Why onion prices may decide fate of political parties in 2014

If you recall, offices during lunch hours would have strong wafts of onion and the masalas, but mainly onion. If the guy strap-hanging next to you yawned on the local, it is because the bhel he chomped on before boarding made you blanch.

That is no more the case now. Even as the rupee slides, the onion, a favoured component in food except for the Jains and ultra-orthodox, is holding its own. The prices have moved around a bit but not significantly down to grab one and chew it raw.

[caption id=“attachment_1059249” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] But yes, amid the tears not because of the vapours when cut because of the prices, we can still continue to be amused at the way all parties tries to fool us. Reuters[/caption]

What is hard on the pocket is now easy on the olfactory senses. But soon, we are told - the soon being a stretchable, undefinable period of time into the future - the onion may return and make the cooks’ eyes water when he or she chops it in the kitchen.

But will this hurt the prospects of political parties as it had in 1998, when angst against spiralling prices had shown BJP the door?

That is why, perhaps, onion is not just a kitchen issue, or even household budget problem. It is a political thing. High-prices onion can be as powerful as its smells are.

For, it hurts the poor most. A jowar roti, a chilli, a dash of salt and an onion could very well be the staple even if they are just above the Tendulkar poverty line. If its prices hit them hard, they are more likely to retaliate at the polling booth.

That is why scarce, either due to the traders’ hoarding and price manipulations or sheer scarcity becomes a metaphor for a government’s failure. In Delhi, where elections are due in November, the government has set up some 1,000 outlets to sell it cheap: at Rs 50-60 a kg.

Cheap! It is actually some dramatic buying of insurance in public. Insurance against missing the vote.

In Mumbai, where elections are as fierce as the smell of the vapours from a cut onion, the government has tried to sell vegetables cheap - again only cheaper by Rs 5 per kg, onions included - to tell the voters, “We tried”. The common man, after all, during election run-ups, is a flavour.

In Delhi, where Sheila Dixit wants a fourth term, and opposition parties want to deny her that comfort, onion has become a platform. Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party have been selling them cheap. Enough to make The Telegraph of London called it the “Onion War”.

How is the BJP able to sell it at Rs 25 a kg and the other, Aam Aadmi Party, at Rs 40? If so, how? One, they are able to source it directly from farmers and bring it to their outlets. Two, they are bought from the wholesale markets and selling it at no profit but subsidising the logistics.

And no one has asked yet how they subsidise the whole operation. It is as opaque as the poll spending by candidates, by others on the candidates’ behalf, and by political parties.

If it is the first, why is the government unable to match the prices? Is it because even there, some leakages are a reality as it is in every other transaction the official machinery is involved in? Is it that it does not want to hurt the retailers because they too are voters and seeks a golden mean?

If the opposition parties manage to sustain the programme till the prices rule high, they would have been running a business instead of the normal politicking. If the prices drop before the elections, and shorter memories rule, then it would have been a waste of time.

Such buy-somehow and sell-it-cheap business model cannot be run across the country for long because of the logistics issues. Unless it touches every consumer-voter, and not remain only a newspaper item and a photo opportunity, the exercise becomes pointless.

Simply because BJP sold it at Rs 25 a kg for a few days in Delhi does not make it a party that works. Simply because Delhi’s Congress government sells from their new outlets for a while, it does not mean price-curbing is something they have perfected the governance model.

We already know that it is not just the vile and wily traders who are responsible for the onion price spike. The prospect of their spiralling was booking stocks at a reasonable Rs 15.50 per kg was made know to all states by Nafed - National Agricultural Coop Marketing Federation two months before they shot up but not a single state responded .

That refusal to heel the hint shows that those who govern have different priorities than those of the governed.

It, however, does mean one thing. Politicians and political parties know how to posture to sucker the voters, who this time, may be wanting to vote on the basis of a variety of factors - Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi included - with onion prices just one of the several.

But yes, amid the tears not because of the vapours when cut because of the prices, we can still continue to be amused at the way all parties tries to fool us.

Like they do all the time.