A chess game

My friend Mike Khanna, now chairman emeritus of Hindustan Thompson, reacted to this proposition with the alacrity of an adman. He coined a term: postdiction. Having slept over the name I really do think he ought to suggest something better for such a clever idea. Postdiction sounds too much like the state of a successful graduate from Alcoholics Anonymous.

Even a sophisticated, much-researched, heavily-polled prediction is becoming about as scientific as launching an Inter Continental Ballistic Missile. All you have to do is get the trajectory wrong by 1 per cent and a missile headed from Washington to Moscow could end up destroying innocent little Burma. Most of the predictions in the general elections went wrong by about 30 or 40 seats out of over 550, but that was sufficient to overturn the message. Power and wilderness, government and impotence are now determined by the fate of a single digit percentage of seats. This is why elections are no longer a race between sprinters. They have a chess game where the alliance of a pawn or the misplacement of a castle can gift victory to the other side.

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The results of the Maharashtra elections on October 13 are being widely advertised as both portentous and momentous. That is as it may be. For the moment, the voter in Maharashtra is swinging on a turbulent seesaw. Whenever he sees the

government and thinks of the last five years (drought mismanagement, profligate waste, hollow promises, moon-surface roads and no answers) he runs to the Opposition. Then, whenever he sees the Opposition and thinks of the next five years (weekly pay-offs to buy peace with bullies, partisan rhetoric, flirtation with fire instead of governance) he rushes back towards the ruling alliance. So the results may depend on whose face the voter has seen last. If it is that of the government, the Opposition could win. If it is that of the Opposition, the government could sail back for another five years in Mantralaya.

Some of the recovery of Congress-NCP confidence owes therefore to the behaviour of the Shiv Sena-BJP campaign. But the ruling alliance is perhaps unwilling to appreciate how much the persona of the present chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has contributed to the upswing. He is not, let us admit, a Gandhian. He can be as cynical as anyone else. He is not above swishing a magic wand over the voters' heads although he knows that the treasury is empty and the Reserve Bank of India will not print notes to bail him out. The pre-poll decision to give farmers free electricity is an instance of electoral cynicism. Maharashtra does not have the money to pay for this electricity, not now and not in the foreseeable future. And so the government has

created a book entry by which the Maharashtra State Electricity Board has set off the cost against past dues. This might satisfy a dry accountant, but will exact a separate price. The MSEB's liquidity has disappeared, so it will not have the funds to buy power from other grids necessary to maintain regular supplies to the state. Blackouts may be around a very short corner. Obviously the thinking is that a friendly Central government will lean on Central power boards to keep the bulbs alight before the elections, but what happens after that? Who cares . . .

However, the impact of Mr Shinde's gentle personality is being felt, particularly in contrast to the sharp edges ranged against him. Power is not only about official policy. It is also about how you deal with people, about how you manage vulnerable and insecure constituencies and constituents. Shinde's natural modesty, and his concern for the underprivileged, born at least partly out of his personal struggles in life, create high levels of sympathy and trust.

The worst disease among the powerful is to believe that power is a natural right. So many governments cannot see seepage under them because their eyes are focused on power for the next ten or twenty years. Shinde is one politician who has lost power often enough to know that it is at best transitory. When you are mentally prepared to lose power

it tends to stay with you. When you grasp it too hard, it slips away from your clutches. The unassuming Shinde has done more for his side than those who consider themselves indispensable. He may add thereby only one or two per cent to the vote, but in an election such as this that vote can be crucial.

Of course the opera ain't over till the Election Commission sings. This year's general elections were not a single election but the sum total of about thirty parallel elections, each spinning on its own set of springs (hence the analogy to chess rather than a sprint). An Assembly election in a state as large as Maharashtra (it takes a day's train journey to travel from east to west) is also not a single election. There will be perhaps four or five simultaneous elections taking place on October 13 in Vidarbha, Marathwada, Konkan, western Maharashtra and the Mumbai region. The traditional

demographic dynamic has been further complicated by regional demands, ambitions, and anger. In such a calculus, every marginal player can change equations.

One reason for Congress' success in the Mumbai region in the Lok Sabha polls was the en bloc support of immigrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. But this is also why political leaders from the two Gangetic states, like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, are putting up their own candidates. While the former can slice off a part of the Muslim vote, the latter threatens a chunk of the Dalit vote. The Shiv Sena has to worry about serious dissidence. Even the dominant voice of Bal Thackeray cannot prevent a squabble for succession between his son Uddhav and his nephew Raj. Age is a merciless fact.

Since in this theatre even an extra can interfere with the drama, the politics of Delhi will also leave its mark. The bounce has shifted from the BJP to the Congress, as is evident from both the body language and the rhetoric. Sonia Gandhi's appeal to voters has gone up. But surely the mystery question is how much positive impact Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will have on voters. His personal integrity and decency was never in question. But how much does that translate into political weight?

The Singh government was born when the institutional midwife of our system, the President of India, swore in his ministers. But the government began to walk only recently, with the first press conference of the Prime Minister. Before that there was a sense of much ado about nothing; or, worse, malfunctioning remote control. A nation wants its chief executive to be both a chief and an executive. The press conference reassured the country that authority was in the hands of someone who was willing to exercise it. The Prime Minister will now find an audience when he goes to campaign in Maharashtra.

In western democracy, as defined by the revolutionaries of France, there should be separation of powers between the church and the state. In the UP government we are witnessing a separation of powers between government and politics, with Dr Manmohan Singh in charge of the first and Mrs Sonia Gandhi in control of the second, but with the final decision in critical matters in the hands of the party rather than government. The paradox is that if the government does well, then the party will be seriously tempted to cash in on the goodwill through another election. And if the government only muddles along, then common sense will ensure that the government remains in power for its full term. Better the bird in hand than a flock in the bush.

But Maharashtra alone will not determine the future. Equally crucial will be the results of Bihar, where two allies in the government are on divergent paths and the Congress sits in ambush. If you want my guess, the decisions of 2004 are over. Nothing much should change. But the decisions of 2005 are being thought through already. If 2004 was a year of upheaval then 2005 could be a year of turbulence.

MJ Akbar is Chief Editor of the Asian Age.