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| Blind arrows: ‘Psephologists’ at loss of calculation | | NC wary of coalition, Azad says Abdullah party nothing beyond 5 seats in Valley | | ZAFAR CHOUDHARY
Jammu, Dec 21: The ‘slip of tongue’, as Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit would have preferred to describe the ‘coalition’ indication of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, has left many slipping on the electoral pitch as the round of floor arithmetic begins even before the crucial last phase of polling.
Two days have left for the last phase of polling to be held on December 24 and the electioneering agenda is taking a different turn. The issues of water, power, roads etc now appear to have watered down as the campaigning for last phase is involving a bizarre agenda –what after December 28?.
The voting pattern and the campaign trends followed across six phases hardly leave any indication of a single party coming to power at its own. Eventually there has to be a coalition –it may not be really very rag tag but nothing appears practical without a grouping. There has not been any pre-poll alliance between any parties. The voters are confused and the politicians are confusing them further on the scheme of things after votes are counted.
In these elections every party has been fighting on its own strengths and own plank and even a tacit pre-poll alliance has not been suggested at any point of time. Therefore, every party, including the BJP and the Panthers Party gave a projection of forming government at their own. This is something typical with the voter psychology. Any party which appears strong at the beginning, firms up the grip and carries it along till the last phase. This may not be the only criteria voters follow but, of course, is one main ingredient of the poll wave influencing the voters’ mindset.
Therefore, towards end of electioneering the leaders are indicating alignments to suggest the voters that one way or the other their party is poised to come to power. This gives a much required kick to the campaign. However, this kick is not without pitfalls. Today’s political environment of Jammu and Kashmir is not the same what it was a couple of years back. For the reasons known to all, the state politics is passing through a phase of regional and communal polarization. In this scenario, if a voter gets idea that his vote to ‘A’ party will actually help the ‘B’ party to come to power, he/she may well think on different lines.
When the Congress think tank and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, in Srinagar last week, that Congress was ready for an alliance, his effort was to further the cause of his party. His hint was not exactly a hint but something far more than that. Mukherjee admitted possibilities of a coalition even before he put a full stop to his earlier sentence –“Jammu and Kashmir progressed tremendously under the Congress-Peoples Democratic Party coalition”. In the context of the ongoing assembly elections, the senior Congress leader had said: "Just because the PDP-Congress alliance did not last till its full period does not mean anybody can ignore the good work done by it." Another Congress leader Makhan Lal Fotedar, sharing venue with Mukherjee, made things much easier to understand.
Had he talked about ‘coalition’ in a separate context any party could have enjoyed the unintended dividends. Therefore an irk for National Conference was obvious which went about linking Peoples Democratic Party with New Delhi. Interestingly, New Delhi of ‘the day’ is obviously the Congress. NC is now talking about PDP’s ‘secret alliance’ with Congress which eventually is helping PDP is this campaign has anything to do with ‘power factor’ in the voter psychology.
Interestingly, the unimaginative insinuations of National Conference are causing a huge damage to the Congress in Jammu where 13 seats are up for polling on December 24. Congress has been all out campaigning against the PDP and describing its leaders as villains of cutting the former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s world class development programmes short but the media reports replete with coalition ‘hints’ are playing the obvious truant.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit, who was here on Saturday, had to make an effort for the ‘damage control’, as it is seen in the Congress camp. She says, “the Congress is contesting for a clear mandate and Mukherjee has been misquoted”. If the leaders have been able to obtain any idea from six phases of polling, the assessment of Ghulam Nabi Azad again leaves very little doubt for the coalition which Mukherjee indicated. In his public meeting at Digiana (Gandhi Nagar constituency) and in a widely and repeatedly televised interview on the cable networks here today, Azad asserted with huge authority that “National Conference will not be able to get more than five seats in the Valley”. Kashmir Valley has 47 seats. Then who else gets the remaining seats? Azad did not explain this at the public meeting. However, in his television interview, when the anchor pressed the question, Azad hinted at independents and others. The parties he did not name were the PDP and the Congress. Strange!
Bhim Singh of Panthers Party is yet another psephologist. In his press conference on Saturday he made quite an interesting ‘revelation’. He said, “LK Advani and Omar Abdullah has a midnight meeting to give final shape to the BJP-NC alliance for forming government”. It is foolish enough to take Bhim’s statement off the cuff. Isn’t it a clear damage to NC and BJP and much clearer benefit to Congress. After all, in summer this year BJP activists burnt several thousand meters of cloth in Omar’s effigies.
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