Off Limits What happened to their camaraderie? ~ seema mustafa Wednesday, March 12 was certainly not a good day for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The big public rally planned at Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds to launch her as a national leader turned out to be a complete flop, with the Trinamul Congress leader eventually addressing empty chairs. Just a short distance away her new comrade-in-arms Anna Hazare sat sulking, pretending to be ill to justify his decision to stay away. It is still not clear whether Hazare decided not to attend when told that, unlike his last rally in Delhi, it was now an empty ground; or whether Mamata Banerjee worried about the Tipu Sultan cleric’s warning not to address a meeting with “RSS stooge” Hazare had made her leave him behind. Perhaps it was a combination of both, with Hazare’s advisors insisting that all was well, and Banerjee being a little more transparent about the falling out at the end of the day. Gandhian Hazare does seem to be a little bit like a headless chicken looking for a place to roost. His one time disciple Arvind Kejriwal has run away with the show, leaving the old man a little desperate for political recognition. He found it through the chief minister in West Bengal and both, embracing each other, were clearly optimistic that the combination would work. Clearly Hazare has lost his magic, and Mamata is in danger of losing the Muslim support base (or at least denting it) as the cleric, who is one of her ardent supporters, said. And the combination, instead of satisfying political aspirations seems to be giving both partners acute indigestion. Interestingly the CPI(M) has remained muted in its response, unwilling to cross swords and exchange words with the Trinamul Congress on this issue. Mamata Banerjee on the other hand has sharpened her attack on the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to convince her vote bank at home that with or without Hazare, she stands committed to secularism. But clearly the clerics words were in response to pressure from the ground with the first chinks in the minorities support for the Trinamul Congress now a little visible. It is not sufficient to make any impact in the elections beginning next month, but is significant because the cracks are appearing in what was a steadfast and solid support base for Mamata and her party. West Bengal is one of the few states with a regional party that will not be part of any alliance before the elections. The Congress, the BJP, the Left Front and the Trinamul Congress will contest as independent entities and take decisions after the results are known. This is fast becoming the trend of these Lok Sabha polls, as alliances are breaking down as fast as they are set together, with the regional parties in particular keen on keeping all their options open. This is the primary reason why Naveen Patnaik has kept the Biju Janata Dal out of the third alternative alliance; why Jayalalithaa dreaming of the Prime Minister post has kept the AIADMK aloof from combinations; why the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti is keeping the Congress guessing; and why Mayawati has not responded to overtures to bring her BSP in either the Congress or the BJP fold. In fact all regional parties confident of doing as well on their own, have preferred to keep away from proposed alliances. They will all return to the negotiation tables after the elections, using the seats they have secured, to drive hard bargains if possible. For some the pound of flesh would be the prime ministers chair with support from the more willing; for others it will be to bring in a coalition where they will have a better (read more ministerial berths) than in another; with of course money power playing a decisive role in the permutations and combinations. The BJP and the Congress on the other hand are keen to stitch up the alliances before hand but while the former has been a little more successful in roping in allies, the Congress is not finding the going easy. An initiative by the Left parties to bring in 11 regional players into a loose coalition of starts and thereby keep them on the secular side of the fence, has fallen by the wayside since the first apparently successful attempt. And the regional players have made it clear that they want to be free of all influence and understandings, to choose their own path forward. It is going to be a hard nosed election, with tough fights on the ground. The wild card will be the Aam Aadmi Party that is an untried horse, and there is no way of knowing whether it will be able to cut into the vote bank of the BJP and the Congress, and to what extent. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal did catch the bull by the horns during his four day tour of Gujarat, and while he drew attention and some crowds, his party does not have the organisation that is required to mop up votes. That of course was true also of Delhi at the onset, but AAP had almost a year to prepare for the Assembly elections whereas it has plunged into the parliamentary polls with little time in hand. Even candidates are proving to be a problem as AAP cannot provide the infrastructure for the newcomers who might, or might not be able to, do the job themselves. A tough battle ahead then, for which the media will have to prepare itself, otherwise it can again go horribly wrong in its assessments. The Mumbai story on Wednesday for instance was not Kejriwal’s train ride or the metal detectors that were destroyed by AAP crowds at the railway station, but whether he is cutting into the Shiv Sena/MNS stronghold in the city? And other parts of Maharashtra, if at all. Unfortunately this analysis has been missing from the media, preoccupied as it with its middle class horror of crowds and traffic jams. And hence the danger of yet again missing the wood for the trees. The writer is Editor-in-Chief of The Citizen, a daily online newspaper.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 19:20:13 +0000
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