By H H Mohrmen
Predicting the outcome of the recently held general election is not going to be as difficult as rocket science and it does not need a prophet to predict the outcome of the 2019 election either, because everybody knows that it is going to be a hung parliament. Even the leaders of the two major national parties and contenders for government formation know it very well, that no party or not even the alliances that they have will be able to come up with a comfortable majority to form the government. If the two alliances led by the BJP and the Congress would ever be able to form the government, they will need the support of one or more regional parties from across the country. It is therefore as clear as daylight that the next government is a going to be a coalition government.
Of course the two alliances led by the BJP and the Congress have no doubt claimed that they will form the next government with the support of their alliance partners. The NDA is confident that along with partners it will be able to form the next government and Modi will be the Prime Minister of the country yet again. Similarly the Congress and its UPA alliance partners are also claiming that they will have the numbers to form the government and replace Narendra Modi. Both the alliances are confident that the people will give them the mandate to form the next government in the country.
Then there is another contender to the top honour and that is the coalition in the offing, an alliance of the regional parties or the mahagatbandhan. The idea of having a third front in which the regional parties will rule the roost and form the next government was floated even before the general election 2019 was declared, but the idea did not take off. Now can this idea be revived after the election was declared? Is the third front a viable alternative? Is it even a workable idea which is worth considering? These are few questions that can be answered even as the trend of the results start appearing on May 23. But there is one question the answer to which is already there for everybody to see and that is the fact that the regional parties are going to be the deciding factors post May 23. One thing that is sure is that post the 2019 general election results we will see the rise of the regional parties in different regions of the country. Whether this is going to be good or bad for the country is what we will have to wait and see, but again another major outcome of the 2019 election is that the regional parties are here to stay at least for a few more general elections.
In the situation where none of the alliance partners could muster the required strength to form a government, the next option is for the two alliances to try and rope in the regional parties which are not in alliance with either the NDA or the UPA. The onus is therefore on the leader of the parties which leads the alliance if they are able to convince the parties which are not their alliance partners to support them to form the government. The question is, which of the two alliances are more attractive to the other parties?
The leader of the NDA by virtue of being in the government in the last five years, would have to be on defensive and the anti-incumbency factor is already taking its toll on the alliance. It is not only anti-incumbency which is going to have its impact on the performance of the alliance and particularly the BJP which is the major party in the alliance, but the attitude of its leaders during the campaign will have an adverse affect on the party performance in the election. Prime Minister Modi and the party president have constantly attacked the regional party leaders during the campaign. They targeted people like Arvind Kejriwal, Mayawati and Mamata – leaders who are going to play a very important role post May 23. Of course one may say that during elections anybody can say anything against anybody and that will be forgotten because that is part of the election process, but does this apply to the relationship of the leaders of the BJP and the aforementioned leaders of the regional parties? Of course the saying goes – In politics there are no permanent friends or enemies, but like in a football match there are just opponents which are very temporary. But the campaign in the last election has reached an all time low and there are several instances of leaders hitting below the belt from both sides of the divide. Therefore one wonders if they can reconcile, or if this is possible in the near future. Surely there is always a possibility of reconciliation, but that will take time and not as immediate as just after the results are declared.
It is also true that Prime Minister Modi is his own worst enemy; everything he has done and said returns like a boomerang and hits him back in a double whammy. Calling the leader of the major opposition party a ‘Papu’ has backfired and now people know who does not have a basic understanding of a simple theory of how a radar works. Then the tall claims of using digital camera and transmitting a photograph to Advani only proves wrong what he has been saying all along and throughout his campaign trail that the Congress has done nothing in the last seven decades.
But the Himalayan blunder that the BJP has committed during the election was to allot Pragya Singh Thakur the party ticket to contest against Digvijay Singh from Bhopal. She is an accused no doubt and can of course contest the election, but the first blunder she committed was when she said she cursed Hemant Karkare to death. And the final nail in the coffin was when during election campaign she praised Nathuram Godse as a true patriot. That epitomises the kind of person she is and whether this will have its affect on the election results we will only know after the judgement day.
The Congress on the other hand, except for Rahul having to apologise to the top court for some of his remarks on the Rafael deal, by and large the campaign was free from controversy. But the most important point to note is although the Congress and other parties were fighting against each other during the election, yets, they were able to maintain decorum and leave an avenue open for them to work with each other if and when it is necessary.
Even as polling has ended the other question that the people need to ask is whether it was necessary to have an election which extended to more than a month? Was it really necessary to have a 7 phase election or is it safe to conclude that the reason that the campaign became toxic and that the vitriolic exchange was at its all time high was because of the pressure built from the prolonged electioneering? Whether the protracted election helped in tilting the election in favour of the ruling party, or the opposition only time will tell. The answer to this question will be known only after the final results are declared.