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Indian Elections

"Arithmetic in Politics is Different!"

by Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury
**Things will change or may take new turns after the elections. Then once again the maxim that "one plus one may make eleven and not necessarily tito in politics" will be more pronounced than ever before. ;
ONE plus one makes two but the same is not the case in politics — at least not In the current political scenario in India. As the next elections in the largest democracy of the world are drawing nearer, different and at times strange electoral alliances or adjustments are coming to the fore. Such developments often shatter all calculations and political analysts are also taken aback by these bizarre understandings which of course stem from political expediency. "In politics, one plus one also makes eleven and not necessarily two” said Ms Sushma Swaraj, the spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). which is making a desperate attempt to come to power through the coming polls. Ms Swaraj, who was the minister for information under Atal Bihari Vajpayee government that was in power for brief thirteen days following the last elections, feels that political arithmetic is entirely different since calculations here are made on "innovative" methods. Hence, two plus two does not necessarily bring the result to four!
She may be right in one sense. The kind of political alliances that her own party is making in the context of the coming elections suggest that expediency is the topmost priority and any move is justified so long it helps bagging more seats in the elections and thereby facilitates the attempts to capture power. But this is not the case with the BJP alone but applies to other major players of Indian political spectrum and the minor political parties including the regional ones. Otherwise, when the BJP forges alliance with the Sikhs' Akali Dal in Punjab — two organisations are based on Hindu and
Sikh religions — what can be the commonality in their ideologies? Or when the BJP and once-avowed socialist George Farnandes's "Samata Party" Tn Bihar coalesced, should not the development take the political watchers by surprise? When Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral seeks election with his Janata Dal ticket from Jalandhar in Punjab, there is nothing wrong for the suave and respected politician but certainly eyebrows ought to be raised if he does it with the support of the Akali Dal which is a religionbased organisation while the Janata Dal is a totally secular organisation. Even the Congress, which accuses Its opponents of seeking "opportunistic" political alliances, does not lag behind in the process. It supports closer electoral links with the Rashtrlya Janata Dal of former Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, who has always been looked down upon as an adversary for the Congress. Maybe everybody has an explanation to justify this kind of alliances because what encouraged them to go into such political relationship or prompted them to consider ties in that pattern cannot be undermined at least by these parties themselves. As such, the reasons for these developments are not inexplicable for them but come as intriguing for many others.
Maybe some people are little different and still seeking to stick to their known policies rather than jumping into the fashion of electoral convenience. The leftists like the
CPM and the CPI may fall into this category. They are not looking for new allies and are satisfied with the broad minimum common programmes based on secularism and progressive economic policies that govern the United Front (UF) of which the two parties are constituents. They were partners of the coalition that ruled the country in two phases since the last elections — once headed by H D Deve Gowda and later led by I K Gujral. Both the prime ministers come from the centrist Janata Dal. We cannot consider as all right the support received by Prime Minister Gujral from the Akali Dal for his election in Jalandhar," said Mr D Raja, general secretary of the CPI. which has otherwise respect for the interim Prime Minister and also commends his role in running the UF government. However, the Janata Dal denies having sought support of the Akali Dal and said the Sikhs' political organisation voluntarily came out with the support for Mr Gujral. saying it does not feel encouraged to put up a candidate against him. The Akali Dal has a good following in Punjab where the Hindus .and the Sikhs almost equally divide the state population. Whatever be the case, this is largely seen as a kind of marriage of convenience.
Strange and stranger alliances or ties are coming to the fore In the electoral scene of India which were not that pronounced before. The reasons are also understandable. Since the Indian Independence in 1947, the Indian National Congress
dominated the political scene and romped home with comfortable majority in the national elections till 1977. One single party won the polls and formed the government although the opponents were not weak in the lower house of parliament. But gone are those days and when the Congress lost power in the 1977 polls largely due to the "Emergency era of Mrs Indira Ganani. it was a coalition of several parties that took over under prime minister Morarjl Desai. But the coalition later crumbled under the weight of its own differences leading to fresh polls that saw the return of Mrs Gandhi to power with a big majority. But that was the last time when a party commanded strong support in the Lok Sabha. After the death of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the P V Narasimha Rao government completed a full five-year term In the office but ft began as a minority government and remained in the saddle by engineering defections and other form of political allegiances for which the former prime minister is still embroiled In controversy and also facing the courts.
The BJP emerged as the largest party in the last elections but fell much short of the
absolute majority required to Severn the nation and as such ailed to remain in power for more than 13 days owing to lack of necessary support. This time it feels that it must come to power by widening its support base or the organisation which shot into prominence surprisingly in a decade riding on the sentiments of Hindu nationalism may not be able to retain the popularity it has gained in spectacular manner. The BJP may not also count on the advantage of having an attractive leader in Mr Vajpayee for too long. The Congress lost power in the last polls and it feels it has to bounce back to keep the party as a strong force in India. The organisation is handicapped by weak and non-charlsmatic leadership and hence turned to Nehru family's legacy. The active campaigning for the party by Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia is proving well for the organisation although it remains to be seen whether it is enough to catapult the Congress to power.
The UF. on its part, says that it needs a mandate to govern India again since it could not implement its welfare-oriented policies due to the fall of the government triggered by the withdrawal of Congress support. These three main forces
vying for power in India are utilising all possible ways to woo the voters and also explored all, avenues for forging electoral ^understanding. The smaller organisations and of? ten important regional organisations are; also flexing their muscles at times to make the bigger ones feel about their importance.
When firebrand former Congress leader Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal was agreeable for electoral adjustments with BJP despite their known conflicting political ideologies, when secular Samajwadi Dal's chief in Maharastra defects to "communal" BJP. when secular R K Hedge’s "Lokshaktl" in Karnataka forges alliance with the BJP or when BJP says it is "secular" but its ally RSS Is not because one is a "political party" and the other is an "ideological movement" or when Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray tells Pakistan high commissioner to India that Pakistan cricket team are now welcome in Bombay in a bid to woo Muslim voters — all are seen in the board parametres of political expediency. Again, these are not fully uncommon in politics of democratic nations of Asia. But the current trend of this tendency undoubtedly surpassed previous examples in India itself. Things will change or may take new turns after the elections. Then once again the maxim that "one plus one may make eleven and not necessarily two in politics" will be more pronounced than ever before.