Caught in its own excesses
So disjointed is the Congress party because of its electoral rout that it is now beginning to think with a divided brain and speak in a forked tongue. What other explanation could there be when a senior leader of the party, A.K. Antony, expresses serious doubts about the efficacy of the Muslim appeasement policy and the next moment, its chief minister in Maharashtra announces the same quota sop for Muslims (and Marathas)?
Antony said: “[The] Congress policy is equal justice to everyone. But people doubt whether that policy is being implemented or not. This doubt is created by the party’s proximity towards minorities and such a situation would open the door for the entry of communal forces into Kerala.”
BJP Surge Evident in South
The trend line for political analysts on poll prospects for decades has been that the BJP has no stand-alone chance in the entire South India. In Maharashtra the party has to work with the Shiv Sena, in Andhra piggyback on TDP, in Tamil Nadu seek an alliance with either of the Dravida parties, in Karnataka the dominant Lingayat community decides, in Kerala the party is squeezed between the UDF and the LDF.
The scene seems to have dramatically changed almost overnight with the BJP announcing its prime ministerial candidate on the one hand and the frustration of local people with the politics of convenience of the regional parties and their satraps. Also to be factored in is the collapse of the Congress in the region due to its regional leadership’s failures and the overpowering inflation. Besides the southerners are reading every day how BJP-led state governments north of the Vindhyas and in Gujarat are making waves that led to consecutive electoral successes.
Proxy Wars Within Congress
It is bad enough for the Congress that it suffered a humiliating defeat in the recent elections to the four state assemblies. But worse is still to follow. Realising that the dynastical charisma of the mother-son duo was losing its electoral sheen, the Congress men and the allies are up in arms against the high command at least in the three major states—Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Kerala—where the aging party is still in power.
The beleaguered Congressmen have reacted to the crushing debacle in two ways. Some are just too stunned to say anything and are quietly looking for other options to secure their uncertain political future. For most of them ideology and commitment to the party programmes are a matter of connivance. And there are others who have decided to take the bull by the horns, challenge the high command and stage an open revolt.
Doubles peak on Secularism
What is the litmus test of secularism in India? Do we only go by the condition of minorities in the Hindu-dominated states such as Gujarat, Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra? Should we also not see how the Hindus are treated in states where they are in the minority such as Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland and Mizoram and the way our “secular” establishment genuflects before the majority there.
Our small but strategically placed tribal state of Mizoram, straddling the Myanmar border, also occupies one of the top spots in literacy with a near 100 per cent literacy rate and school enrolment. So when that state is going for assembly polls this electoral season, you should expect aggressive public discourse on subjects as wide-ranging as jobs, development, aspirations of the young and their addictions, etc.
Cong secular card rings hollow
By some strange coincidence Union finance minister P Chidambaram’s description of the coming general elections as an ideological battle between “secular” parties and the RSS, and the statement of general secretary of the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind Maulana Madani warning the secular parties, especially the Congress, not to hold up Narendra Modi as a bugbear to win Muslim votes, have come very close to each other.
Madani is not saying, he explained in a discussion with NDTV, that Muslims would vote for the BJP, but that they are no longer taken in by the Congress projection of Modi as a threat to their interests. The Congress, he said, instead should come out with what the party has done for the community in 60 years, accusing it of only exploiting the bugbear of BJP and not doing anything in effect for the Muslims. This would no longer work, he asserted.
