Shiban Khaibri
Are contours of fair and honest politicking anywhere in sight in our democratic set up, especially among those who are driven by the people to occupy the back seats, the opposition parties? It is less amazing and more shocking to see how political vengeance or points are settled, off the actual purported reason. You lose an election all in the game of democratic set up but that cardinal principle is forgotten under the hangover of a fallacious right to rule eternally. That is the precise reason that disruptions in the otherwise expected smooth functioning of the august houses of Parliament take place under one pretext or the other. Is it not customary for us to hear immediately before the start of a session of the Parliament that the “session is expected to be stormy and turbulent” and that the Honb’le speaker had a meeting with all the political parties to extend their bit of support in not sending the house into chaotic disorder and the resultant washing out of days together without transacting any business? Who gives them the mandate to do it and send down the drain, our tax money? In the coming years, there shall emerge on the democratic landscape, more yearning for accountability and the voter exercising his right to recall. The democracy shall not only survive then but become more quality oriented.
“The secret look, the stolen gaze; finds its mark and yet it strays” could be an attempt to reproduce the lines in an over literary parlance “Kahin pa nigaheen, kahin pa nishana …” At the outset, let those who are desperate in floating the Third Front be asked as to what is the dire need of its proposed formation and why the real motive is obviously bottled up though everyone knows who is in the direct and pointed firing line. Why formation of such fronts and Morchas conceived hurriedly but rudimentarily are in the news only after the current dispensation led by Narendra Modi keeps on marching ahead with his juggernauts, flattening all that come in his way but strictly in a constitutional, democratic and lawful manner. The idea of a Front was all on the grapevine immediately after the NDA won Assam. It took a deep breath and a bit of resetting till a massive victory, unprecedented and equally unexpected, in the state of Uttar Pradesh by the BJP through its main super star Narendra Modi and an upcoming but equally promising one, Yogi Adityanath. UP election results again gave a momentary push to the idea of some Front formation with a decision to either leave Congress for good or make Congress follow rather than lead. It was soon aborted because of its own contradictions.
The North East which was being taken for granted by the Congress Party and equally by the Communists stands completely overhauled sending almost whole of the opposition into an irrecoverable tizzy especially with the results of Tripura so much so that many of them have started speaking incoherently. For example, Mamta Banerjee is more stunned than Manik Sarkar and the Left red brigade. Her predicament is beyond comprehension and her reaction sounds piquant in that she says, “No BJP credit for winning Tripura but it is CPM’s loss.” Her bête-noire , the Communists for ousting from Bengal , she had to struggle for years at a stretch, is now lamenting for their loss only because her strongest new found bête- noire Modi was the beneficiary of the peoples’ verdict. She ridicules and provokes the CP I(M) simultaneously for “completely surrendering to the BJP”..Whatever she could think of , she emptied that all like money “showered” like water from a hosepipe, EVM tampered, taking thousands of people from other states and using central (Police) forces “but CPI(M) remained silent all along”. The natural affiliation towards Congress made her sooth the vanquished ones from that party and as a succor, is sponsoring and backing the candidature of Singhvi for RS seat. That is why, it is said that enemy’s enemy looks like a friend. Even after emerging as the single largest party in Meghalaya, the Congress could not form the government while others cobbling the required numbers including the BJP could and Conrad Sangma took oath as the 12th CM of Meghalaya.
Can so much confusion and disarray engulf the old party to the extent of besmirching them? It is all the more getting accentuated with the idea of floating a newer Third Front, “independent of the BJP and the Congress”, the aim and objective, however, being to unite irrespective of ideologies and beliefs of politics with one single aim to checkmate the hurricane known as Narendra Modi because there was a “grave danger to democracy, the constitution and secularism” with his continuation in 2019 and thereafter. Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao known for his “very liberal” secular credentials is not happy with the massive victory march of the BJP under Modi’s leadership and, therefore, has made it clear that he had conceived of the formation of a third front “to counter the BJP and the Congress”. So much has he been motivated by Momta Banerjee and Assad-ud- Din Owasi that otherwise an admirer of Modi , he has raised the banner of Third Front in what is chorused to “save democracy and secularism” .
Rao’s lavishly praising V. P. Singh and Devegowda as best Prime Ministers is his quality of choice and political expertise, however, he vehemently wrote off the gone 70 years’ rule as leading only to “people are suffering” . He made it clear , at the same time, while talking to the media at the Pragati Maidan, Hyderabad that he was the friend of the Prime Minister and he “shares a personal bond” with him but he could not get an appointment to meet him when he was in Delhi. For the time being, the ever warring and arch rivals SP and the BSP are also united to “save democracy and secularism” and strangely the TMC and the Left once in eternal conflict, too have joined only to “protect democracy and secularism”. The “compulsions and the state of being nonplussed” by other groups joining the wagon with just one aim of only and only to pin down Modi are apparently manifest in how non BJP parties desperately reacted to the entire North East getting saffronised.
From the experience of the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar and fielding a joint candidate of conflicting variant groups in some byelections etc is to inject some hope in the static old dream of a National Front to rule Delhi simply because of divergent political beliefs and priorities. The experience of 1989 and 1996 of such experiments in the burst of the “dire need” of a federal coalition is fresh in the minds of the people. Now, the main question of the choice of the Prime Minister from amongst the regional heavy weights is cardinal to the sustenance of this front. There is no coherent narrative or the immediate redemptive practical programme with the architects of this Front to motivate people that there existed any real threat, even in the least, to democracy, the constitution or to the too much talked about secularism. Secondly, they had no economic magic wand to cure the agricultural distress and make farmers enjoy and never think of committing suicides, nor any divinely solution to the problem of unemployment. Thirdly, Congress still has some small pockets of following across the country and has some leaders too as compared to the regional ones. It still is the main opposition, as on date and cannot be written off by this Front. Finally, there seems to be no threat to the BJP unless they do not feel too much over confident and complacent on account of their overwhelming dominance. They have to work a bit harder.
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