|
||
|
Index of Articles Index of Perspectives Next Article
The Good and The Ugly Omkar Goswami
This is so true. Never in the history
of elections in India have we seen the battle for
the Lok Sabha being fought without a single
significant national agenda. Here we are in the
middle of one of the worst global economic turmoil
in the history with crazy militants in Pakistan just
a tad away from pressing their fingers on the
nuclear button, and what do our politicians talk
about? The pros and cons of an idiotic fat boy — a
distant claimant to India’s lucky sperm’s club — who
spews venom at Pilibhit? A born anew Luddite from
Uttar Pradesh who promises to ban English and
computers in one fell sweep? A leftist whose
experience of electoral politics is limited to the
Jawaharlal Nehru University sweepstakes, and is
determined to ram antiquated hard-line Stalinism to
relegate the left to the sidelines? A cherubic lad
whose words are lapped up by the media for no other
reason except that he carries the magic surname? An
man who is being portrayed as the BJP’s prime
minister in waiting, who refuses to apologise for
the Gujarat riots and claims that his role in it is
the concoction of the media? A man in his eighties
who thinks he can be the prime minister of a country
where 60 per cent of the population are 15 to 40
years old? Or the queen of Uttar Pradesh for whom
‘inclusiveness’ is how much more she include for
herself? Never will so many people have cast their
votes for so little.
Even so, the votes will be cast and
counted. Here are the possible situations that can
emerge from India’s most issue-less election.
Scenario 1: The Good. The Congress
wins some 170-odd seats, gaining 25 over its present
strength in the Lok Sabha. If that were to happen,
the Lalu-Paswan-Mulayam troika will come back to the
UPA. So too will Sharad Pawar; and the DMK, with
whatever seats it can garner in Tamil Nadu. If one
were to add the smaller parties that have
traditionally allied with the Congress — or against
the BJP — the UPA of 2009 could still fall short of
the 285-mark that it would constitute a safe
majority. What then? Will it try to woo Mayawati if
she wins 45-odd seats? At the cost of Mulayam
walking out, and even higher costs in the future? Or
would it try to get Navin Patnaik to become a
post-poll ally? Or get the TDP on board? Or would it
try to convince the more pragmatic Bengali
communists to make Comrade Prakash see the eponymous
light? Whatever happens, this scenario will be good
for India insofar as we can hope to have a
government that can last the full term — and do odd
bits of reform as it goes along, a step forward, a
few sideways and half a step backwards, as it did
during 1994 to 1999.
Scenario 3. The ugly. Neither
Congress nor the BJP cross the 130-140 mark. All
hell will break loose from the evening of 16 May.
Think of a motley combination of the left with
40-odd seats, Mayawati with 45, and other sundry
chaps with none commanding more than 15 seats trying
to form a government. It will be a tail so large and
unwieldy that it will incapacitate the poor dog.
That is India’s worst nightmare coming true — for
the 18 months to two years that the government
lasts.
Published: Business World, May 2009
Index of Articles Index of Perspectives Next Article
|
||||||||||||
|
|