March 23, 1998

The price of misrule is heavy. If there was one message that the 22 crore voters of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Orissa sent out through the Lok Sabha elections, it was this. The voters wanted change and this was reflected in the verdict going against the incumbent governments. The change cut both ways: the BJP and its partners suffered reverses in Maharashtra, Haryana and Rajasthan. In Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, the Congress was humbled, while in Karnataka the mandate was against the Janata Dal. With some of the states due for assembly polls in the next two years, their chief ministers are a harried lot.

RAJASTHAN
Pay Heed Or Perish
Chief Minister: B S Shekhawat

The BJP may have been routed in 20 of the 25 seats in Rajasthan but there is surprising unity in the state unit's cadres on one point. And that is against the removal of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat as chief minister. No doubt they want some radical changes in the administration but as Deputy Chief Minister H.S. Bhabra puts it, "We need Shekhawat here. All he needs is to lessen his load by delegating powers."

Shekhawat, on his part, is also clear on the course he will take. "There is no question of my leaving the state after this defeat," he says. "Now I will bring a sea change within a span of three months."

That, however, could be an uphill task considering the problems facing his party and the Government. For instance, Shekhawat will have to look into the demands of his party workers who have been unhappy with some of his policies. Says Bhabra: "Our annoyed workers indulged in spreading false propaganda against the Government, giving credence to allegations levelled by the Congress.''

Within the Government, there are contentious issues to be addressed, chief among them being the appointment of chairmen to public-sector undertakings and to urban improvement trusts. The chief minister's emerging image as a watchful diplomat, say his critics, has overtaken his role as an administrator.

That apart, the sudden announcement of the Lok Sabha elections seems to have been untimely for the state's ruling party, which had just taken some unpopular decisions. Bus fares had been hiked, revised pay scales had not been to the satisfaction of state government employees and the Rajasthan State Electricity Board had repeatedly been erring on the issue of arrears of electricity bills months after the tariff had been raised.

The sudden elections also gave little time to the BJP to choose its candidates. Admits Shekhawat: "I was not fully satisfied with the selection of candidates but there was no time to cross-check the claims and counterclaims put up by their supporters.'' The party agrees that its election strategy failed to check the split of pro-BJP votes this time. The caste factor played a major role and Muslims, who had turned out in large numbers, tilted the balance against the BJP.

Wiser from the defeat, Shekhawat will now have to pay more attention to the running of the Government and his party. That the BJP could lead only in 58 out of the 200 assembly segments and fared badly in the constituencies of most ministers cannot be ignored. Some BJP leaders point out that power in the state unit of the party was too centralised and Shekhawat needed to develop a strong line of second-rung leaders, delegating more responsibility to them. The chief minister has his reservations: "Had I formed the cabinet on merit alone, I would have done so. But there were so many political considerations too.''

In the present scenario, the BJP feels it is not illogical to hope for a comeback. The Congress too, perhaps, realises this. In a state where small margins mean a lot, nothing can be taken for granted. The Congress may have got a fresh start in Rajasthan, but it is not the end of the road for the BJP. The next round of assembly elections, which are due by the end of this year, will be the real test.

--Rohit Parihar

MAHARASHTRA
Headed for a Rough Innings
Chief Minister: Manohar Joshi

In electoral arithmetic, two and two don't always make four. The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance was to learn this home truth when they smugly discounted Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar's ability to add. By tying up with the RPI and the SP, Pawar aimed to transfer a part of the combined vote share of 51.3 per cent and a minimum seat count of 23. The results exceeded Pawar's wildest dreams: the Congress and RPI picked up 37 seats, leaving 10 for the SS-BJP alliance and one for the PWP.

Obviously, the saffron combine's bleak showing can't just be ascribed to Bal Thackeray's vitriolic campaign or Sonia Gandhi's whirlwind tour or Pawar's stellar role. While Munde says, "Something has gone wrong," Joshi feels that though "the arithmetic did go against us", aborted expectations played a key role. More than that, the SS-BJP alliance had annoyed the people. The sense of grievance cut a wide swathe, taking in its sweep government officials, farmers and the poor. While peasants were upset over perceived anti-farmer decisions, the urban poor saw red over the spate of slum demolitions. Allegations of corruption proved to be the last straw. As an IAS officer says wryly, "The Congress, in comparison, is seen as a kind of Robin Hood."

But the acid test is yet to come. The Government is under pressure to woo people back but given the state's financial health -- when salaries are being paid out of the sum collected for the Krishna Valley project -- it seems a tall order. Pleasing just the government officials involves a one-time cost of Rs 6,000 crore and a yearly bill of Rs 1,200 crore. As a Sena minister points out, "Wooing this time round will be really painful." Meanwhile, speculation is rife in Mantralaya that around 27 BJP MLAs are in touch with Pawar and could switch sides. Worse, there is also the possibility of the Independents pulling out. As a BJP functionary puts it, "They are waiting for an excuse." And excuses are aplenty: from rising unemployment, to failure to implement irrigation schemes. Add to this the most potent excuse: the Srikrishna Commission report which is expected to pillory senior Sena leaders for complicity in the 1992-93 riots. Joshi and Gopinath Munde may feel things couldn't get worse but their calculations could yet go wrong.

--V. Shankar Aiyar

ORISSA
No Hopes of a Resurrection
Chief Minister: J B PATNAIK

As the election trends started trickling into Bhubaneswar, Orissa Chief Minister Janaki Ballav Patnaik's trademark cocky confidence began to give way to a discernible edginess. And by the morning of the second day of counting, when it became abundantly clear that the ruling Congress in the state was in for a severe drubbing, a despondent Patnaik took the first flight to Delhi -- presumably to guard his flanks and escape public embarrassment at home.

Rarely has the Congress been trounced thus in Orissa in the past. From its impressive tally of 17 seats in the 1996 parliamentary elections, the party this time is down to five. And for the beleaguered Patnaik, the going can only get worse. The Opposition is already baying for his blood. "The sooner J.B. Patnaik goes, the better it is for the state," says Naveen Patnaik, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief, who is joined by the state's BJP leaders in demanding the dismissal of the state government.

However, the results were not totally unexpected. The seeds of the drubbing were sown the day the Congress took over in the state from Biju Patnaik three years ago and installed J.B. Patnaik as the chief minister. Before the polls, the Congress had deliberately downplayed his role, sensing the fall in his popularity. He did not even contest the polls. But elections over, J.B. Patnaik swiftly manoeuvred the numbers, got himself elected chief minister and then entered the Assembly through a by-election. A sizeable majority of the electorate felt betrayed by this. Admits a senior minister: "Our sullied past is catching up with the present." And the fallout was that the Congress, the ruling party, yielded leads to the BJP-BJD in the assembly segments represented by nine cabinet ministers and 10 ministers of state. Its vote share plummeted from 44.89 per cent to 40.98 per cent.

With the recent debacle, the chief minister's aura of invincibility has disappeared and even his loyalists have turned defiant. Sensing his vulnerability, Congress leaders with ambitions of replacing him are moving in for the kill. J.B. Patnaik's two deputies, Basanta Kumar Biswal and Hemananda Biswal -- both of them chief ministerial aspirants -- have made trips to Delhi to present their cases before the high command. But lacking clout, they are unlikely to get far. Some Congress legislators are even planning a revolt of sorts to force the high command to change the leadership.

The BJP-BJD combine, in the meantime, is upbeat and is hoping for a repeat performance in the assembly polls, whenever they take place. As for the Congress, it seems the party is finally over.

--Ruben Banerjee

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