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| An election of no issues | | |
Nitish Sengupta
May.7: Never in the past has India fought a Lok Sabha election without a major national issue even though there is no dearth of issues in our country.
The problem of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and Nagaland, the border issue with China, Sri Lanka’s near successful victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), soaring prices of food articles, Maoist violence in several states, infrastructure development, environment, poverty, illiteracy and untouchability are serious issues on which our political parties could take a clear stand and spell out their agendas. Yet they maintain ambivalence and refuse to turn these into election issues. In this vacuum, non-issues like "shoe throwing" capture major media space.
Except for the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s illogical and unsustainable opposition to the India-US nuclear deal, there is no dispute on foreign policy. On the domestic front, apart from secularism, there is no major issue that separates one party from another.
This year’s pre-election scenario has been marked like never before by large-scale regroupings among parties, not on policy or ideology, but on conflicting demands for larger number of seats.
Both the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) suffered major desertions: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Orissa walked out on the NDA, the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) chief J. Jayalalithaa made up with the Left parties for whom she had only scorn in the past, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan made up with each other and thereafter teamed up with another sworn enemy Mulayam Singh Yadav, are but some examples. The Samajwadi Party (SP) had saved the UPA government during the trust vote in Parliament and was working out an alliance with the Congress, but eventually they parted ways on the issue of seat sharing.
The Congress has been forced to put up its own candidates in all the seats in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. This may turn into a blessing in disguise as it may rejuvenate the party’s units in these states after years of coalition politics. The Congress has made a good move in West Bengal with the seat-sharing pact with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress.
Thus, this time around the composition of the UPA and the NDA look quite different from the 14th Lok Sabha. There appears to be a general feeling that the decisive figure of 272 in the 15th Lok Sabha may be beyond the reach of both major groups. Post-elections, both parties will be compelled to look for support from the major and minor regional parties and individuals.
The so-called Third Front is a mirage. Except for the CPM leaders, none of the other parties — the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the AIADMK or the BJD — are serious about forming the Third Front. They are clearly keeping their options open for the post-election scenario. The same applies to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Nearly all predictions forecast a hung Parliament.
The situation in the 15th Lok Sabha could well be similar to the post-election scenario of the 1996 and 1999 general elections that enabled candidates like H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral to emerge as short-lived Prime Ministers.
Nitish Sengupta, an academic and an author, is a former Member of Parliament and a former secretary to the Government of India
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