The media has proclaimed the on-going elections for the five state assemblies of UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur as the semi-finals of India’s parliamentary polls in 2014. The polls, spread over close to two months, have assumed significance and the debate is on whether the political idiom this time around is a tad bit different than the past.
Manipur is the smallest of these five states and the single-phase polls ended on January 28. Amid violence and a fractured opposition, compounded by a Naga party being in fray, the ruling Congress is expecting to return to power, even if it has to win over a few independent or minor party legislators. Corruption, lack of governance and rule of law in a few hill districts notwithstanding, the Congress is reaping the benefit of a fractured opposition divided among local Manipuri and Naga parties, BJP and Trinamul Congress. No big change is expected here.
Uttarakhand with a sitting BJP government that changed its ‘tainted’ CM Ramesh Chandra Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ just five months ahead of polls to project the no-nonsense and clean-image of ex-Army general B C Khanduri is under the pressure of anti-incumbency.
With only the image of Khanduri, a relatively strong anti-corruption Lokayukta law being passed in the dying months of the last assembly, BJP is smarting under rampant corruption of the Nishank government and lack of governance in the backward hill districts. However, since BJP enjoys strong organizational base in the state and the opposition is in a disarray without a clearly spelt CM candidate against Khanduri, the saffron party may again return to power, albeit needing some external independent support for a few seats in case of a hung assembly. Governance and corruption issues hold sway in one of India’s youngest states.
The most interesting polls in the first phase were that of Punjab. Ruling Shiromani Akaali Dal (SAD), which almost got under vicious grip of half the Badal family, the father-son duo, is facing a rout, along with its partner BJP, some of whose MLAs and ministers face corruption charges. The Badal family is divided with Manpreet Badal coming out strongly with the People’s Party of Punjab in its first electoral foray. The Sikh voters are no longer thinking on Panthic lines, but on governance, debt, employment and corruption, where the Badals failed. It seems like Advantage Congress in Punjab for no credits of its own or of its CM candidate Captain Amarinder Singh.
Goa, which goes to polls on March 3, is battling governance and corruption issues taking centre-stage, and Maharastra Gomantakwadi Party snapping ties with the ruling Congress alliance and teaming up with BJP to queer the poll pitch.
However, the real battle is in UP, where three rounds of seven-phase elections have been conducted. The quadrangular contest is among the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party plagued with one-woman dictatorship of Maywati and corruption, Samajwadi Party going through a generational change in leadership, BJP desperately trying to resurrect the mandir-masjid issue and Uma Bharati for a decent fight, and Congress facing its most bitter fight to prove the leadership of its heir apparent Rahul Gandhi. Political idiom needed the change most visibly in UP. While development is the currency of public discourse and all parties barring BJP are talking the same, there are disturbing trends of minority quota politics of Congress and SP, while BJP is raking the moribund Ram Mandir to fan jingoism, and BSP falling on the Dalit vote-bank to get a lease of life in government. SP’s projection of a young Akhilesh Yadav to the forefront and changing its discourse from rigid conservatism to modern technology and development has marked a distinct change irrespective of its poor law and order records in governance earlier. SP seems a front-runner in a hung assembly..
The desperation of Gandhi family in bringing forth the entire family, including Priyanka Gandhi’s husband Robert Vadra and children is to be seen to be believed, though the freshness is the development focus of the new-age angry young man, Rahul Gandhi. BJP is neither able to take advantage of NDA’s success in Gujarat nor ward off the corruption in Karnataka. BSP, guarding its core Dalit vote-bank, faces flak for the corruption of around 26 sacked ministers and the buck stopping at Mayawati on most of the charges of graft, irrespective of good law and order situation.
The electorate craved for a change of political idiom, and it is happening in a few states, but was not allowed to bloom in Uttar Pradesh, where it needed most.
