RS deputy chairman election: BJP’s nimbleness, guile come to fore as Opposition unity goes ‘Hari bharose’

Two things are immediately apparent from National Democratic Alliance’s easy win in the polls for Rajya Sabha deputy chairman’s post on Thursday. One, the Opposition unity index — to borrow prime minister’s words — is still ‘Hari bharose’. Two, despite being the hegemonic force in Indian politics, BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah retains the necessary nimbleness to wade through the cross-current of coalition politics. With less than a year to go for general elections, both points assume larger significance. [caption id=“attachment_4751231” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Narendra Modi. Twitter @BJP4India[/caption] The deputy chairman’s post was supposed to be the high-water mark for Opposition unity. The Congress-led Opposition enjoys clear superiority in the Upper House and it was expected that the amorphous ‘front’ will put aside all differences and take the battle to the NDA, which was visibly short on numbers. Converting its numeric advantage into a constitutional chair would have given the Opposition a symbolic victory over the BJP, neutralised BJP’s decision to hand out the Lok Sabha deputy speaker’s post to ‘strategic ally’ AIADMK and seize the narrative in a busy election. Instead, the NDA won in a canter to usher in the first non-Congress candidate in that post in nearly four decades. NDA nominee Harivansh Narayan Singh, a first-time Rajya Sabha member from Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), received 125 votes while Congress’s BK Hariprasad received 105 votes in a House where the majority mark was set at 119. A difference of 20 votes is gaping enough, even more significant is the fact that the result is a complete reversal of the adversaries’ relative strength in Rajya Sabha. In the 244-members Upper House, the NDA had 90 votes, 32 less than the halfway mark of 122. The anti-NDA front including Congress, TMC, TDP, BSP, SP, RJD, DMK, Left parties and others made for 112 votes. So, while the NDA garnered enough votes to even attain the halfway mark of a full House, the ‘Modi-hating’ club’s dream of stitching a ‘grand alliance’ went up in smoke yet again. The first blow was dealt by the Aam Aadmi Party, which refused to back the Congress candidate ostensibly because Arvind Kejriwal was feeling ‘let down’ by Rahul Gandhi’s “attitude”. Kejriwal took issue with the fact that the Congress president failed to show the courtesy of dialling his number and asking for his support. AAP called Congress “the biggest obstacle to Opposition unity” and abstained from voting.

AAP MP Sanjay Singh added: “If Rahul Gandhi can hug Narendra Modi, why can’t  he ask Arvind Kejriwal for support for his party’s candidate?” Singh also shared on Twitter a post where the antagonism against Rahul was made clearer.

With AAP, Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP and YSR Congress’ abstention, the majority mark came down from 122 to 119. Mufti appeared to go back on her words of backing a Congress candidate while YSR Congress’ abstention was tactical. The party didn’t want to back an NDA candidate (out of regional compulsions) or vote in support for a Congress nominee (the party engineered the split in Andhra Pradesh). By abstaining, Jaganmohan Reddy seemed to be keeping open his options in case the polity throws up opportunities in 2019 post-poll scenario. These abstentions were cause enough for Congress to be worried, but what decided the game in government’s favour was the role played by BJD’s Naveen Patnaik. The Odisha chief minister’s decision to back the NDA candidate turned the game on its head and from an advantageous position, the Opposition were thrown into the deep end. To the nine swing votes from BJD, which swelled the NDA ranks, were added 13 more from AIADMK which has veered towards becoming an “unofficial BJP ally” since the death of J Jayalalithaa. The AIADMK also backed the Modi government during last month’s no-confidence motion so its stance was less of a surprise. However, K Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision to ask six Telangana Rashtra Samithi MPs to back the NDA candidate was certainly a surprise, and it goes to show how Modi and Shah’s decision to field a JD(U) candidate reaped dividend. KCR’s anti-Congress stance is well known. The Telangana chief minister had been trying hard to develop an anti-Congress, anti-BJP third front with limited success. By fielding its own candidate instead of NCP’s choice Vandana Chavan, Congress queered its own pitch. As TS Sudhir wrote in this   Firstpost  piece, “There was no way the TRS chief would support a Congress candidate, thus providing him with a legitimate reason for voting for the NDA candidate. The fact that the BJP fielded a JD(U) candidate, and Nitish Kumar called KCR to ask for his support, made it even better. No one could now accuse KCR of doing business with the BJP, at least not officially.” Let us also remember that KCR seems to be warming up to Modi, and after a recent hour-long meeting between the two, the Telangana chief minister indicated he is not averse to a post-poll understanding with the BJP. What we see, therefore, is that instead of being the ‘high-water mark’ of Opposition unity, the election turned out to be a test case of Opposition disunity. The fault lines that were created were not entirely due to Congress, but it cannot avoid getting lion’s share of the blame. For instance, Congress should have done a better job in reaching out to allies and potential allies. A phone call to Kejriwal or Mufti could have assuaged their egos. Similarly, fielding a non-Congress candidate could have opened up the field further and made it easier for some parties to back the Opposition. That it failed to do so was down as much to its lack of political acumen as the guile shown by Modi and Shah, who fight each election as if it is their last. By throwing its weight behind a JD(U) candidate, the BJP achieved several objectives at once. It showed that instead of being an arrogant outfit bent on relentless expansionism, the party is not averse to performing the duties of coalition dharma. It was simultaneously a vote of confidence in Nitish Kumar, who is facing a torrid time in his backyard, and who seemed to be dithering in his support for the NDA. Ahead of 2019, the decision to let a key ally get a constitutional post must also be construed as a signal to partners such as Shiv Sena, Akali Dal or potential partners such as TRS, YSRCP or even JD(S) that BJP’s hegemonic position won’t come in the way of a quid pro quo in terms of power sharing in 2019. If power (or the fear of its loss) is driving some parties to settle their core differences and join hands against Modi, it may also goad some parties to veer towards the BJP if the situation demands. If power, not ideology, decides the behaviour of parties in politics then it makes as much sense for smaller players to keep their options open as closing it in favour of one direction or the other. To a certain extent, this was also the guiding principle behind Patnaik’s behaviour, whose decision to back the JD(U) nominee was driven as much by practical considerations as the timely phone call by Modi. Media reports indicate that the call was made on Monday, and marked the second time in close succession that the prime minister rang the Odisha chief minister. The first call came through before the no-trust motion where the BJD walked out before voting had ensured, leading the NDA to defeat the motion by a two-thirds majority. It is here that the true significance of choosing JD(U)’s Harivansh is revealed. As NDTV pointed out in a report, when Nitish rang up Patnaik to seek support for Harivansh, the Bihar chief minister may have reminded his Odisha counterpart that he voted for PA Sangma in 2012 when the Opposition floated his name to take on Congress’ Pranab Mukherjee: “At that time, Naveen Patnaik had made the phone call to Nitish Kumar. This… was payback time.” With Patnaik having given his consent to Kumar, he had no choice but to turn down Sharad Pawar’s request for backing Vandana Chavan, leading to the Congress ultimately putting up its own candidate. This should serve as a reminder to the Opposition that winning an election isn’t just crunching the math and hoping for physics to lead to better chemistry. The science of politics is different. Two plus two may sometimes throw up less than four.