The lowest levels, further down to go is well nigh impossible, to which the poll campaign for 2009 reached were witnessed when JD(S) leader and son of a former Prime Minister, H D Kumaraswamy drove down to No 10 Janpath on Tuesday evening, i.e. just three days before the counting of votes, his face covered and when Rampur (UP) Samajwadi party candidate and a glamorous actress of yesteryears, Jayaprada, filed a petition before the Election Commission stating that her own party leader and founder of the SP, Azam Khan, distributed morphed pictures of her in nude. To counter her Khan doubted the actress’ upbringing.
While the former being the son of convener of the so-called Third alternative or front visiting the chief of a rival party in a stealthy manner is nothing but political treachery and the political tribe, as a whole, has to be ashamed of. On the contrary, both the Congress and the Third Front partners are maintaining a studied silence. Congress spokesperson Diggy Raja says that there is nothing wrong if someone wants to offer support. The Left, prime mover of the Front, is not bothered because the Left itself is waiting to jump on the bandwagon of the grand old party. So far as the Congress is concerned, it suits the party as it can also brag, in the light of TRS joining the NDA, that the UPA is not disintegrating and that there are parties willing to join them.
Why did Kumaraswamy visit Janpath? Ostensibly to discuss the Karnataka politics? Is the timing right to discuss ways and means of cutting down the influence of BJP in the state? If it is so, why should he make it a secret trip? Yes, Kumaraswsamy is partly right. Mulayam has shown the way for him. If the Congress wants JD(S) support to form a government at the Centre, whatever be the JD(S) number, UPA government should eventually dismiss the BJP government. That is the deal he obviously wanted to strike. Now, he says he wanted to tell Sonia that JD(S) is firmly with the Third Front. Was it necessary for him to go to Delhi, especially when he is not accustomed to the Delhi heat (even when he is inside the swanky Benz) and had cover his face, to convey this to Sonia. After all, his party bears the tag “secular” and therefore if we find fault with him there is a danger of being branded “communal”.
Even AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa is waiting to play a similar game. She will support whoever is willing to offer Karunanidhi’s head on a platter to her in return for her support. This is yet another new low Indian politics has taken during this election. This runs counter to the democratic credentials that we, as a nation, have been boasting about. If Mulayam, Kumaraswamy or Jayalalithaa had the guts to make such a preposterous demand, who showed the way? It is the Congress which might have dismissed duly elected governments purely on political considerations. Even as the nation was going through the poll exercise, Meghalaya government was dismissed only to ensure that Congress-NCP government is installed in power.
There was an outbreak of infectious disease affecting all the politicians during this poll campaign. No. I am not referring to Swine flu, sorry N1H1, nor the cholera epidemic in the state capital. I am sure if politicians, irrespective of party affiliation, had undergone diagnostic test, all of them would have tested “positive” for “foot-in-the-mouth” disease. Even the Prime Minister was not immune to this disease. Let us take the grand old party first. Of course, the national campaign was restricted to mother and son duo and during the concluding phase, even the mother took the backseat. It was the crown prince who was omnipresent as if there was no other leader in the party. Yes, there were other leaders, but their job was to undo the damage done by the scion of the first family of the party. One day Nitish Kumar was secular and on the next day, i.e. after he participated in the NDA rally in Ludhiana, his secular credentials came under a cloud. In Tamil Nadu, Rahul made overtures to Amma, the nxtt day, PM said that his party was with DMK, FOR THE PRESENT, and the next day Sonia said DMK was an important pillar of the UPA and that the Congress would stand by the DMK for ever. Who is to be taken seriously? None. Because whoever helps to form the government is my buddy.
2009 polls was a free-for-all. All options were open and every party was up for grabs. Nobody was untouchable so long as they have the numbers. The only untouchable was “political morality”. That was kept at a safe distance. RJD and LJP were fighting the Congress in Bihar even as they were asserting that they were part of UPA and continued to be the Central ministers. Congress was playing the love tune to SP and BSP in the same breath. Rahul Gandhi was giving a certificate of good governance to all his party’s political rivals in the states like Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. But it was showcased as the grand strategy of the political novice.
But the media was going ga ga over him and his sister. There were journalists who went overboard over the beauty of her nose and the colors of her dress. She did not go out of Amethi or Rae Bareili, but the coverage she got was amazing. A television reporter would talk to her for a couple of minutes on the sidelines of a dais and it would be an “exclusive”, “rare interview” etc. What was her political standing except that she is the grand daughter of Indira and daughter of Rajiv Gandhi. Advani’s daughter was helping her father in Gandhinagar, Paswan’s son was helping his father in Bihar, but they did not get any media attention. It is not that the Congressmen alone are “ghulams” of the Nehru family. Media is no exception. There was mad race to get Priyanka and to do “cover-up” operations for the bunglings of Rahul. Perhaps there was no other leader in the party who campaigned in all the states as Rahul did and contributed to the sagging image of the party. If the Congress fails to get the 2004 numbers, the credit must go to the Prince. Poor Prime Minister confined himself to press conferences in metros and to mouth the polemical script prepared by the party think tank, because the language that he spoke was not his.
India may be a vibrant democracy and largest democracy. But there is no democracy in the world where the leader who is named to lead the government is not even contesting the elections, not to speak of leading the campaign from the front, except to address press conferences, but is dependent on his boss’ nomination for the top post. This is one of the unique features of the 2009 polls.
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