Saam, daam, dand, bhed, SIR
THE GREAT GAME: If the BJP wins Bengal, it will have proven its determination to take the state that has resisted its charms
FROM Punjab to Bengal, a certain inflammation is evident in the politics of two states on both ends of the country. In Punjab, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) hoped to use May Day not as a distress signal (origin, the French phrase, “m’aider,” to help), but to show that despite the defections in its ranks, the party stands united.
Except, the special Assembly session called to celebrate workers’ rights on May Day was overshadowed by a political slanging match that caused the House to be briefly adjourned and allowed the Opposition to accuse the ruling party of turning water into wine.
How will this episode roil the already-muddying waters of Punjab politics? In one fell blow, the BJP has acquired seven new MPs, as AAP’s Rajya Sabha faction broke away to join the BJP last week. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will meet the President soon to say the split is a violation of the anti-defection law. Still, the badly shaken party is evaluating its strengths and weaknesses these days.
Even if none of the newly installed BJP seven are mass leaders — in fact, the perception that they quit AAP to join BJP either under fear or favour is likely to go in AAP’s favour — the fact remains that the BJP has thrown the first punch. The bout has begun. It will end when Punjab votes in the Assembly elections less than ten months from now.
On the other end of the country, 48 hours from now, Bengal and the rest of the country will know if the wind has turned. Most exit polls have already awarded the state to the BJP. But something else is happening on the soil of Bengal. For the first time in years, India’s foremost social science institution devoted to the study of democracy, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and its research arm, Lokniti, did not conduct any poll surveys in this round of Assembly elections. Well-known psephologist, Pradeep Gupta of Axis My India, refused to give seat projections for Bengal — although he gave projections for all other states that went to the polls — saying that 70 per cent of voters in the state refused to speak to his polling surveyors.
And C-Voter polling agency’s head, Yashwant Deshmukh, while refusing to give seat projections, said that if Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress was able to hold on to five key districts in and around Kolkata — Kolkata, Howrah, 24 North Parganas, 24 South Parganas and Nadia, because these account for 108 seats in the House of 294 seats — then she could still be chief minister.
Indeed, if the BJP wins Bengal, it will have proven its determination to take the only state that has resisted its charms — via saam, daam, dand, bhed and SIR. The BJP would have certainly added to Chanakya’s famous treatise that speaks of the four methods that any smart ruler uses to curb his flock — manipulation, bribery, punishment and treachery — by imposing the Special Intensive Revision of rolls in Bengal. This meant that apart from the 27 lakh deletions of voters under the “logical discrepancy” clause, several thousand people simply ran out of time because they didn’t have their papers in order.
Now every political leader’s DNA — except, perhaps, Rahul Gandhi who was wandering in the forests of the Great Nicobar Island or admiring the rain-shot hillsides of Dharamsala around the April 29 do-or-die Bengal vote — has the first four determinations ingrained in him. AAP’s Manish Sisodia blurted them out last August when he said his party would not be averse to using them (“saam, daam, dand, bhed, sach, jhooth, sawaal, jawaab, ladai jhagra”) in the fight for Punjab. Punjab BJP’s Sunil Jakhar shot off a complaint to the Election Commission on Sisodia’s comment at the time — but both leaders were certainly entitled to say what they did, their remarks well within the lakshman rekha of everyday politics.
In Bengal, it was the addition of SIR — not a bad exercise in theory — to the electoral process, especially when time was running short and all kinds of silly mistakes with awful consequences were being made by the human hand in the attempt to digitise the state, that transformed the exercise into one of callous cruelty.
Be that as it may. The die is cast. The ballot boxes are shut. Three days after they were, on May Day, the announcement of hiking the price of a commercial gas cylinder by Rs 993 was made.
Back here in Punjab, AAP will certainly need to stay the course if it has to fight off the Opposition. For the moment, it has the upper hand. The Congress remains a divided house — the qualities of its many leaders hardly add up to being more than the sum of their parts.
After the leadership training session by Rahul in Dharamsala, as my colleague Rajmeet Singh reports, its leaders were told to organise padyatras focusing on law and order in September. Moreover, a new evaluation system mandates office-bearers to upload photos and reports of their activities. Under Nehru’s great-grandson, the transformation of the grand old party into an NGO is all too apparent to see.
As for the BJP, while it smells the weakness in AAP’s Punjab, it still lacks the wherewithal to move in for the kill.
Or at least that’s exactly what Bengal thought about the BJP until now. Whether or not the state succumbs to the charms of PM Modi’s party, fact is, it has been changed forever by the party’s push in this state. All eyes now on May 4.
