A Federal Front Around Around Mamata Banerjee?

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A Federal Front Around Around Mamata Banerjee?

Discussion and debate among political observers is now focussed on the probability of a non-BJP Third Front or coalition emerging.

The centre of such an opposition, it is being argued, will be Mamata Banerjee. Till now recognised as an important regional leader, she has now emerged as the most important leader, towering above all Opposition faces in India. Leaders of the Shiv Sena,  Peoples Democratic Party (PDF) of Jammu and Kashmir, Samajwadi Party (SP) of UP and the Aam Admi Party (AAP) of Delhi have all congratulated Mamata. Already the farmers’ movement had announced that it would wait for the West Bengal elections to be over before their next move. Mamata Banerjee will now become the focal point around whom a lot of national voices will coalesce.

The three-time Chief Minister has acquired a halo just like Modi had  seven years ago, writes Rajat Roy (journalist and political analyst).  “The dynamics of national politics seem to be changing and Modi-Shah are not dictating the agenda anymore. Rather, they are on the receiving end and would be busy defending themselves.”  The mismanagement of the second wave of coronavirus infections has also angered people in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand — “the support base of BJP. A new window has just opened for the Opposition as they corner the Modi government.”

From the perspective of the next Lok Sabha polls, the prospect of a federal front looks more real than before, argue some analysts optimistically. Political observers like Saba Naqvi (eminent political journalist and writer) are therefore, asking if “Mamata Banerjee can save India tomorrow in a national coalition against the Bharatiya Janata Party? She does, after all, have the temperament for a protracted fight and has just triumphed in the most epic of battles, with not just politics but also institutions ranged against her…….but the question remains whether she would be willing to step out of her turf and wage a national battle. The last chief minister to do so was Narendra Modi, who had also won three terms in Gujarat. The difference was that he had a national party as a vehicle for his ambitions. Mamata Banerjee does not and were this idea to ever have wings, she would have to work with both the Congress and the regional forces. The apparent reluctance of the Gandhis to hold office could be a factor that does not make this an impossible idea.

National coalition only if the Congress is on board:  “There has already been editorial commentary about the power of regional satraps and the question has been asked if disparate forces could take on an entrenched national player. It can happen, but only if the Congress is on board because in spite of the defeats in these polls, the party still has bases across the country……..”

Moreover, “she has excellent relations with Sonia Gandhi and with state leaders across the country. Of importance would also be her equation with Sharad Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party supremo, who is considered a smart practitioner of statecraft and is credited with being behind the design of the regime that now rules Maharashtra. Both Mamata Banerjee and Pawar are former Congress members who would go on to create significant regional parties…..”

 

‘The anti-BJP lineup now has seven chief ministers’

There is no doubt however, writes Mohan Guruswamy (Chairman & Founder, Centre for Policy Alternatives and former advisor to the Finance Minister, 1998) that “Mamata Banerjee’s stunning victory puts her squarely on the centre stage of Opposition politics. Joining her there will be Lalu Prasad Yadav, released on bail by the Supreme Court despite the government’s strenuous objections. Tejashwi Yadav has shown he’s capable of leading a party when the RJD came so close to upstaging the BJP-JDU alliance in Bihar. Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot and Punjab’s Amarinder Singh have emerged as fairly independent Congress satraps. Uddhav Thackeray has shrugged off the Shiv Sena’s pariah status by providing Maharashtra with good leadership and a penchant for making politics the art of the possible. In Telangana, KCR has put the BJP in its place……. The anti-BJP lineup now has seven chief ministers, excluding Naveen Patnaik. Seven CMs will mean the election and propaganda machines can be kept well-greased and the powder kegs dry and replenished. Prime Minister Modi’s inability to defend India against the second Covid-19 wave, and his inability to cajole the Chinese from withdrawing from areas they occupied in Ladakh now make him an easy target. The Gujarat model has been long exposed as bogus. There is light seen at the end of the tunnel.”

 

Opposition must sink their differences

But, for a credible anti-BJP Front, “the Opposition parties will be required to sink their differences and put local aspirations in various states on hold,” writes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay (writer and journalist with special interest in politics).

Posture of the Congress Party crucial: “What is crucial to the formation of any an anti-BJP conglomerate is the posture of the Congress Party. Will it cede its claim to be the leader of an Opposition bandwagon in favour of a regional leader with whom it has locked horns in the past? After all, the Congress had formed an alliance with the Left Front in West Bengal even though the two parties were locked in a direct contest in Kerala. Left with a barely three per cent vote share in West Bengal, it is time for the Congress to scale down its ambitions and see itself as a slightly bigger regional party. Something like what the Janata Dal used to be in the last 1980s and early 1990s before its split into smaller factions…….

“It is too early for the Opposition parties to begin discussing alliances. But they must begin with breaking bread and discussing the biggest challenges the nation faces now, and forge common ground on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic. Rahul Gandhi consistently flags issues that require prioritisation and discussions could begin centring on the suggestions made. Opposition parties have to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each party and leader and allocate responsibility accordingly…..”

 

Challenge to BJP in the national elections in 2024, not easy

The Hindustan Times therefore, correctly states “till an understanding is developed first among regional parties and then between the regional parties and the Congress, a concerted challenge is unlikely.

“The results of assembly elections to West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala — where the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) won respectively — have resulted in instant analysis of what this means for 2024. The conventional view is that this marks the beginning of a possible third front challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), where regional leaders — especially Mamata Banerjee — will play a critical role. After all, the West Bengal chief minister has shown the model to defeat an aggressive BJP……..But it would be premature, on the basis of specific state elections in 2021, to speak of possibilities in 2024.

“Three years is a long time in politics — and the BJP may well recover some of its lost political momentum in Uttar Pradesh next year if it wins the state polls. But more importantly, the third front experiment has always confronted two challenges. There is rarely a consensus on who should be the leader of such a front, and taking on Narendra Modi in presidential style elections without a leader is a hard task. Any third front idea also instantly collides with the Congress’s ambitions of being the primary opposition force — and till an understanding is developed first among regional parties and then between the regional parties and the Congress, a concerted challenge is unlikely.”

 

Uncomfortable future for Modi

Sudheendra Kulkarni (was an aide to India's former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee) however, takes a different view arguing that   “Mamata Banerjee handing a humiliating defeat to the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the Union home minister, Amit Shah…….has opened up real possibilities for making Modi a two-term prime minister. Events in the coming two-three years may hasten his departure even earlier. This is because his government will surely be crippled by its gross mismanagement of the second wave of the Covid crisis, which has inflicted deaths and distress on an unprecedented scale. The resultant economic crisis, whose heat is already being felt by common Indians in the form of steep price rise and widespread joblessness, will begin to take its toll on Modi’s popularity and, hence, on his vaunted capacity to win elections for his party. And once a leader begins to lose that principal touchstone of leadership in a democracy — the promise of keeping his party in power — the party itself, along with the rest of the ‘sangh parivar’ (RSS family), will start to look for alternatives. At the very least, the Bharatiya Janata Party will begin to look fragile…….”

Modi’s image, says Kulkarni  “has taken a severe beating because of two convergent failures: his failure to handle the Covid crisis and his humbling defeat to bring his party to power in West Bengal. Never have the global media pilloried him as much in the past seven years as they have done in the past seven weeks. This is certainly debilitating for someone who wants to be seen as a great global leader. ……”

In the circumstance, Mukhopadhyay says “to get its political mojo back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi must consider the unimaginable — taking a step backwards to ensure that the farmers who are now agitating on the borders of Delhi return home amicably. The BJP will have to plan on ways to meet the electoral challenge in three states where it is in power and which are due to hold elections next year — Goa, Uttarakhand and, most crucially, Uttar Pradesh. Increased networking among the Opposition parties, so evident during the West Bengal elections when several leaders appeared on the Trinamul Congress’ platforms, will be an added headache for the BJP.”

 

Question mark over Modi’s governance model

In the circumstance, D K Singh (editor, politics, at ThePrint)  suggests, Modi needs a new team.  In his first term, the prime minister had expanded his council of ministers within six months in office — from 45 to 66. In July 2016, barely a couple of months after the second anniversary of his government, Modi carried out another cabinet reshuffle. He revamped his team again a year later.

On 30 May 2019, Modi inducted 57 ministers; his team’s strength is down to 53 today. But he hasn't thought of a revamp.  There could be only two reasons if Modi hasn’t started ‘thinking’ about a revamp, argues Singh.  “First, the team doesn’t matter. All decisions are taken by the Prime Minister’s Office and so it doesn’t make a difference even if Modi decides to induct robots and zombies as ministers. You can count on your fingers the ministers who seem to have an understanding of the sectors they are handling. And I am talking about only aptitude, not performance. To be fair to others, they often look clueless because they are barely involved in the decision-making process.

“The second reason for the lack of enthusiasm or urgency about the cabinet reshuffle could be complacency and over-confidence. People vote for Modi and he remains supremely popular. Nobody has got an answer to the ‘Modi-versus-Who’ question yet. His model of governance, good or bad, got a big thumbs-up from the people of India in 2019…….”

But the poll outcome in West Bengal should serve as a wake-up call for Modi. The Bengalis sent out a clear message: “They may love Modi but not his governance model. In 2014, India had voted for a strong and decisive leader and the Gujarat model of development. In 2019, India again voted for the strong and decisive leader and his welfarist model of governance. By 2021 though, the leader is still popular but there is growing scepticism about his governance model. The Covid pandemic has exposed the fault lines. Too much centralisation of power and decision-making has caused inefficiency and indifference at all levels of governance.”


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