The tie-up between Mayawati’s BSP and Ajit Jogi’s Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC) for the upcoming Chhattisgarh Assembly elections is a development of national importance in Indian politics. It signifies that the days of hegemony of the two national parties—the Congress and the BJP—are over, and that from now on, the regional parties and local leaders are going to call the shots in natio- nal politics.
The Congress was regarded as the party which gave India Independence, and this reputation enabled it to be in power, either with an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha (on seven occasions) or as the leader of a coalition (on three occasions) after 15 general elections. The BJP was in power as a coalition leader from 1998-2004, and has been at the helm with an absolute majority from 2014 onwards.
No doubt, in the states there were many regional parties in power, but except for brief periods, they were content to remain junior coalition partners of the Congress or the BJP in the Central government. The Mayawati-Ajit Jogi alliance has upset this apple cart, indicating that all this is now going to change. Mayawati and Jogi are both broadly regional leaders (Mayawati is based in UP, though she has a foothold in some other states too) and her snub to the Congress and refusal to ally with it in Chhattisgarh speaks volumes of the times to come.
It indicates that regional leaders are now no longer content with playing second fiddle to the national parties, and are insisting on important positions in the Central government. No doubt Congress leaders claim that Mayawati’s tie-up with Jogi was done under BJP pressure, but the more likely explanation is that she, like other regional leaders, is fed up of looking up to a big brother. And for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, Mayawati has claimed 50 out of the 230 seats in the state for an alliance with the Congress, and has already declared candidates in 22 constituencies.
My assessment is that in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, both the Congress and the BJP will get around 125 seats each, with the remaining seats in the 545-member House going to regional parties led by Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Lalu Yadav, Naveen Patnaik, Chandrababu Naidu, KCR, Uddhav Thackeray, Edappadi Palaniswami, Stalin and others.
This assessment is based on the following facts: The BJP vote bank consists of upper caste Hindus (Brahmins, Rajputs, Vaishyas, Bhumihars, etc.). They collectively constitute only about 20 per cent of the population, clearly insufficient to win many seats unless a section of the OBCs are won over, as was done in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 Assembly elections when large sections of non-Yadav OBCs (who constitute around 30 per cent of the state’s population) went over to the BJP as they felt the SP was only working for the interests of the Yadavs (who constitute about 10 per cent of the population). The BJP cleverly gave about one-third of its tickets to these non-Yadav OBCs, resulting in a landslide win for the party. But will this feat be repeated? The non-Yadav OBCs, unlike the upper castes, are a shifting vote bank, not traditional supporters of the BJP.
The ‘vikas’ slogan has been revealed to be only a ‘jumla’, and Ram Mandir is a non-issue. Mounting unemployment, soaring petrol and diesel prices (which raise the cost of foodstuffs and most other commodities as they have to be transported by truck or train), rising farmer distress, sinking rupee, etc., adversely affect everyone. So even a section of the upper castes may now not vote for the BJP.
As regards the Congress, despite all its efforts to project a more pro-Hindu image—party president Rahul Gandhi visiting dozens of temples during the Gujarat elections and going on a Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, Kamal Nath saying Congress will build a gaushala or cow shelter in every village panchayat if it comes to power in Madhya Pradesh, and other instances—it has not been able to recover its erstwhile bastions in the big states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Hence it will be these regional parties which will be really ruling the roost, and they will choose the prime minister who will be their puppet and might be changed every 6-12 months. The days of domination of the Congress and the BJP in the Central government will be over, but the coalition which will be formed thereafter in the Centre will cause a scramble for lucrative portfolios, particularly that of finance (since that is the most lucrative), as was witnessed after the Karnataka Assembly polls. Even after the formation of the coalition ministry in the Centre, there will be constant bickering and infighting, as was witnessed in the Janata Party government which came to power after the Emergency in 1977.
This will be reminiscent of the days of the later Mughals after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, when regional satraps like Nizam-ul-Mulk and Safdar Jung, and local rulers like the Nawabs of Avadh, Murshidabad and Arcot held the real power, while the Mughal Emperors like Muhammad Shah Rangila were mere phantoms; about one of them, it was said: “Saltanat-e-Shah Alam az Dilli ta Palam” (The Empire of Shah Alam extends from Delhi to Palam).
In the meantime, unemployment will keep escalating, prices of petrol, diesel and foodstuffs will keep soaring, farmers suicides will keep increasing and the rupee will keep sinking, while our politicians, like modern Neros, will keep fiddling while the country burns. I shudder to think of the times which seem to be coming in India.
Justice Markandey Katju
Former judge, Supreme Court
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