Election sans issues

The BJP has, however, an advantage. Its mentor, the RSS, has a large parivarthe Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad and Swadeshi Jagran Manch. All are working for the party at different levels. The Sangh is also using its newly constituted cadre in the tribal areas. And the faces, which have come to be recognised throughout India, are far more in the BJP than those in the Congress. Doordarshan, AIR and the BJP-inclined media have projected the relatively unknown BJP members. The BJP has still another advantage: the buck stops at the RSS. It is the undisputed boss. It builds up leaders in different organisations and rotates them. For example, it has some 25 per cent of its sanchalaks (preachers) as members in the assemblies in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Among the Lok Sabha candidates, the tally is more or less the same.

The Congress, on the other hand, does not have even offices in many cities. Over the years, it has also lost in the countryside its cadre which was its mainstay. The president counts for everything. This has stunted the growth of leaders. Even Jawaharlal Nehru was blamed for not letting anyone come up. During his lifetime, SK Patil, a Congress leader from Maharashtra, said: "Nehru was like a banyan tree which gave protection but nothing grew beneath." Still during Nehru's time there were leaders like Lal Bahadur Shastri, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, K Kamaraj and Morarji Desai who were well known. After Shastri's untimely death, small men pretending to be radicals came to dominate the Congress. That was the time when the lack of ideology and infighting began to consume the party.

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Indira Gandhi's period was the worst. She saw to it that she remained supreme and went even to the extent of splitting the Congress when she found her leadership challenged. No doubt, she succeeded but the party stopped distinguishing right from wrong and moral from immoral.

Sonia Gandhi is a late starter both in politics and the party. Things developed in the Congress in such a way that she became a meeting point of different factions. She was always there behind the scenes but she waited for the right time to come. Whether Sonia Gandhi was catapulted to the position because she was Rajiv Gandhi's wife is not relevant. She is the only crowd puller in the Congress. Like her mother-in-law, she has seen to it that there is no rival to her in the party. The two leaders, Madhavrao Scindia and Rajesh Pilot, who could have challenged her, died in accidents a few years ago.

However, Sonia Gandhi did well in not fielding Priyanka, her daughter. It would have been putting all eggs in one basket. Rahul, Sonia Gandhi's son, is there but he is not making waves. Priyanka has charismatic qualities which she will utilise during her campaign. But the fact that she is not a candidate will stand her in good stead if and when the Congress does not do well at the polls. Knives will be out then as it happened in 1977 when Indira Gandhi was swept out of power. Priyanka may come in handy at that time. Surveys show Vajpayee far ahead of Sonia Gandhi. This is natural because his stature has gone up after New Delhi's breakthrough with Islamabad. But he and his party may fritter away the advantage if they continue to harp on Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin. The 'fatigue factor' is coming into play. Definitely, it is not a trump card any more. Many people have begun saying: "All are after this poor woman." If this feeling spreads, the Sangh parivar will have a problem at its hands. I have seen such a thing happening before.

After the emergency, Indira Gandhi was indicted for the excesses she had committed. But when people saw her trial before the Shah Commission for months, day in and day out, at Doordarshan and heard about the proceedings, a feeling of sympathy began to build up in her favour. "Why are they after the poor woman even when she is not in power?" This was the refrain of people's comments. The BJP may be a victim of an 'overkill' campaign if it continues to pursue Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin.

But then the BJP has no other issue to project. Development gives a feel-good factor only to the developed areas and the middle class which hardly goes to the polling booth. Very little has reached the most vulnerable and marginalised groupsthe children, the homeless, the landless and the disadvantaged castes. The election seems to be without any issue. All political parties, except those on the left, are talking more or less about the same thing: globalisation. In fact, the quarrel that has erupted between the BJP and the Congress is who had taken the initiative. On foreign policy, even the communists do not seem to have any difference with the BJP. It too criticises America at times and has the Indo-Pak relations on the track.

What may matter in the coming election is the quality of candidates. I do not think any party has paid serious attention to that. There was a long queue at the door of every party office for tickets. Proximity and money seem to have counted in the selection. Since public life outside the legislatures has ceased to get attention, everyone who wants to stay in the limelight is making a beeline to politics. On the other hand, parties have converted elections into a farce. It is also true that power has so got much concentrated in parliament and assemblies that no change looks possible from outside. After Jayaprakash Narayan's movement in 1975, no struggle has evoked response beyond a particular area or state. Despite a large number of the unemployed, people are not coming to the streets. Their economic conditions may not be good but they would rather queue up before polling booths than resort to any other method.

In the circumstances, the best thing that could have happened is the formation of People's Political Front (PPF). Human rights activists, civil liberty supporters and others involved in people's struggles have come together to initiate a process of value-based politics and to raise genuine concerns of the electorate. The front has announced that it will fight against "communal, corrupt and corporatised" forces. It is like the movement of Greens in Europe, committed to principles.

There is yet no survey to assess the strength of the PPF. But who knows it may provide one day an alternative to the country. The voters are now beginning to look beyond the two main parties. They increasingly feel that the BJP is getting congressised and the Congress saffronised. The PPF may harness the disillusionment.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.