Ways2trade: LOCKED IN THEIR KINGDOMS

Saturday, May 16, 2009

LOCKED IN THEIR KINGDOMS

Third,fourth players beg for space
VERDICT 2009, AMONG MANY OTHER THINGS, HAS ALSO FREED DELHI FROM
THE STRANGLEHOLD OF REGIONAL PARTIES. WHILE THEY REMAIN
PROMINENT IN ASSEMBLIES, PARLIAMENT DOESN'T HANG BY THEIR WHIMS

Bharti Jain NEW DELHI

THEdominance of Congress is back, marking the biggest blow for parties that practice identitybased politics and an end to their arm-twisting tactics. The fact that the Congress and the BJP share a good 320-plus seats between them, leaving only the remaining 220 for the third and fourth fronts as well as unattached parties like the BSP and BJD, cannot but be heartening for the national parties whose growth over the last two decades had been arrested by the dominance of regional parties.
    Though it is still too early to say that the comeback by the Congress as the numero uno of national politics spells death for identity-based politics, the truth is that the grand old party is finally challenging the clout of smaller formations.
    The impressive show by the Congress is indicative of the people's disgust with the regional formations who had only used their numbers in fractured verdicts to make unreasonable demands for concessions and drive hard bargains. A case in point is the rout of the PMK, which walked out of the UPA on poll eve hoping to come back on its own on the strength of its Vanniyar votebank, in Tamil Nadu as the electorate chose to disapprove of its caste-based politics. Even the MDMK led by Vaiko — who used every trick in the book to swing the votes in his favour, including sympathising with the LTTE at the cost of endangering national security — was rejected by the people who chose to vote for governance rather than for narrow political considerations. Even the fourth front parties — RJD and LJP — were humbled in Bihar notwithstanding their calculations that the former's M-Y votebase, coupled with the Dalit bank of Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, would pose a solid challenge to the rival JD(U)-BJP camp. But the people of Bihar, who had started to see the first signs of development around them under Nitish Kumar's rule, had obviously overlooked caste considerations to stand firmly behind the ruling alliance.
    The marginalisation of the regional parties was also evident in Punjab, where the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, saddled by corruption charges, braved public anger to end up with a humble tally, and in Haryana, where INLD almost drew a blank, even as nine of the 10 seats in the state went to the Congress. Even if the SP joins the UPA government, they do not have much room to bargain for key portfolios. Ditto for the Left, whose dreams of a Third-Front led government remain just that. And if AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa was hoping to be wooed by either of the two leading political formations, a day ahead of the results, her modest tally only jolted her back to reality. The same was the case with TDP, where Congress held on to its ground.
    But this certainly does not mean that the regional parties can be written off. The good show put up by JD(U) in Bihar, BJD in Orissa and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal is a case in point. The common factor that prompted the Bihar and Orissa wins was not caste but the development agenda followed by their respective chief ministers.