is evident from the run-up to the impending elections in Maharashtra. Normally the Shiv Sena and the BJP would be the brashest and loudest: this time around, they appear subdued. With Sharad Pawar also finding himself on a sticky wicket, the NCP settled into playing second fiddle to the Congress, all of which has reduced the excitement levels substantially.

While there has been some amount of hustle and tussle for seat-sharing between the two major alliances, the build-up has been bereft of the usual melodrama. The division of seats is now more or less finalised, but the conflicts and agreements have been muted because three of the four big parties — BJP, Sena and NCP — had been pushed on the defensive after the Lok Sabha results.

That all these three parties were paranoid of last-minute defections is perhaps the major reason why they have chosen circumspection even in internecine matters. The BJP and more particularly the Sena, were wary of those denied tickets migrating to Raj Thackeray’s MNS which had made a big dent in their vote banks during the general elections. The NCP was worried about the Congress gaining from disgruntled elements.

Even the Congress — barring the occasional baying by Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan to go it alone — has been largely docile, unsure of how much aggression is worthwhile. Unlike the other three parties, it was not unduly worried about defections, but even so there is a threshold beyond which needless hectoring can become counter-productive.

The Congress’s performance as the senior partner in the ruling alliance over the past five years has not been terribly impressive — the farmers’ suicides, the 26/11 terror attack, delays in establishing infrastructure etc — so why push the agenda to a point where the scrutiny become more searching?Whether silly tweets (or twits, as some have argued) that have hogged media space in recent days will affect the Congress remains to be seen, but these elections are extremely crucial to the NCP and the BJP.

Is Pawar’s power waning even in the state? And if so, what long-term portents does it hold for a party, which is essentially an off-shoot of the Congress? The NCP has so far relied heavily on Pawar’s strong personal influence all these years. But he is ageing, and the second-rung does not seem to have made quite the same impact as yet.

In a different sort of way, the BJP’s predicament is perhaps even more acute. In the matter of a few months, it has slipped from being a strong contender for forming a government at the centre into a bumbling, crumbling party that has produced more laughs than political logic in the aftermath of the setback in the LS elections.

At an informal recent meeting, I asked the Maharashtra chief of the party, Gopinath Munde, if the bickering between LK Advani, Jaswant Singh et al would impact the elections in Maharashtra. Munde believes that whatever has happened was too far removed from the state. I am not so sure.

The grotesqueness of the drama played out by the most senior leaders has adversely affected the credibility of state units, even if these have otherwise done well. It suggests aparty that is ailing at its core, and which needs drastic overhauling, not symptomatic treatment.

Sensationally newsworthy as Jaswant Singh’s revolt was, it is puerile to believe that all the problems lie at LK Advani’s door and everybody else is blameless. All those who have come out now in the open against the former deputy prime minister were surely not children when he was taking all those contentious decisions. If Atal Behari Vajpayee emerges as King Lear from this tragedy, Messrs Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Brajesh Mishra et al, were glad to be the fools. Except, as recent history shows, unlike in the Shakesperean drama, unwise ones.