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Opinion
Political Parties – the turmoil within
N K Singh
 The
emergence of the third force of Mayawati’s BSP in Himachal Pradesh might
be good for the political culture of this hill state. It will shake both
the Congress and the BJP out of their smugness. It might also stop these
parties from taking the voter for granted in future as they do now when
faking unity among the contenders for the top job within party.
Two major political parties of Himachal are facing the same malady of
inner conflicts while the elections to the Assembly is drawing close. It
is like two suffering from same disease. Nurpur incident of BJP was an
ugly exhibition of groupies and faction ridden state of the party. After
Mr. Rajnath Singh left Himachal Pradesh, there was great jubilation in
the wake of Hamirpur victory but in their confabulations the party
leader did not name the next candidate for the Chief Ministership. The
result was that the factions of Shanta Kumar and Prem Kumar Dhumal
started throwing mud on each other.
Same is the fate of Congress, which has been harboring discontent of its
senior leaders for quite sometime. Mr. R. K. Dhawan's lessons in unity
had little impact on the warring factions. The declaration that Party
will not name the Chief Ministerial candidate had effect of vagueness.
One minister recently declared that the next Chief Minister will be from
his constituency which obviously meant that he is a candidate. The party
leadership of the State is being treated with little attention by the
government despite the party trying its best to garner support of the
grass root workers. Congress party has done well to organize face to
face interaction of party workers with the leadership which was missing
due to absence of inner party democracy in the past.
Senior Ministers are dissatisfied as they are feeling humiliated and the
latest report of CM declaring that he alone is capable to lead the
government has alienated many stalwarts. The only difference between the
Congress and BJP is that the former is in power and the dissidents are
totally in fear of the all powerful leader.
The only party which has clarity about the choice of their candidate for
CM is BSP. Mayawati in characteristic bravado declared in open session
at Dharamshala that Major Vijay Singh Mankotia will be the Chief
Minister. Not only this, the BSP has swiftly sprung into action and held
a number of rallies with number of dissidents of various political
parties, mostly from Congress, joining it. With a dedicated helicopter
at their command and national support they are going to hit the road to
make their presence felt in the state politics. At the moment they have
Marx's maxim in their mind that "we have nothing to lose except our
shackles" But as soon as they taste success they will also start the
favourite game of Indian politics to start forming factions. It will be
good for Himachal if third force emerges in the political dynamics as it
will erode the existing see saw game.
Unlike the Presidential System where the leader is voted for our system
requires electing the leader by legislator's party. But in order to
conduct an election it helps to project the leader clearly to give
direction to the party campaign. It is not in the interest of good
electioneering to be rudderless. In case a party does not want to name
one due to internal reason or due to incumbency factor, it should face
it. In that case it should make it clear that two or three are leaders
of campaign and out of these one will emerge as the candidate for Chief
Minister. It will give competition to these people to show their
electioneering skills and compete and thereafter a decision can be taken
on the basis of results. Showing indecisiveness and vagueness at the
time of election is just like having doubts when facing a war. The
parties must, therefore, think seriously about the inner differences -
instead of putting them under the carpet- and resolve them instead of
vague show of imagined unity. We must accept the truth and not put
blinkers on our eyes to reality, which every one knows. It is
unfortunate the politics has become an art of telling lies without
realizing that voters have full knowledge of what is going on. |
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