By Harihar Swarup

Coming Gujarat elections are not an ordinary poll, for they will have a big impact on the national politics post general elections 2014. If Congress wins, or, even improves its tally in the state assembly, the party’s chances will brighten. Modi made his first mistake by making the poll campaign attacks personalized, or, more precisely, Sonia-centric. Poll outcome notwithstanding, Sonia Gandhi’s stature has gone further up by her poised defence, not attacking on a personal level or even mentioning Narendra Modi, but rather making electioneering completely issue-based.

Soon Modi got a rebuff when Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra disclosed that the Congress Chief had not sought any official reimbursement of her medical bills, meaning that till now government has incurred no expenditure on her travel and treatment abroad. Modi has not only been proved to be a blatant liar, but his attempt to take political mileage of somebody’s illness smacked of low taste.

One may recall that L K Advani had launched a similar bitter attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the run up to the 2009 elections. But hitting out at PM viciously and repeatedly, what did Advani get in return? In fact, he made Dr. Singh a middle class hero. Advani’s attack on PM, actually, boomeranged very badly on the BJP as the middle class voted overwhelmingly for the Congress. It is too early to talk of 2014 elections, but Modi’s vitriolic attack on Sonia Gandhi appears to be a virtual repetition of the failed strategy of 2009.

Modi claims that he may get 150 seats, beating the Congress leader, Madhavsinh Solanki’s record of leading the Congress to victory with 148 seats in the 1985 Assembly elections. That was also last time the Congress had won in Gujarat.

Redrawing assembly constituencies has changed the demographic profile of newly formed 65 of 182 seats in the state. Over two dozen sitting MLAs have been thus affected. Meanwhile, the Congress has avoided making 2002 riots central to its campaign. Every time the party has raised the issue in previous election, Modi has managed to polarize the electorate on communal lines and won decisive victories.

Congress recognizes that getting past Modi might not be an easy task but thinks it can wrest a huge symbolic victory in Gujarat by managing to get an improved tally. BJP sees Gujarat as a sure shot, although not everyone in the party may be comfortable with boosting the prospects of Modi for the Prime Ministerial chair. Modi has made no secret of his Prime Ministerial ambitions, repeatedly engaging with Dr. Singh or Sonia Gandhi to project himself beyond the confines of Gujarat.

Apart from Modi’s detractors, the RSS too does not support his prime ministerial ambition. As a matter of fact, barring a handful of Modi supporters and few of his administers, no political party will support his bid as the prime ministerial candidate. The moment the BJP’s central leadership tries to project him, the BJP will be isolated politically. The moment he is projected, the allies will quit one by one, leaving the BJP high and dry.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is so allergic to Modi that he does not want even to listen to his name. He did not allow Modi to enter Bihar to campaign for the BJP in the assembly elections. If the BJP’s leadership touches Modi even with barge’s poll, NItish will be out. Apart from the BJP, the Bihar Chief Minister has been toying with the idea of quitting the NDA for quite some. His overtures to the Congress are now well known. He has gone on record saying he would join anyone who gives special status to the state of Bihar. Lately, he has moved closer to the Congress, having admired Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi in public.

Nitish is rightly apprehensive that the mere suspicion that he may support Modi will have a terrifying effect on the Muslim voters; they will desert him en bloc in no time. Evidently, the Chief Minister cannot take that risk and really why should he?

None of the political parties, even the staunchest supporters of the BJP, will like to see Modi as the Prime Minister. For the Left parties, like Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav, the BJP and Modi are anathema. Having bitter experience when she formed the government with the BJP on the condition that she would rule the state for two-and-half years and the BJP for the same period, Mayawati too does not trust the saffron party anymore. With her battle with her arch foe Mulayam Singh Yadav getting intense, she would not like to lose the support of the Muslim electorate.

Anti-incumbency factor and a deluge of scams weigh heavily on the UPA, putting it on a weak wicket. Even if both the UPA and the NDA fail to muster majority, there’s a chance of the notional Third Front becoming a reality. The general elections are not that far away and the Gujarat elections would form a big imprint in the national psyche. (IPA Service)

By HH Mohrmen

There you have it, this is from the horse’s mouth and a statement from no less than the President of the Congress party who said that he was offered a bribe of 10 to 20 crore (or 1 million to two million) rupees by aspiring candidates who are desperate to contest on a Congress party ticket from a certain constituency in the ensuing election. It is therefore no longer just media report or columnists’ comments which allege that huge amounts of money change hands during elections. Although the MPCC President retracted his statement the next day, blaming the media for misquoting him or quoting him out of context, everybody knows that the President was caught on the wrong foot. When he realized his mistake he blamed others for it. He will have a lot of convincing to do, to get people agree that the blame lies entirely with the media.

The statement made by MPCC President (subsequently denied) has only exposed the rot that is not only in the Congress but in all the political parties and the entire electoral system that we have. But the question is why now? Why the two individuals from the Jaintia hills district were singled out? Surely many candidates too must have offered the party money to be allotted a party ticket even in the past. There must be a reason why the President chose to make the statement now. The important point of discussion is not what the President of the MPCC has allegedly stated but what he didn’t say. Is the Congress party fed up with the money bags from the Jaintia hills? Have the two business tycoons who are still very much with the Congress gradually lost their influence in the party? Both the individuals have been with the Congress through trials and tribulations and one of them was even caught with huge amounts of money during the last bye election to the Umroi constituency. The Umroi bye-election was a turning point not only for a Government employed technocrat to jump into politics and win the election to the Lok Sabha, but it was also a turning point for Ngaitlang Dhar a businessman with no education, to decide to take the plunge into state politics. Much water has flowed down the river since then and coal mining lobby, seems be gradually losing its grip on the string of power in the state, and the question is, have they been replaced by the cement lobby now?

The other important point must be seen on a positive light and the question is, can we say that the Congress is also fed up with candidates with less or no formal education? The two individuals named in the report are rich businessmen but with little or no education, one especially with no formal education whatsoever and the other has barely completed his lower primary school. The other question is whether the Congress is trying to nip in the bud the dynastic politics that the two are trying to start? Nehlang is vacating Rymbai for his nephew Justine Lyngdoh and Ngaitlang Dhar is the elder brother of the present MLA who is contesting from Nartiang constituency in the 2013 election. The development has only proved what was mentioned in this column a few months ago that Jaintia hills will have more than 7 MLAs after the next election; we already have 3 names from Ribhoi District Nehlang, Ngeitlang and now Barnabas Nangbah. They are all from (the undivided) Jaintia hills. Whoever plays this game has his cards very close to his chest and if he has his way, then Meghalaya will be under his thumb. But it is for the people to decide. Then again with money playing a major role in the election, one doubts if the next election is going bring any change for the state.

As long as elections are decided by the amount of money the candidate can spend, what change can really one expect? The election rules of the Election Commission have no meaning at all; they only operate after the announcement of the election. It is meaningless because the rules operate in a very limited period of less than a month whereas candidates have already started spending money one year or even earlier before the election. Candidates not only spend money to buy party tickets, they also make sure they have the best orator in the area to canvas for them and headmen (especially in the villages) are being taken care of much before the election. Hence the election rules which permit a candidate to spend only 5 lakhs in the election is a farce. A lot of money has already changed hands by the time the election code of conduct is made operational. Money has been spent in providing schemes for the villages, NGOs and even churches make hay while the sun shines to get as much benefit from the MLA as possible. This comes in the form of schemes for the church run schools, providing chairs, cooking utensils for the women groups, music and PA system for the church and even grants for construction of the church buildings (yes this happen in a secular state) and even roads connecting to the churches before the synod .

The blame for the increasing influence of money power during the election is because of the MLA and MP Local Area Development Schemes. Almost every MLA or MP keeps it till the eleventh hour to distribute their respective Local Area Development Schemes. This is a clever ploy to influence people and the ulterior motive is to use the MLA-LADS to buy votes for the MLA for his re-election. The scheme is used but for MLAs’ own selfish gain. The scheme (which is a tax payers’ money) is not being used as it was literarily meant to be which is for local area development. Because MLAs use the MLA-LADS with ulterior motives and at the last minute, the opposing candidates too have no other options but to compete with the MLAs in distributing freebies. The candidates too are seen involved in distributing utensils, plastics chairs etc. to the people, NGOs, Youths clubs and even churches and thereby starts the cycle of corruption even before they become politicians. One is surprised to see that even former student leaders who are now in the election fray for the first time providing heavy machines for tilling play grounds for the village. The question is where did the money come from?

The MLA-LADS/MP-LADS is squarely to be blamed for the deteriorating kind of election that we have in which money dictates and decides which candidate wins. Because of the MLA scheme people are not discussing what change the MLA has brought to the constituency or what new policy has he helped frame for the betterment of the state as a whole, but people are now talking about how much money the MLA gave for ‘our locality’, ‘our Youth Clubs’ and church related activities. Voters are no longer debating about the development that the MLA is able to bring to the constituency, but money is the sole criteria of deciding how good or how bad the candidates is.

Until and unless the Local Area Development Scheme is done away with, this will continue and we will still have elections where money power will play a major role in the elections. MLA scheme must be done away with because it is unfair to the opposing candidates. The sitting MLA already has an upper hand against the opposing candidates and it does not allow a level playing field for all the candidates.

In conclusion we must thank the president of the MPCC for opening the can of worms that is the election process in the state. One really finds it difficult to calculate and contemplate how much it really costs to be a candidate to contest an election? If one has to shell out 10 to 20 crore just for the party ticket; then your guess is as good as mine on how much it costs to contest an election. The state will therefore never have young, bright and educated candidates contesting the election because a lot of money is at stake and, serious candidates will not find the prospect of being MLA attractive since ultimately they will not be gauged by development and the policies they help bring about but solely by the money they spend.