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PM ASPIRANTS Old Hand Vs New FaceIn the most presidential campaign ever Vajpayee portrays himself as the great Indian patriarch and asks the voter to trust him. By Saba Naqvi Bhaumik, Javed M Ansari and Stephen David There is that smell of sameness to the third election in three and a half years. The same rhetoric, the same promises, the same parties, the same symbols, the same faces: there's an inevitable sense of having been there, heard that. For journalists life and livelihood are that much more exasperating thanks to the denial of a key privilege -- access. Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a prisoner of the prime ministerial security system and the mandatory use of a government Boeing, and is not allowed to carry media teams with him. Sonia Gandhi, his main rival and the Congress president, is a naturally reticent sort, on her way to becoming a consummate political animal but not quite there yet.
In some ways the evolution of Vajpayee has been matched by the semiotics of Sonia. The lady too has changed. In 1998, her last-minute intervention was designed to save a Congress rendered to a state of atrophy. It was not a party she directly controlled; she spoke for her family and its legacy -- no less and little more. Between then and now, she has established an absolute grip on the Congress, chosen candidates, won a round of state elections, indicated her readiness to become prime minister, suppressed dissent with ruthless speed. The reputation for being somewhat aloof and remote remained. In this campaign, Sonia has sought to redress that too. The sight of the lady surging into crowds is evidence enough of that. There is a larger point here. The woman who had been hemmed in by a virtual star chamber since her husband's death in 1991 is by her own admission "now going by instinct". The instinct was apparent at her press conference on August 13. She was ready for sticky queries even when ham-handed Congress managers tried to monitor the questions. It was there for Star TV viewers to see when she gave a completely composed inter-view. Above all, her taste for politics was on display at Bellary on the final day of canvassing there. For once renouncing her measured ways and donning the mantle of recklessness that every politician must wear, Sonia brushed aside the SPG and its Blue Book, travelled with daughter Priyanka in an open-top Landcruiser, stopping every couple of minutes to meet her voter's gaze, to establish that one-to-one contact that separates a winner from an also ran. When she looks back at her political career, Sonia will remember September 3 as a benchmark. The drive from Bellary to Harapanahalli on a rocky, dusty road took a long time, 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. It also took Sonia much further into the politics of mass contact. Rajiv would have been proud. Mass appeal is obviously Vajpayee's theme as well. Never one for "touch and feel" politics, his strength lies in his being a practised exponent of the art of communication. The dramatic flourish, the sense of victimhood -- his speech in the Lok Sabha during the confidence vote in 1996 is a case in point -- is not as marked. True, there are the references to how his government was unseated: "We sat in opposition for 40 years ... but the Congress does not want to sit in opposition. They (the Opposition) united to pull us down but could not unite to form an alternative government"; "We lost the confidence motion by just one vote. So come out and cast your vote. It could make a difference". On the whole though, Vajpayee is not selling the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or its record in office -- he is selling himself. He is not leading the NDA's campaign -- he is the campaign. Vajpayee is the master of modulated rhetoric. He presents himself as the pater familias, the family elder who frowns upon unseemly behaviour and makes all the correct noises. When Sonia accused him of "gaddari" (treachery) at a rally in Ujjain and when the Congress charged he had collaborated with the British during the Quit India Movement of 1942, he was injured innocence itself: "I can't speak the language Sonia is using. Let there be criticism but there should not be baseless allegation. Meri zindagi khuli kitab hai (My life is an open book)." As a product of Harrow, Jawaharlal Nehru would have appreciated Vajpayee's honourable schoolboy persona. Nehru is also the role model for the Vajpayee of 1999. He is not merely a BJP leader, not even a first among equals in the NDA -- whose manifesto features 10 photographs, all his. Rather, he is the national leader, his appeal surpassing his party's and making him an Indianised -- Hinduised if you prefer -- version of Nehru, that unrepentant Anglophile who spoke French at the dining table. Predictably the Kargil war is the motif of Vajpayee's speeches: "Kargil ke baad Bharat ki nai tasveer bani hai ... Humne Lahore me dikha diya ki hum shanti ke pujari hain. Lekin jung mein hum muh tod jawab dete hain (After Kargil there's a new picture of India. In Lahore we sought peace. But in war we were firm)." A stronger India, an economic recovery in the making and a trusted leader -- Vajpayee's message is a watered-down version of Harold Macmillan's "You never had it so good" slogan. It is this comfort level that Sonia has to deprive Vajpayee of: "The government betrayed the nation by not acting in time in Kargil. So many of our young men were martyred ... This government reeks of corruption from top to bottom." The failure to detect the intrusions in Kargil, the import of sugar from Pakistan and the haste in announcing the new telecom policy find recurrent mention in Sonia's speeches. In a sense, she is pre-empting attacks on her key vulnerabilities: her foreign origin and the Bofors scandal. In resorting to thundering phrases -- if it is "gaddari" now, in 1998 it was "Vajpayeeji jhoot bol rahen hain" -- she grabs the media as well as stings the foe into responding. These are the hallmarks of a good debater. There is also the emphasis on a higher calling -- "Politics is not a means of attaining high office. I want to strengthen the party and help build a strong India", "My family's dharma and my desh seva dharma forced me to enter politics" -- is her answer to the "videshi" campaign. Painting the Vajpayee regime as swindle-tainted allows her to go on the offensive on Bofors, the "non-existent" scandal thanks to which her "husband was crucified". Whether it is in the copious references to her mother-in-law and husband or in her obvious reliance on her children, the family is central to Sonia's campaign. Son Rahul is a near-constant companion, drawing her attention to faces in the crowd, chatting with local leaders. Priyanka was the lieutenant in Bellary and goes through each of her mother's speeches. The drafting of a Sonia speech is an elaborate affair. First come the inputs from the province. In rally after rally, the local talking points are apparent -- in Karnataka, she identified with Chennamma, the 19th century queen of Kittur who fought the British; in Maharashtra, she spoke of the state's economy. English speeches are written by Mani Shankar Aiyar or Jairam Ramesh, mostly the latter. For Hindi, Sonia turns to Janardhan Dwivedi. In contrast Vajpayee is speaking not so much to the locals as to the national media, particularly the television cameras.Vajpayee senses he has to make a new point a day to stay in the headlines. So in Delhi he attacked Sonia for "surreptitiously" going to Bellary to file her nomination. Next, in Rajasthan, he faced up to the charges of corruption. A day later, in Amritsar, he brought up the killing of Father Arul Doss in Orissa: "Murder is murder, rape is rape. Regardless of the caste and community of the culprit." Vajpayee prides himself on speaking extempore, though key aides Shakti Sinha and Sudheendra Kulkarni provide him ideas. Along with foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya, they are also his travelling companions. For Vajpayee this stature and this campaign must seem divine recompense for those decades of being India's best-known political bridesmaid -- to everybody from Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai to V.P. Singh and, at one stage, L.K. Advani. For Sonia, Election '99 has meant crossing the point of no return and announcing her candidature for Parliament and, by implication, the prime minister's office. Each day, as they engage in cross-country duel, the two must realise how much the stakes are rising. In an election, after all, there are no silver medals. |
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For the two people who have
given India its most presidential election ever -- even the Rajiv Gandhi-V.P. Singh battle
of 1989 seems to pale -- it has been a long trudge since the previous election. It was
only a year and a half ago but how they've changed. For Vajpayee it has been a period
burdened by office. The carefree smile is gone; the weight of governance, the sombre
affectations of a war-time leader, the 13 months of managing a coalition and prickly egos
have played their part. Gone is the man who joked with his audience, had digs at himself
and then joined in the laughter. In 1998, when he was greeted at rally after rally with
cries of "Raj tilak ki karo tayari, aa rahen hain Atal Bihari",
Vajpayee would smirk, "Jab bhagwan Ram ke raj tilak ki tayari ho rahi thi, tab
unko chaudhah saal ke vanvaas me jana para (When preparations were being made to
crown Lord Ram, he was forced into exile for 14 years)." The crowd had laughed with
him. 
This year, Vajpayee is not
smiling. The elegance is still there, the deft turn of phrase, the right intonation -- but
this is not a live chat show, this is a sermon. This is a prime minister talking to his
people, a leader of the nation rather than of a party, a proto-statesman.