Last Wrongs

But of course not all astrologers are accurate. Cash-and-carry predictions are more the norm than the exception. As a brotherhood, bookies tend to be more reliable than astrologers. After all, bookies have to put their money where their mouth is, not their mouth where the money is. When the book opened in Rajasthan, the bookies were in chattering-class land. They were giving 70 paise for 130 seats to the Congress. For those who do not understand betting, this means that they had swallowed Ashok Gehlot's inflated notions of his future totally. But bookies would not last in their business if they did not keep their ear within useful proximity to the ground. They began to sense that something was wrong with the Congress estimate very early. And they changed their minds after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's first round of election rallies in the state. By the time polling day arrived they were giving 2 to 1 odds on the Congress getting 100 seats -- in other words they did not believe that the Congress would win even a simple majority, leave alone a two-thirds majority. Where they did go wrong was in underestimating the BJP; they did not believe that the BJP would cross 75 seats. They handed over the difference to the third parties. As it turned out they were right about the third parties, but wrong about who would lose the seats to the third parties. But if any punter had believed in the BJP he would be a richer man today.

On the other hand, anyone who believed in the opinion polls would be a much poorer man -- both in terms of bank balance and knowledge. As the number of respondents widen, the fees go up. Of course there was no particular need to spend money on opinion polls for Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. The bookies were smart. There was no serious betting on these states since the results were so predictable. Only the self-deluded, or greenhorns, could have given any chance to the BJP in Delhi or the Congress in MP. And yet it needs to be stressed that not a single one of the very scientific opinion polls got the extent of the Congress hammering in MP right. As for Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, there should be some collective, punitive fine imposed on political pollsters and pundits. They were not even close. I am not talking about stuffed-envelop pollsters like the one who predicted a sweeping Congress victory for the Congress in all four states in one Hindi newspaper. That "forecast" was probably done on the owner's instructions. But even serious political pundits, whose integrity cannot be questioned, were hopelessly wrong when they thought Chhattisgarh would be "neck-and-neck" and Rajasthan would deliver a "hung" Assembly. Why?

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For a very good reason. The "experts" did not read their own tea leaves accurately. Every polls for the last two or three months has thrown up one constant fact -- that there was a strong swing against the Congress. This swing was marginal in Delhi, but it was there. Elsewhere, it bordered between substantial and huge. MP was obvious, although Congress Chief Minister Digvijay Singh kept fooling himself and Delhi's chattering classes till the end. One reliable poll for instance, showed a 7% swing against Congress in Rajasthan. That was as heavy a clue as can be found. But the "experts" refused to follow the logic of this swing, and this was the second reason for their error. They did not believe that the election campaign could make a difference to the end result.

This might be true in a normal situation, but another constant statistic was showing up a second vital fact that they should have entered into their calculations: the extraordinary popularity of Atal Behari Vajpayee with the voters.

This is not a viewpoint. This is a fact based on all recorded data. Vajpayee has now reached a position in electoral terms that was enjoyed by Indira Gandhi in 1971 and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952 and 1957 (the first two general elections; Nehru won the third as well, in 1962, but he was already on the down-curve). The personal intervention of such a leader can make a difference of at least two to three per cent of the vote. This is huge.

Give Vajpayee a gentle wind in his party's favour and he can turn it into a storm. In contrast, give Sonia Gandhi a similar wind, and she will end up becalming her own ship. This too is visible in the data. Her personal ratings, published in cold print, are abysmal, and still going south. She is far less popular than either her party or even her own regional leaders. Any normal political party would, in such circumstances, try and do something about it. The Congress clique around her responded with sycophancy, which hurt the party even further. Obsequiousness is now too deeply ingrained in the culture of the Sonia Congress. That is why Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, smile broadly before every election and weep bitterly afterwards. They do the first in public, and the second in private.

Sonia Gandhi is a foreigner not because she was born in Italy, but because she does not understand India and Indians. She has neither the knowledge, built in the case of Indira Gandhi or Nehru over a lifetime of politics, or instinct. She will not admit it, but she is aware of her deficiency, which is why all information is sifted through courtiers like Ambika Soni and Ghulam Nabi Azad who can "protect" this "secret". She cannot trust anyone with an independent mind. It is in the self-interest of courtiers to mislead their leader, and use proximity to encourage her fantasies. In the case of this election, the courtiers confused opinion polls with fact and then set about ensuring that only Sonia Gandhi would get the credit for the impending famous victory. They would not let any other Congress leader share the campaign limelight, for fear that praise later would also be shared and intrude into the exclusive space they had reserved for their empress. And so while the BJP sent all its leaders into the campaign, each one permitted his or her share of publicity, the Congress glare was on just one individual.

It is bad enough that Sonia Gandhi does not understand India. What is worse is that India does not understand her. When the Congress won these states, Sonia Gandhi was an absolutely new element in politics and of some curiosity value to the crowds. Five years later, they know enough about her to say that she should not represent them. It does not help that Sonia Gandhi cannot communicate. You cannot read to a nation, when you have to give the lead to a nation. More to the point, no one is quite sure about what she believes in. Good governance is not an ideology. Everyone wants good governance including, on paper, Laloo Prasad Yadav. Sonia Gandhi's claims to secularism have been badly trimmed by her flirtation with "soft-Hinduism" in Gujarat. People remember such opportunism, and redouble their laughter when it is exposed. Even this time around Digvijay Singh wanted to win votes through cow's urine, and Ajit Jogi by declaring the cow a national animal. This is silly. Two Christians, Ajit Jogi and Sonia Gandhi, cannot become the champions of the cow after they have eaten beef all their lives. No one expects them to. The Indian electorate can forgive a great deal about Indian politics. But it has not learnt to forgive stupidity.

What the Congress should worry about is that it was wrecked in an election fought on its preferred battleground: good governance. For the first time since 1989, temples and mosques were not on the agenda. I wonder how many people noticed that Narendra Modi entered this election campaign with a bang and disappeared with a whimper. He could not find an audience. The BJP told him to go home as unobstrusively as possible. If the Congress cannot survive a non-emotive election then it will not get even a hundred seats in the next general elections under the non-leadership of Sonia Gandhi.

Just remember one thing: Vajpayee turned a breeze into a storm when he asked for votes for Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharati. When he asks for votes for himself, he could turn it into a gale.

The gap between the BJP and the Congress consists of two chasms. The first we have addressed: any contest between Vajpayee and Sonia is a no-contest, a non-starter.

The other chasm is as important. The BJP is propelled by realism. It knows that it cannot come to power in Delhi on its own. It has therefore carefully constructed a trellis of allies, supported by a federal culture. The Congress is still arrogant with existing and potential allies. Sonia Gandhi for some reason believes that she can win elections alone, no one knows on what basis. If she had sat across a table and accommodated like-minded parties before the Gujarat elections, the results there could have been different, thereby shifting the hinge of the future. This time around, alliances in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh could have made a difference. Sharad Pawar and VC Shukla did not set out to win the election in Chhattisgarh. They set out to defeat the Congress and did so with clinical efficiency. The Congress should have kept them on its side, but who can argue with Sonia Gandhi's ego?

It is interesting that the man who should have an ego after five years as prime minister shows no apparent sign of one. Vajpayee is too intelligent to barter power for an ego.

Potential partners of the Congress like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sharad Pawar have been insulted too often for them to join Sonia Gandhi in a general election contest. The Congress meanwhile scratches itself to death within the loneliness of an ivory tower. This is not the kind of obituary that the spearhead of India's freedom movement deserves. But what can the nation do when the party is in the grip of someone who does not understand the nation?

MJ Akbar is Chief Editor of the Asian Age.