The news from Haryana is certainly a vast disappointment. In some ways it looks like a re-play of what happened in MP during the 2023 round of assembly elections.CM Kamal Nath is reported to have erected victory arches and ordered mounds of sweets to celebrate his expected triumph,but had to get the former taken down and the latter dumped in garbage,though it could have been sold to BJP at half-price to salvage something from the rout.However overwhelming dejection left no room for levities.
One thing that would strike any keen observer is that while the BJP is always engrossed in working for the next election,24 hours seven days a week,Congress forgets all about it once it is over and gets busy in preparing for the policies and programmes of the government to be installed.Even the various programmes of a BJP government are actually some kind of election stunts like grandiose promises around piddling sops in anticipation of the next election.As for policy,it is an uncomplicated and single-minded plan to help its favourites to rip off as much wealth as possible from a prostrate economy and gag angry public reactions with sops and fumes of toxic Hindutva.
Hence the visible election preparations of the BJP look like well-oiled machinery at work while Congress spends quite a bit of time setting it up,looking here and there for fuel and removing the accumulated grease and dirt that impede smooth motion.The same scenario was noticed this time.Apparently the caste adjustments at the last moment were somewhat ham- handed and creaky.The BJP till the last was the past master in micro-management and usually could win over chunks of votes from various aggrieved minority groups with symbolic gratification of their hankering after status and esteem in the stifling drought of Hindu orthodoxy.
The lust for power among Congressmen is so overpowering that they start squabbling and jostling among themselves even before it is served on their plates. The BJP leadership on the other hand seems able to keep the ravenous flock in reasonable order.Rahul Gandhi has to make do with such a group.of workers who cry ‘Amen!’ to all his carefully worked out tactics hoping these will be unfailing winners,but botch them up in their scramble.
Smugness is the word for it.In our younger days when we used to snigger at the elders of the Left parties for their apparent overcautiousness despite blazing anger of the public against old regimes,they would stoically mutter ” a revolutionary mood does not amount to a revolutionary situation.” Congress may also do worse than realizing that the desire for change on the ground does not necessarily amount to leverage for change. For elections are only indirect and tortuous instruments for common people for bringing change.The untrustworthy middle-men are so sozzled by their cravings that they tend to stray off course often to halt the quest long before reaching the goal.
The minor players in the INDIA alliance today deserve more charity from Congress.Despite their dedicated workers such parties or groups usually have a limited vote-share.And they tend to ask for more seats than they really can manage on their own.Even so, when the alliance works together without any rift their discipline and earnestness work to the great advantage of the Congress itself.But once the grand old party comes close to power it forgets everything else and zooms towards it leaving them forlorn.
So the irksome business of seat adjustment should not be left till the last moment but settled at least a year ahead of election.And a joint campaign should be run with unbroken solidarity and enthusiasm to ensure that there is real vote transfer among parties of the alliance.Last moment decision on such matters leads to damaging outbursts and retaliation from disgruntled elements.
So despite Rahul Gandhi’s herculean efforts Congres is yet to acquire the discipline needed for unwavering march to crowning success.What drives its soldiers is not an energizing ideology or set of ideals but the enticing smell of power.There are some exceptions but the trend is to march in order until the glimpse of the goal turns everyone’s head and the march gets bedraggled.Gandhi himself seems at times to forget the goal for breathers or for premature sense of mission accomplished. He has done wonders to breathe new life into a moribund body,but has yet to learn all the byways and pitfalls of a treacherous path.Politics is no gentleman’s game but a life and death struggle.
Congress spokesman Jairam Ramesh has blamed EVMs.Many sensible people harbour some doubts about their functioning and wonder if they have secret programmes installed in them.Though from time to time there have been challenges by ECI asserting their foolproof integrity as well as by critics scoffing at them there has never been a serious technical appraisal of their soundness and impartiality.
The ECI itself alas cannot be trusted to guarantee this impartiality as two senior members had been picked on the basis of their earlier success in carrying out a task at state level for the PM himself.And they had been selected for office by a selection team of whose three member two were the PM and a minister in his cabinet.It is a crying scandal the Supreme Court strangely enough did not find it unconstitutional or,not to waffle, downright absurd. However if there are reasonable suspicions about their unbiased functioning there should have been serious and solid opposition to their use BEFORE the election.There is not much use crying over spilt milk.Perhaps time has now come for a decisive test.
Hiren Gohain is a political commentator
