Cover Story: Assembly Polls; Fighting for Survival, Pg 2

SNAPSHOT

B S SHEKHAWAT, 75
Chief Minister Rajasthan
Political background: Experienced campaigner, old hand at manoeuvring, three times chief minister. Close to Vajpayee.
Party mood: Downbeat
Election issues: Jat vs Rajput, onions, crimes against women. SELLING LINE
"I have taken Rajasthan to the take-off stage."

Party Position (Vidhan Sabha elections 1993)
Total Seats: 200
BJP: 97
Congress: 76
Others: 27
Main Rival: Ashok Gehlot, Congress

The people of Rajasthan love elections. As in most other parts of the country, elections here are revealing affairs. For it is the one time they get to see politicians stride into the public arena to show how little they have to say for themselves. BJP Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat has been in office since November 1993, but when confronted with the price of onions at a recent campaign meeting, he is reported to have barked: "Would you rather have onions or the atom bomb?"

In February, before Pokhran II or the humble onion occupied the front pages, the electorate in Rajasthan had delivered a humiliating blow to the ruling party in the state. The BJP won just five of the 25 Lok Sabha seats from the state which its central leadership confidently considered among its strongest units. But faced with the disaster, there was belated acknowledgement from the party that Shekhawat may have disenchanted both party members and the electorate alike. Yet the BJP's central leadership has decided to persist with Shekhawat, who besides being a master strategist is also a close friend of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The February polls were undoubtedly a major setback for the BJP, but at the government and the organisational level it is trying hard to recover lost ground. Morale-boosting rallies with Vajpayee in attendance have been held in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur. Shekhawat is confident of his Government winning another mandate. "In the Lok Sabha elections, party workers had become complacent and could not highlight our achievements. This time they have been able to do it and the people will respond."

Shekhawat's biggest worry is the anti-incumbency factor. The party's approach thus has been crafted primarily out of caste considerations. He has in the past managed to secure a large chunk of Rajput votes, but the defeats suffered by the likes of Jaswant Singh, Mahender Singh Bhatti and Lokendra Singh Kalvi in the Lok Sabha elections has seen tickets being spread evenly. There are 35 OBC candidates, 26 Jats, 26 Rajputs, 33 SC and 26 ST nominees in the BJP list. The party has also joined hands with Om Prakash Chautala to woo the Jat votes which have traditionally gone to the Congress. That in turn has sprouted rebellion. The BJP also hopes that rebel candidates fielded by former Congressman Buta Singh would cut into the Congress votes.

Rebels, in fact, are a bigger headache for the Congress which has been on a high since the Lok Sabha elections. Its leaders feel their biggest asset is the tawdry image of the Shekhawat Government. Shekhawat has made a lot of claims on the development front but the people are yet to feel the difference.

Many ministers in the Shekhawat Government are fending off charges of corruption to leave them with time to look after their departments. Says former Union minister Rajesh Pilot: "We will field candidates who are honest and clean. And we are very sure that the party will return to power."

Five years ago too the Congress party exuded similar confidence. But the unusually large number of rebels -- many of them won as independents -- spoilt the party then. Sonia Gandhi is determined not to repeat the mistakes of P.V. Narasimha Rao and has been personally overseeing the distribution of tickets. But the growing number of the disgruntled is an indication that her instincts may not always have been right. The party is thus faced with the prospect of fighting, besides BJP opponents, its own partymen in at least 16 constituencies. To make matters worse, seven of them are powerful ex-ministers while amazingly enough, three district chiefs also flouted party directives and filed nominations as rebel candidates.

Other unexpected problems cropped up. Though unlike the BJP the Congress had not projected any one as its chief ministerial candidate, former external affairs minister K. Natwar Singh, who considered himself one of the front-runners, suffered a heart attack last week. To add to his troubles, his son was denied a ticket. The party's central office claims that candidates were selected solely on the guidelines that Sonia had laid down last month: one of these was that tickets should not be given to "new relatives".

Which meant that to qualify for a ticket,wives/brothers/cousins/nephews ought to already be in politics and should not have lost more than two consecutive elections. The son of Sis Ram Ola, a minister in the United Front government who is now in the Congress, was lucky. Though a "new relative" he was made the covering candidate for an official nominee whose papers were rejected. Ola Jr is now the official Congress candidate. Last week, as Sonia ordered an internal inquiry, state Congress leaders were squirming in embarrassment.
-Ashok K. Damodaran and Rohit Parihar

Soon after the 1986 Mizo Accord between Laldenga's outlawed Mizo National Front (MNF) and the Rajiv Gandhi government was signed, the then BJP president L.K. Advani denounced it as the selling of India's sovereignty to some "anti-nationals". Twelve years later, the BJP is fighting 12 of the 40 seats in Mizoram with, in the words of BJP national Secretary P.B. Acharya, "a tacit and tactical understanding with main opposition parties like the MNF".

The BJP is a marginal player in a state with 84 per cent Christian population. The Congress has ruled the state for the past 10 years, while the regional parties showed their strength in the last Lok Sabha polls by bagging the state's lone parliamentary seat. The real power, however, lies with non-political organisations, like the Young Mizo Association (YMA). They want a quiet election and a clean government. They have even issued some guidelines on nominating "clean" candidates and low-cost campaigning. It seems to have gone down well with the highly literate electorate. Says YMA President T. Sangkunga: "After all, a number of leading political figures are YMA members."

In 1993, the Congress came to power in alliance with the deserters from the Mizoram People's Conference (MPC). But the coalition developed cracks after Chief Minister Lalthanhawla dropped two of the breakaway MLAs from his cabinet. This time, it is going it alone, while the MPC has tied up with the MNF. Says state Congress General Secretary R. Thangliana: "Their coalition makes for an unstable government and will be rejected by the people." MPC chief Brigadier T. Sailo retorts: "The last decade under the Congress has robbed the state of development because of rampant corruption." The fight between the regional parties could benefit the Congress yet again.

National political figures are aware of Mizoram's predominantly Christian character. Congress President Sonia Gandhi, on a two-day visit to the state last week, said the BJP-led Government at the Centre had unleashed the forces of "religious intolerance". BJP President Kushabhau Thakre exhorted the Mizos last month to become "missionaries of development".

To be sure, that is what the state needs. The question is which party can provide it.