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Thiruvananthapuram: One swallow doesn’t make a summer. So, one cycle of elections doesn’t indicate a national trend. All the same, when a swallow flies in, it could possibly be indicative of an entire flock on its way heralding a new season.
The outcome of the Haryana assembly election is certainly a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose morale has been at a low after it failed to notch up the numbers it aspired for in the Lok Sabha (LS) polls. On the other side, the result has dealt a big blow to the Congress, which has been conducting as the real victor after the LS polls.
What next for the two national parties? The Haryana victory has come as a pleasant surprise to the BJP, after being ruled out by both self-conceited election pundits and pollsters. The party has seized the win as a starting point for bracing itself for far more arduous battles ahead as assembly polls in Maharashtra and Jharkhand are not far off.
On the other side of the divide, the Haryana debacle has seriously dented the stock of the Congress as the national pivot of the I.N.D.I.A alliance. The regional parties have already started taunting the Congress, suggesting its leaders are living in a fools’ paradise if they think that the party is now strong enough to take the BJP head-on in states where they fight it out with each other.
The implication is that if the party took on board minor allies, the results would have been different. The Maharashtra elections are going to be the next big challenge for both parties. The contest in Maharashtra is going to be all the more important for the BJP, considering the status, clout and complexities of the state.
The saffron party took a calculated risk when it toppled the Uddhav Thackeray government by breaking Shiv Sena and propping up Eknath Shinde as the Chief Minister, choosing itself to be the second partner in the hastily formed alliance. Still, the coalition is effectively led by the BJP.
Having suffered major losses in the LS polls, will the BJP be able to reverse the trend in the assembly polls? Will the party take the initiative of leading the coalition, and, if so, how well that will go down with the ally?
BJP is known for its inventiveness, with its tacticians displaying an uncanny knack from time to time to come out with strategies specific to the state it stands a winning chance. It has organisational might, geared up fully in times of elections and enormous resources at its command.
Often, its organisational strength is supplemented with the RSS lending a helping hand. While all these are plus factors, can an election be won by leveraging them in full force in a state ridden with political and social divisions? This appears to be the overriding question before the saffron party.
Now look at the other side of the divide. The Congress is already a minor partner in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are the dominant components in the alliance. After the LS polls, however, the Congress has been flexing its muscles to position itself as a major component, if not the leader, of the axis. Having failed to romp home a credible performance, Congress would have to put up with the status quo.
Though a different political turf from the rest of the country, the results in Jammu and Kashmir have given a boost to the I.N.D.I.A alliance, though it remains not a well-defined axis. The National Conference has come out with flying colours and is all set to form the coalition government in the Union Territory. But left to itself, the performance of the Congress there has been dismal. Compared to that, the BJP succeeded in notching up decent numbers, though all came from the Jammu region.
The Congress, which was expected to perform well in Jammu, failed to make any dent, being battered by the principal adversary. Being part of the NC-led government could also throw up some problems for Congress as a national party. The NC, at least polemically, is still not reconciled with the abrogation of Article 370 which gave special status to the state. If it raises the demand after coming to power, that would push the Congress in a tight spot.
The vast majority in the country, including most political parties, have reconciled to the scrapping of the special status to J&K as a fait accompli. So, it will be a costly risk for Congress if it goes with the ally on this issue under the compulsions.
