Hung, Split and Confused: Election Projection

Even as financial scandals, spiraling prices and the exit of two powerful allies, the Trinamool Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham, have taken their toll of the Congress-led UPA that won a renewed – and enlarged – mandate in 2009, the BJP-headed NDA has not fared that much better in the same period. 

After the dramatic parting of ways with the Janata Dal-United earlier this year, the BJP currently has just two partners, the Shiv Sena and the Shiromani Akali Dal, the parties ideologically closest to it. The JD-U’s departure doesn’t merely present a problem for the BJP in Bihar; it also sends out a negative signal to secular regional parties about the dangers of signing up for a NDA regime after the next general elections. There has also been the unedifying spectacle of the principal opposition party’s top leaders at war with each other in public. Corruption’s corroding touch, too, has not spared the BJP, most damagingly in Karnataka.

Not surprising then that the results of the CNN IBN-The Hindu Election Tracker poll conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) while suggesting gains for the BJP and losses for the Congress has predicted a badly hung Parliament: both the UPA and the NDA, the survey says, would be around a 100 seats short of a simple majority of 273, if elections are held now. And with political parties, currently not part of either the Congress-led UPA or BJP-headed NDA, likely to win the over 300 remaining seats, as the CSDS poll suggests, a Third Front becomes entirely plausible.

However, one factor needs to be flagged while viewing this rather unsettling picture: Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, the north east (barring Assam) and the union territories (barring Delhi) were not part of the CSDS survey that was conducted across 18 states. Of the 32 excluded seats, the Congress currently has 16, its ally, the National Conference, three, the BJP seven, the CPI-M two, while the remainder are with regional parties.

So, can the two alliances improve their circumstances, ahead of 2014?

 

Hunt for friends

The Congress that recently tied up with the JMM in Jharkhand is likely to acquire an electoral partner in Bihar – either the JD-U or the RJD -- and perhaps, in West Bengal – with the Trinamool Congress -- closer to the elections. Simultaneously, if the UPA government carves out a separate state of Telengana, the political picture will dramatically alter in Andhra Pradesh, and help the Congress increase its tally.

Finally, the UPA government is working overtime to enact a law on food security bill, even as the Direct Benefit Transfer programme has been moved from the Planning Commission to the union finance ministry for more efficient implementation. The CSDS survey says that of the 19 per cent (responses only among the poor) who have heard of the food security bill, 71 per cent support it; of the 21 per cent who have heard of DBT (responses only among the poor), 68 per cent approve of it, while of the 22 per cent who have heard of the land acquisition bill (responses only among farmers), 49 per cent believe it’s a good idea.

For the BJP, the good news in the survey is that it has recovered ground among its traditional supporters in urban India – among the college-educated, upper and middle classes and Hindu upper castes. But while this has given it a push, it is not enough. It has, therefore, placed all its hopes in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Thus far, his magic has mesmerized corporate India and sections of the media, both powerful advocates. But it is only if he can cast a similar spell outside Gujarat that the BJP will be in the reckoning to form the next government.

The CSDS survey, predictably, shows Mr Modi emerging as the most popular choice for Prime Minister, but the current incumbent, Dr Manmohan Singh, pips him to the post as the country’s “most liked” leader, despite falling levels of satisfaction with the central government. Of 13 Congress, BJP and regional leaders, Mr Modi stands at number five in the “most liked” category, behind Dr Singh, Gandhian activist Anna Hazare, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Mr Gandhi.

If Mr Modi polls highest in a table of potential PMs with 19 per cent, as against two per cent in 2009, it is nowhere as high as the BJP’s icon, former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. In 1999, and again in 2004, Mr Vajpayee had topped the charts –in earlier CSDS surveys – steady at 38 per cent.

Also, in a direct face-off between Mr Modi and Mr Gandhi, the BJP leader would be just two percentage points ahead of his younger Congress adversary: evidently, Mr Modi will have to work much harder.

Besides, a BJP under Mr Modi will have to have a far higher score than the CSDS survey has to attract enough allies to form a government. The Congress, seen as more benign, needs a relatively lower score to attract others to the UPA. Support for the Congress from the 13 per cent string Muslim community stands, according to the survey, at 36 per cent, two percentage points less from 2009. This is a section that remains largely wary of a Modi-led BJP.

 

Third Front

If both parties fail to make the grade, then there is always the Third Front, by itself, or supported from the outside by the Congress or BJP. The CSDS survey suggests that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar would then be the top choice, with 12 per cent rooting for him, followed by BSP leader Mayawati with nine per cent, and West Bengal chief Mamata Bannerjee and SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav with eight per cent each. Of course, the seats that each of these leaders brings to the table would determine who would get the top job – provided boith the Congress and BJP fail.