By Patricia Mukhim
Why do I get the sense that there might be a sort of political storm anytime soon in this abode of clouds? The political storm will unsettle the staid and laid back attitude of some political parties that are not used to confronting problems head on or even trying to introspect as to where they failed and why. After the KHADC elections, the Congress, a national party scored zero, NPP, also a regional party scored 4 while the BJP also got a zero which was expected. Among the regional parties the UDP scored 5 while the HSPDP got just 1 seat. The VPP got 17 seats out of 29 which makes it 59% of the total seats.
The storm I am speaking about will not affect the present government, but it will cause some upsets for some political parties that seem to have receded into the sunset zone. It is said that democracy presents a peaceful way of settling differences. Democracy replaces fisticuffs with verbal duels that are not necessarily rational for rationality and politics cannot co-exist. If voters were rational then many of the present set of legislators would not have been elected. The choice of a particular candidate or party has never been a rational choice. It’s purely emotional and this is proven by successive studies. The book “The Political Brain – The Role of Emotion In Deciding The Fate of The Nation,” by Drew Westen is a good primer for those aspiring to win the next elections in 2028.
For a political party that is aiming at upsetting the BJP apple-cart one would have expected the Congress in Meghalaya to go into a huddle after the disastrous KHADC election results. But while there was a lot of kite-flying about whether the State Congress President would be replaced by someone younger, more dynamic and perhaps more grounded, the all-powerful All India Congress Committee (AICC) as always takes a final call without caring to touch base with the voters here. This High Command structure is the undoing of the Congress but the Party is stuck in the mud and just cannot seem to jerk itself up from its post-election stupor. At the national level too the Party is unable to get its act together. The INDIA alliance seems to have floundered especially after the Delhi elections. Congress party cadres in Meghalaya are losing faith and patience both, although they try to maintain a facile bravado. In politics 5 years is a long time and when those 5 years are spent in the boondocks it can get very frustrating. Think about Ronnie Lyngdoh, a lone ranger struggling to retain his sanity and having to join forces with the VPP in the Opposition when they might become the arch rival he has to fight in 2028.
Now take the case of the UDP and HSPDP. They are virtually subsumed by the NPP and have ceased to have any identity of their own. During elections they appear like clowns when they attack the NPP as a party or its candidate because they are all still sleeping in the same bed and sharing the same blanket although they jostle for space as to who gets more of the blanket especially during the cold winter. So people are no longer impressed by the UDP and HSPDP. They feel these are the B-team of the NPP who are just putting up a political performance. Sadly that performance has now become a complex mixture of effort and happenstance. Both the UDP and HSPDP are left with no more weapons in their arsenal except rhetoric which loosely defined is the art of persuasion. Those UDP MDCs that won this time did so on their own merit and personal credibility. It had nothing to do with the Party. So too with the HSPDP.
Three years down the line the UDP might have lost its identity. The 2 ministers – Paul Lyngdoh, and Kyrmen Shylla seem quite comfortable sharing space with the NPP. It would be a tall order for them to keep defending their seats if there is a strong NPP candidate from their respective constituencies because it will be embarrassing for them to go hammer and tongs at the candidate of a Party they have bedded with for 5 years (10 years in the case of Kyrmen Shylla). The next best thing is to join the NPP because if you cannot beat them, you join them. Considering that their major foe in 2028 will be the VPP, the UDP candidates will have to use more than rhetoric to retain their seats. It is becoming increasingly evident that Shakliar Warjri too might join the NPP.
Let’s face facts. In the Khasi-Jaintia Hills the NPP has been painted as a Garo-led party and the VPP is seen as a Khasi-Jaintia party. Now while the NPP is a statewide, nay a nation-wide party, the VPP has no base in Garo Hills and is unlikely to strike roots there considering its stand on the contentious reservation issue. So can the VPP win all 36 seats in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills? That’s highly improbable. The Garos will vote for the NPP because it is seen as PA Sangma’s Party. The Garos will not want a Khasi chief minister for obvious reasons, hence with all the misgivings they have against the NPP, they will still converge around it come election time. The NPP will win over some non-VPP Khasi MLAs and the BJP and form the next government too unless there is a political earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter.
Now what happens to Mukul Sangma and his TMC MLAs? He is feeling restless too and in the last budget session Dr Sangma was seen commending Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on how he fielded the questions. A video clip of Dr Sangma visiting the ongoing construction work of the Tura Medical College saw him saying that as per the works on the ground they seem to tally with the statements of Chief Minister Conrad Sangma in the House. The TMC is a lost cause in Meghalaya but Dr Sangma is unlikely to return to the Congress now, not with Vincent Pala at the helm. So what’s the way forward for him? Will he start a new regional bloc like the VPP and fight the election on the same plank – cleaning up the Augean stables? And then form a coalition with the VPP? After all, Ardent Basaiawmoit and Dr Mukul Sangma are comrades in arms with a common enemy, the NPP. So this aspect will be interesting to watch!
But if we think the BJP is sitting with folded hands and waiting for things to play out without it using its toolkit, we have another thing coming. The BJP is having parleys with some regional party leaders and making them see the light. For too long these leaders have believed in principles only to be let down by their respective parties. Now they too want to play a decisive role in politics instead of playing second fiddle. This is where there may be some major shake ups in the next couple of months. Those who have been regional party stalwarts are now toying with the idea of whether to lean into the future or get sucked in the past. They also know that nostalgia does not win elections. They cannot keep reminding the electorate what they did during their tenures as MLAs when those tenures are all but forgotten. Voters are impatient and want solutions to problems. This is the choice that those politicians who are cooling their heels today will have to make. 2028 is not too far away anyway and the faster the choices are made the better negotiating spaces those politicians will have.
I am no soothsayer but having seen how politicians behave over the years, this is just a surmise. I hope I am right because voters have become shrewd and have no qualms about voting candidates from the BJP today!