The Modi Government can heave a sigh of relief. Following the stunning rejection of Congress, and the no less significant repeat of J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, it will now be able to provide meaningful governance with added vigour and energy.
The nuisance value of the Rahul Gandhi-controlled Congress both in Parliament and outside is considerably diminished after the party’s rejection in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam. Now that the Rahul-Sitaram unwholesome jugalbandi has been crushed by the voters in West Bengal, the Centre can push ahead with major structural reforms, including the game-changer GST. Voters are no fools. They could not have failed to see the opportunistic nature of the alliance, partners in West Bengal and enemies in Kerala.
Neither Banerjee nor Jayalalithaa need to openly ally with the Modi Government. They don’t have to, having won their respective States on their own. But it always pays to cooperate with the Centre. Ask Chandrababu Naidu, he is able to get additional funds and other clearances thanks to his tie-up with the BJP. In return for issue-based cooperation with the Centre, Jayalalithaa and Banerjee can hope to get a better deal for their States.
And Modi can get key reforms, presently stuck due to the blind hostility of the Congress, through in the Rajya Sabha thanks to the support of the Trinamool Congress and the AIADMK. The point is that Thursday’s outcome will have a salutary effect on the governance of the country. Ordinary people have reason to welcome the decimation of the obstructionist Congress.
Under the Congress’s heir apparent, the party had deserted both reason and commonsense, its one-point programme being to oppose Modi. Instead of building itself up from the ground, it stuck to the Delhi-centric drawing-room politics with its leaders patronizing family retainers and sycophants, and giving short shrift to grassroots workers.
In Assam, the blow to the Congress would not have been as stunning had Rahul not humiliated Himanta Biswa Sarma, forcing him to join the BJP. Allowing Tarun Gogoi’s MP son, Gaurav, a place in his durbar while ignoring Sarma, a mass leader in his own right, cost the Congress dear. In West Bengal, Mamata seemed to have done what on a national scale Indira Gandhi had way back in the 1971 Lok Sabha poll.
Ordinary Bengalis developed sympathy for ‘a lone and helpless woman’ against whom everyone from the right, left and centre had ganged up. All-against-Mamata got her such a huge sympathy vote that misgovernance, the Narada and Saradah corruption scams, the TMC goon raj, et al became irrelevant.
Hopefully, Mamata will desist from aping the CPI (M) which too won successive elections without providing meaningful governance. She must control the TMC goons and get down to the business of reindustrializing Bengal, providing jobs and opportunities to the Bengalis. In Assam, the challenge for the BJP will be to deliver on the promise of weeding out illegal migrants. Kerala, true to form, has reverted to the rival front, throwing out the scam-ridden Congress-led UDF.
In Tamil Nadu, this was probably DMK patriarch Karunanidhi’s last campaign. He might have wanted to see the favoured son, Stalin, settled in the chief ministerial gaddi. The Tamil voters willed otherwise. The succession war in the Karunanidhi family is bound to be further exacerbated after the debacle. As for Jayalalithaa, she too is no spring chicken, suffering from various debilitating ailments which oblige her to drastically cut down on public appearances. But in the fight between rival freebie packages, hers turned out to be superior.
Apportioning the revenues, which are not limitless, between the needs of development and distribution of all manner of freebies can impact growth. She has her job cut out. Also, it may be time for her too to have a game-plan for a post-Jayalalithaa scenario in the AIADMK. The outcome will impact Nitish Kumar’s ambitions for an all-embracing anti-BJP grand alliance. Neither Mamata nor Jayalalithaa will endorse his prime ministerial claims, though after Thursday’s outcome Rahul Gandhi may have no option but to play second fiddle for his own survival. The election in UP next year will be another test of the anti-BJPism line of Sitaram and Nitish, though neither has any support in the State.
A lot will also depend on how Modi reaches out to various regional satraps, from Mulayam and Maya to Naveen and Chandrakshekhar Rao. Since the Congress is reduced to a rump of its former self, the BJP is better placed to strike mutually advantageous alliances with regional parties. Should cooperative federalism, which Modi often talks about, come to be actually practiced the nation will have reason to celebrate.
The Verdict 2016 holds sterling lessons for all parties, none more so than the Family-owned Congress Party. The family must loosen its grip on the party if it has to survive. And the BJP must remain humble and purposeful in its hour of triumph.
