Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was in Mumbai after spending last few months travelling around the state for election campaigning. Chavan spoke to Jescilia Karayamparambil and R N Bhaskar of The Free Press Journal about the latest political & economic situation in the country.
Edited excerpts:
How do you see the political climate?
I have made a prediction. This prediction is based on the bad import-export policies, the anti-farmer stance and non-fulfilment of promises by the BJP-led government. We think that the non-BJP alliance parties will do well. In states like Delhi, UP and West Bengal, the Congress could have done better in terms of alliance.
But we have worked out alliances with other state-level parties. In Maharashtra, the alliance between Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has really worked well. BJP will lose around 100 seats in the Hindi heartland. This includes states from Jammu & Kashmir to Gujarat (excluding Maharahtra).
There are 273 seats in this region and BJP will lose 100 seats there. In rural areas, BJP will definitely lose but in urban areas I am unsure where they stand. In case of Maharashtra, it will lose seats. Shiv Sena will come down to single digits due to their yes-no relationship with BJP. For four years, you abuse them and then suddenly you go and sit in their lap.
So are you trying to say that BJP will not form the government?
Yes, they will not form the government. Neither Modi nor any other BJP leader will be able to form the next government.
How do you view the newly-formed alliances?
Traditionally, we have been fighting with the Left. The need for alliance comes in Hindi-speaking states where BJP is a major player. In Tamil Nadu and Kerala, BJP is not there at all. In Karnataka, they are there.
But our alliance will work there. In states like Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, there is no question of alliance. There, they will lose. Let us not make too much out of Congress not being able to make a prefect alliance. It is a fairly good alliance and it will work.
There has been an increase in voting percentage in Maharashtra. Who will benefit with that?
There is no accurate figure that there is an increase in voting percentage. But at times, things like long weekend and increase in temperature do impact polling. One should actually thank the Election Commission for this increase. They were able to weed out many duplicate voters.
What will work in the favour of Congress-NCP?
I will put this the other way. What will not work in favour of BJP? The answer to that is agriculture. Take a look at Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Gujarat, it speaks a lot. (BJP’s agriculture policies have failed).
Masood Azhar is listed as a global terrorist. Why did Congress-led government fail to get him on that list?
This is again part of BJP portraying this as a muscular political policy. Let us not forget that during the Vajpayee government, Harakat ul-Mujahidin and Jaish-e-Mohammed were banned. In May 2005, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was banned.
Have you seen Manmohan Singh going out and seeking vote for it? The answer is no. After the 26/11 (Mumbai attack), Hafiz Saeed was declared as terrorist on 10 December 2008.
It was 15 days after the Mumbai attack. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, LeT Chief, was banned on 10 December 2008. India has been able to get Mohammad Masood Azhar Alvi declared as a global terrorist and we compliment the diplomacy of the government. This was achieved after four attempts.
Congress and BJP have both received notices from EC but the Congress feels EC has a bias when it comes to PM Modi. Why?
There is a clear bias on part of the EC. Whenever there is a complaint against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is brushed aside. Cases like Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship, which was dead and over, has been raked up again and the EC has issued notice. I think the punishment of 24 hours and 48 hours ban is not a punishment at all.
Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur is a BJP candidate. What do you make of this?
BJP has tried to portray non-issues as issues for the country. They tried their hands at lot of things and now I feel they might even indulge in fake encounters.
The present government is getting the hint that they are losing the election. So, they are indulging in provocative speeches and fielding candidates like Pragya Thakur. She was arrested by the Shivraj Singh Chauhan government for killing (right-wing activist) Sunil Joshi.
This terror accused is accusing a martyr like Hemant Karkare (who died in line of duty) and her allegations about the violation of human rights were rejected by the human rights commission too. This lady is lying about everything including her illness.
Your relationship with Sharad Pawar was not very smooth. Where do you stand now?
When I took action against co-operatives, it was not a personal attack. It was to draw a line beyond which mismanagement would be unacceptable. An apex co-operative bank was running into loss of Rs 11,000 crore and it had to be dealt with. In three years, these banks showed profits. So, was this personal?
In February 2019, the present government amended the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 1976, retrospectively. The Congress colluded with BJP. Your comments?
It is part of the whole debate that we have been having along with electoral bonds. I think allowing foreign funds for election is not a good law. Thus, this law needs to go. Foreign money influencing Indian elections is not correct.
The Congress weakened banks in 1984 with loan melas. Now, they are weakening banks again with loan write-offs. Your views? The crisis in the 80s was not just related to loan mela but also to international crisis among other things. It was not a loot then but now it is, by allowing the likes of Vijay Mallya, Mehul Choksi to loot our country. At that time, the decision was made to expand credit to newer areas and that may have gone overboard.
There is a qualitative difference to what went wrong in Modi era and what happened in the 80s. In case of the Modi era, it was crony capitalism where money was given to friends and in case of the latter, the money hopefully went into the hands of the poor.
But isn’t any loan mela or loan waiver bad for the economy?
True, loan mela was a bad move. But in case of loan waiver, I have a different opinion. The loan waiver is necessary, especially now because the Modi government introduced policies that subdued farm prices in order to control inflation so that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could cut interest rates and keep urban consumers happy.
This was a deliberate move. In the first four years of the Modi government, the increase in minimum selling price (MSP) was hardly two-three per cent as against 19 per cent hike during the UPA government’s tenure. The BJP government had a pro-urban and pro-consumer but anti-producer and anti-manufacturing policy. This anti-farmer policy is because the farmer is not a vocal class, but the urban class is.
Are there any policies of the BJP government you would like to laud?
It will be difficult to praise the BJP government’s policies as elections are still on. But if we come to power, we will analyse their good policies and continue with them.
Whatever good has been done, we will take it forward. We wanted to introduce GST, they did with glitches. We will look at direct tax code. The government failed to implement policies in an appropriate manner as it was chasing numbers. They only wanted to show bigger numbers for their next advertisements.
