Out of the box

I am not surprised that the exit polls of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttaranchal and Manipur have gone wrong. Exit polls have seldom been straws in the wind. They have, instead, been a vehicle for political propaganda. One TV network, which has a pronounced slant towards the BJP, projected the party’s sweep in UP, Uttaranchal and Manipur. Another network, a flag-bearer of the Samajwadi Party, predicted that the party would get a clear majority in the 403-member house. In fact, such estimates come in the way of a free and fair poll. The Election Commission should ban them.

Once again, the press did a better job than TV networks which have, no doubt, spread themselves all over but have only added to the confusion in the name of bringing people minute-to-minute coverage. Since the media has come to play an important role in influencing opinion, both the print and electronic media should sit together to ponder over the quality and quantity of their coverage and analyses. They may serve the democratic polity better if they curb their tendency to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

Of all the results, the one from Punjab has been the most surprising. The Congress was supposed to sweep the polls. It expected 90 in a 117-member house. In fact, the Akalis have proved that they maintain their stronghold in the rural areas. The BJP, which said it had its base in the cities, has been totally decimated. The Punjabi Hindu has shown that he does not trust the Akalis, who tend to mix religion with politics.

UP, too, has been a surprise in the sense that the Samajwadi Party has not reached even the 200-mark. True, it is the largest single party, but it is not in a position to form the government on its own. The poor showing of the BJP should not come as a surprise. All the other parties wanted anyone except the BJP candidate to win.

The hung assembly in UP is, therefore, nothing unexpected. The general impression, even before the elections were announced, was that no party would have a clear majority. With an infinite number of castes coming to the fore, the state is just too divided. Politics has come to be trivialised because of the caste factor. Currency notes and muscle power, if not cine stars, have played an important role in the UP elections. The BJP government also faced the anti-incumbency factor. Had the BJP-led Central government done a better job, it could have retrieved the ground lost by the party in the state. But the performances of governments, both at Lucknow and in New Delhi, have been so dismal, particularly where economic gains are counted, that mere promises were not enough. These elections have shown that peddling falsehoods does not help.

It appears that the BJP’s allies at the Centre were too unhappy over the number of tickets allotted to them. There were no friendly contests. Knives were out in the constituencies where the BJP candidates were pitted against those sponsored by the allies. If they had pooled in their efforts they would have been better off. The Dalits, by and large, have not voted for the BJP. Their chief consideration was to return BSP candidates in large numbers for that would have meant brightening the chances of Mayawati becoming chief minister in the post-election bargaining. The replacement of former BJP chief minister, Kalyan Singh, who is from a backward caste, had also disappointed the Dalits. The Congress, expectedly, came a poor fourth. The Muslims did not want to take chances with the party. On its own, the Congress was never in the reckoning. One thing should be clear to Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, with limited support in UP the Congress has very little chance of coming to power at the Centre after the general election.

In the face of a hung assembly in UP, the role of Governor Shastri becomes crucial. He is supposed to invite a party which he believes can form a viable government. He will have a problem if the BJP seeks to create an alliance by picking up people from here and there. The BJP is not even the single largest party. Shastri has been in the RSS for years. His moves will be watched because he would be seen favouring the BJP, even when he may be doing something independently. President Narayanan, whose nominee he is, should take a closer look at what happens in UP. Such a situation does, however, raise the larger question about whether governors should be drawn from political parties. True, this post is usually a ‘‘reward’’ given to them for services they have rendered. But some among them have made a mess of things as governors. Vinod Pande in Bihar is one example and Romesh Bhandari in UP, another. The latter managed men and matters in such a way that he did not allow any government to be formed even after six months of the last election. Governor Shastri should not take a leaf out of his book.

Punjab has come as a disappointment for the Congress, which thought there was a wave in its favour. The party was over-confident. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, despite the incumbency factor and the allegations of corruption against him and the family, was considered an underdog in the countryside. His physical inability due to a broken leg probably won him sympathy. The Sikh peasantry, by and large, voted for the Akalis. The much-criticised free electricity may also have influenced the peasantry at the time of polling.

It is obvious that the Panthic Party of Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Simranjit Singh Mann and the like could not have affected more than a few seats. They are finished now. Another reason for the Congress getting fewer seats than expected is because it selected the wrong candidates. It is an open secret that party tickets were sold to some people for more than Rs 1 crore each. Uttaranchal is another defeat for the BJP. Even when the state has come to be formed during the BJP-led government at the Centre, the voters have given more seats to the Congress. The incumbency factor worked even after just a year and a half of BJP rule, indicating the people’s alienation from the party.

And this is what the BJP should ponder over. The party that had once sold itself as ‘‘the party with a difference’’, has been exposed as being no different from the others despite its claim to having the right values and discipline. In terms of corruption or jobbery, it is even worse than the others. Its image of being anti-minorities has cost it the votes of Muslims, Christians and even Sikhs. The lesson the party has to learn is how to win these communities back. This cannot be done by forcibly constructing a temple on the site where the Babri Masjid once stood. Or even by rewriting history.

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