India - Elections;To drop or not to drop

Rajesh Sinha & Puneet Nicholas Yadav

Faced with elections, BJP & Cong are unable to decide whether to dump old candidates and project fresh faces to counter anti-incumbency. They fear such moves might create resentment & prompt dissidents to join rival parties

NEW DELHI: As you sow, so shall you reap. Anti-incumbency is weighing heavy on the minds of BJP as well as Congress strategists in the run-up to the elections to five state assemblies starting November. While the BJP faces the factor in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the Congress is confronted with it in Delhi.

The elections are important, for they are being viewed as a pointer to the likely outcome of the Lok Sabha polls soon after.

One worry for the Congress is that anti-incumbency against the Centre may influence voters in state elections as well. And the new mantra to counter it, honed to perfection by Narendra Modi in last Gujarat elections, is to drop most sitting MLAs and field new faces instead, or at least look for people who cannot be blamed for the wrongs of incumbents. Surveys and feedback from ranks supports this.

While this has made several MLAs jittery, the parties are cautious as such a move could lead to desertions, rebellions or simple, silent sabotages. The parties are devising ways and means to get rid of unwanted MLAs, change in constituencies due to delimitation being one excuse.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, trying to retain power for a third consecutive term, is pushing for new candidates in at least 15 of the 47 constituencies that her party won in 2003.

AICC general secretary in-charge of Delhi Ashok Gehlot also favours this. However, Congress sources claimed the plan is unrealistic as it would create large-scale dissidence in an already factionalised party.

Moreover, a senior Congress leader said, “Dropping MLAs will cause an exodus of strong leaders to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a risk the Congress cannot afford this election.”

Delhi Congress president JP Agarwal fought shy of making any concrete statement on
this question. He said the issue would be discussed with the party’s central election committee on October 20. “We will field new candidates but it’s too early to name the
eats. Winning ability would be one of the biggest criteria and MLAs who lost in 2003 by over 30,000 votes may be dropped,” Agarwal said.

A source revealed Dikshit wants more representation of youth and women and has suggested replacing MLAs from whose assembly segments the Congress lost all four wards in the 2007 municipal polls. However, several party leaders are strongly opposed to this recommendation.

The BJP faces a similar dilemma. In Madhya Pradesh (MP), a survey commissioned by the party reportedly suggested dropping 70 MLAs. Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, however, fears this could create massive resentment. He favours dropping 40 MLAs at the most. The survey also said the BJP tally would shrink to about 90 in the 230-member House from 173 in 2003. BJP’s MP election in-charge Venkaiah Naidu, however, denied this.

One worry in changing MLAs in MP is that they might flock to Uma Bharti’s Bharatiya Janshakti Party which can make a significant dent in BJP votes.

Central leaders, however, claim Bharti’s clout is limited to Bundelkhand.
In Rajasthan, the suggestion is to drop 50 MLAs. Chief minister Vasundhara Raje is likely to have her way and drop whoever she wants to. There would be stiff resistance, though, from state chief Om Prakash Mathur.

But only changing MLAs is not likely to ward off anti-incumbency for a government in which most ministers face corruption charges, that has a record of two dozen instances of police firing on crowds, and is seen as insensitive in management of crises such as the Barmer floods or the recent temple stampede.

Raje has made other moves, such as conferring leave encashment, sixth pay commission for employees, to win over different sections. The BJP would use price rise, terrorism, soaring interest rates and other failures of the central government to set off the state-level anti-incumbency.

Besides assuming a popular discontent against the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre over issues such as price-rise, “spurt in terror attacks” across the country, farmers’ suicides and high interest rates, the saffron leadership is hoping that the growing profile of the BSP in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh will eventually end up damaging the Congress.
In Chhattisgarh, there are no problems facing the BJP government for any significant anti-incumbency to build. The party plans to change a sizeable number of MLAs to set off local anti-incumbency in its bid to return to power.
“We have received constituency-wise inputs from various channels and found that people are satisfied with our MLAs, but if we allot a majority of tickets (nominations) to new faces, victory will be certain,” a top BJP leader said.