People's Democracy

The Maharashtra Election Scene

Ashok Dhawale

WITH the voting for the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra due on April 20 and 26, the political scene presents a complex picture. With the split-up of Bihar, Maharashtra now has the second largest number of Lok Sabha seats (48) in the country, after Uttar Pradesh. Hence the results here will have an important bearing on the post-poll political scenario.

THE PICTURE IN 1998 AND 1999

Before coming to the present, a brief look at the electoral picture of 1998 and 1999 may be instructive. In the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, with 42 per cent of the vote, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (SS-BJP) were reduced to just 10 seats, a straight drop of 23 from the 33 seats that they had won in 1996.

The Indian National Congress (INC), with 43 per cent of the vote and its alliance with all factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), won 33 seats in 1998, and 4 went to the RPI, making a total of 37. This was a 22-seat increase from the 15 seats that it had won in 1996. One seat was won by the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP).

In 1999, both the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls were held simultaneously in Maharashtra. The SS-BJP state government had been in power for four and a half years. It had reached the lowest depths of its unpopularity. This was a result of its elitist policies, communal antics and massive corruption. The stage was set for an even more decisive sweep by the Congress, both in parliament and assembly.

At precisely this time, Sharad Pawar split the Congress and formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on the single issue of the 'foreign origin' of Sonia Gandhi. The INC and the NCP fought bitterly against each other in all seats. The SS-BJP watched this windfall gleefully. The Congress split changed the entire electoral picture at one stroke.

The SS-BJP, which would have been limited to just 6 Lok Sabha seats had the Congress been united, actually won a whopping 28 seats (SS - 15, BJP - 13), with just 38 per cent of the vote. This success changed the picture at the national level, too, confirming the NDA government in office. The BJP-NDA thus have much to thank Sharad Pawar for!

The INC-NCP fell sharply from the 40-plus Lok Sabha seats that they might have won had they been united, to a paltry 16 (INC - 10, NCP - 6). This disastrous performance was in spite of the INC-NCP together garnering over 51 per cent of the vote! Two RPI factions, the JD(S) and the PWP won one seat each, in direct or indirect alliance with the INC or NCP.

The same picture was replicated in the state assembly. With just 32 per cent of the vote cast for the Vidhan Sabha, the SS-BJP would have been clobbered and driven down to less than 50 seats in a house of 288. They actually won 125 seats (SS - 69, BJP - 56).

A united Congress would have won around 225 seats in the Vidhan Sabha. The INC-NCP had to be content with just 133 (INC - 75, NCP - 58). This was even short of a clear majority, which they could manage at the time only because of the support of 11 Left and secular MLAs.

THE CURRENT SITUATION 

Today, nearly five years later, the political situation has changed in many ways.

From the standpoint of the crucial necessity of defeating the communal forces, the positive aspect is that, after much dithering, the INC and the NCP have at last concluded an alliance.

But this was preceded by the NCP playing a disruptive role in the Gujarat and Chhatisgarh assembly elections. On the very eve of concluding the INC-NCP alliance, Sharad Pawar made his infamous statement that all options were open, including a tie-up with the BJP-led NDA. It was the vehement Shiv Sena opposition to this that made both the NCP and the BJP backtrack.

Under the present understanding, 27 Lok Sabha seats are being contested by the INC, 18 by the NCP and 3 seats have been given to the leaders of RPI factions. But there is still considerable bad blood between sections of the INC and NCP. Efforts are on to remove it. The election results will show how far these efforts have been successful.

But this positive development of an INC-NCP alliance has been countered by a major negative one. That is the remarkably poor and lacklustre performance of the INC-NCP state government over the last four and a half years. Needless to say, the performance of the BJP-led central government is even worse, as has been relentlessly documented in these columns.

How all these factors eventually weigh up in the scales of public opinion will decide the outcome of the coming Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra.

Be it the severe drought now affecting 11 districts in Marathwada and Western Maharashtra, the crass and chronic neglect of irrigation and water management, the effort to revive the Dabhol power plant and hand it over to Reliance, the repeated power tariff hikes and load-shedding, the rapidly growing number of factory closures, the deep crisis in the sugar co-operative sector, the virtual dismantling of the Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme, the increasing suicides of peasants and workers, the watering down of the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and the Public Distribution System (PDS), the persistent land question especially in the tribal belts, or the rampant commercialisation of education and health - it is the identical LPG policies of both the BJP-led central government and the INC-NCP state government that have aggravated every one of the above burning problems facing the people.

ELECTORAL OPPORTUNISM 

There is no doubt that the SS-BJP continue with their communal drive in Maharashtra in various forms and pose a grave danger to secularism. The recent riots in Ahmednagar were a fresh reminder. But along with this is also the electoral opportunism of both the INC and the NCP.

In over a dozen Zilla Parishads, and in scores of Panchayat Samitis and Municipal Councils that were elected in 2001-02, the INC or the NCP, in an effort to undercut each other, are cosily sharing the loaves and fishes of office with the SS-BJP communal combine. The most deplorable example of this is in the Raigad Zilla Parishad, where the SS-BJP-NCP-INC have made a joint pact for the last two years to keep the PWP out.

Another form of this opportunism was seen in the run-up to these Lok Sabha elections, when leaders changed parties with no regard to principles. See some of the following examples which indicate the growing degeneration of bourgeoisie politics.

Sugar baron Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, who was earlier elected five times as the Congress MP from Ahmednagar district, joined the Shiv Sena a few years ago and was made union minister in the Vajpayee cabinet. After being dropped from the cabinet recently at Bal Thackeray's behest, he promptly rejoined the Congress and is now that party's candidate for the seat.

Jaisinghrao Gaikwad, the BJP MP elected from Gopinath Munde's home district of Beed last time, fell out with Munde and crossed over to the NCP, which promptly gave him the ticket for the same seat. In the press conference where he announced his changeover, he praised both the RSS and Sharad Pawar in the same breath!

There is also traffic in the reverse direction. Apart from the case of Najma Heptullah, there is Pratapsinh Mohite Patil, brother of the current NCP deputy chief minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil. Pratapsinh earlier crossed over to the BJP and won the Solapur Lok Sabha bypoll as the BJP candidate a few months ago with full support of the district NCP and even INC sections. This was before his brother was made deputy chief minister. With Vijaysinh's eye now set on the chief ministership, Pratapsinh has declined to re-contest as the BJP candidate from Solapur.

Sagar Meghe, the son of another veteran NCP leader from Vidarbha region, Datta Meghe, joined the BJP last year and was immediately elected MLC after a particularly murky election. Sagar Meghe is now in the forefront of the BJP election campaign in Vidarbha. Harishchandra Chavan of the NCP recently crossed over to the BJP and was promptly rewarded with a BJP Lok Sabha ticket for the Malegaon constituency in Nashik district. His strong point, so far as the BJP is concerned, is that he has been a consistent opponent of the CPI(M).

Sharad Joshi, leader of the Shetkari Sanghatana and founder of the Swatantra Bharat Party, is one of the unashamed champions of the LPG policies in agriculture. In his heyday in the eighties, Joshi used to regularly denounce the SS-BJP as "communal vultures" who must be crushed. After his recent move to have some understanding with the Congress failed, the same Sharad Joshi promptly crossed over to the BJP camp. He has now publicly said that the BJP is not a communal party and has further declared that except for Gujarat, the minorities in India have been given a fair deal by the Vajpayee regime!

SOME OTHER ISSUES 

Apart from the crucial and real issues of communalism and globalisation, an effort is being made in these elections to draw in divisive issues like a separate state of Vidarbha. A few months ago, a foursome comprising Sharad Joshi, Datta Meghe, Banwarilal Purohit and Prakash Ambedkar came together to form a front for a separate Vidarbha state. Of these, Joshi went over to the BJP and Meghe remained in the NCP.

As is well known, it was the BJP that first raised the demand for a separate Vidarbha. Various RPI factions, and now even the NCP in its election manifesto, have supported this demand. There are two opinions on this issue within the Congress. The only parties to oppose this demand for a separate Vidarbha are the Left parties - PWP, CPI(M), CPI - and the Shiv Sena!

The demand actually stems from a continued neglect of the developmental concerns of backward areas like Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan by INC-NCP and SS-BJP state governments ever since the formation of the state of Maharashtra.

Another issue that is rightly being brought up in the election campaign is that of the various corruption scandals of the BJP-led central government. Along with this is the Telgi fake stamp-paper scam worth thousands of crores of rupees. This scam which began 10 years ago in 1994 has already claimed some victims, the most prominent among whom is NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who was forced to give up his posts of deputy chief minister and home minister. Anil Gote, MLA, who was supported by the SS-BJP, and several top police officials, including former Mumbai police commissioner, R S Sharma, are in jail.

The fact of the matter is that many bigwigs in both SS-BJP and INC-NCP camps are said to be involved in the Telgi racket. The large-circulation Marathi daily Loksatta of the Indian Express group, on April 3 last week, published a damning photograph on its front page of a function at Dhule held on July 3, 1999, much after the Telgi scam had been raised in the state assembly on several occasions. The photograph shows Telgi sitting on the same stage as Union defence minister George Fernandes, the then Union law minister Ram Jethmalani, the then chief minister Narayan Rane and other BJP leaders. The news item along with the photograph gives details of how SS-BJP ministers, including Gopinath Munde, protected Telgi and his cohorts.

LEFT AND DEMOCRATIC FRONT  

It is in this entire background that the Left and Democratic Front (LDF) was formed in Maharashtra on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections. Earlier, the three Left parties had formed the Left Front, which had conducted some effective joint campaigns. The Left and democratic front now comprises the PWP, CPI(M), CPI, SP, Bharatiya Republican Party-Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) and the Samajwadi Jan Parishad (SJP). The Janata Dal (Secular), which was a constituent in the beginning, had to opt out because of its opportunism of trying to play it both ways - retaining its minister in the INC-NCP state cabinet while at the same time trying to be part of the third front.

The political statement of the LDF calls, first and foremost, for the defeat of the anti-people, communal and corrupt BJP-led regime at the centre. It then also criticises the INC-NCP state government for its economic policies and its compromises with communalism. The LDF stands for maintaining the unity of Maharashtra, while at the same time demanding a time-bound redressal of the developmental backlog of backward regions like Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan. The LDF champions pro-people economic policies, secularism and social justice.

The Left parties had insisted all along that the front contest a limited number of seats where the front constituents really had some mass base, in order to minimise the division of the secular vote. Accordingly, the PWP is contesting 5 seats, the CPI(M) 3 seats and the CPI 1 seat. The SP is fighting 7 seats. The BBM led by Prakash Ambedkar is, however, contesting 19 seats, a figure that may reduce somewhat after the last day of withdrawals. The BBM stand is generally seen as an exaggerated assessment of its own strength. Another complication is the BBM support for a separate state of Vidarbha, although its representative has signed the political statement of the LDF which stands for a united Maharashtra.

Apart from the fact that this front has not been forged through consistent joint struggles, there is also the need for greater political cohesion among its constituents. These aspects will have to be properly thrashed out in the future, especially with state assembly elections due in six months.   

CPI(M) CAMPAIGN BEGINS

The CPI(M) is fielding its candidates in its three traditional bases of support, viz. Dahanu (ST), Malegaon (ST) and Wardha. It is also fighting the seat in the adjacent Union Territory of Dadra & Nagarhaveli. The candidates in these four constituencies are Ramji Vartha MLA, Jiva Pandu Gavit MLA, Yashwant Zade and Ladak Gimbhal respectively.

The campaign has begun in all four constituencies in right earnest and thousands of Party and mass organisation cadres have begun to fan out amongst the people to put forth the three prime tasks of the defeat of the BJP-led regime at the centre, increase in the strength of the CPI(M) and of the Left and the formation of a secular government at the centre after the elections.

The campaign in Maharashtra will reach its crescendo next week with large public meetings in the various CPI(M) constituencies that will be addressed by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury and CPI(M) central committee member and West Bengal labour minister Mohd Amin.