Re-think on the advisability of opting for a Lok Sabha election in April s visible in the Congress camp. Latest thinking favours the ballot in November.
The Congress high command views 2008 as a year of elections. Three North-eastern states, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland will elect their MLAs in February- March.
Four other states will go for assembly elections in November. These are BJP ruled Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan and Congress ruled
BJP has suffered a series of setbacks in by-elections in Madhya Pradesh. The situation was no different in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where the BJP is driven by dissensions.
The latest by-elections in Madhya Pradesh have gone the Congress way. Chief Minister (GIVE HIS NAME HERE) conducted the campaign for the Kargoan Lok Sabha seat and the Sanwar assembly seat (
Firstly, the victory margin was convincing - 10,000 votes in the case of Sanwar and a huge 1, 18, 638 votes at Kargoan, a traditional BJP seat.
Secondly, the myth created over Sadhvi Uma Bharati is shattered with her Bharatiya Janshakti Party’s nominee coming a poor third. At Sanwar he polled just 3671 votes. This is for fourth time Uma Bharati has failed to open her party’s account in the by-elections since she left the BJP. Her forays into UP and Gujarat have not yielded much in electoral terms since she traded of her (doubtful) political credentials for the goodwill of the Sangh Parivar in both the states.
Thirdly and more importantly, the by-elections saw the emergence of Jyotiraditya Scindia, as a leader in his own right in Madhya Pradesh which was hitherto mostly the turf of Digvijay Singh and Arjun Singh. Scindia junior personally selected the nominee, Silavat, for Sanwar and campaigned for his victory. In other words, the Gennext is coming into own.
Vasundhara Raje, the lone BJP Maharani, is not happily placed. Her problems are challenges thrown up by her one time mentors – Jaswant Singh and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.. Then there is the added trouble from the Gujjars, a self-inflicted wound for Vasundhara in a way. She has bought a reprieve from them but it will prove costly in electoral terms.
Doctor Saheb, as Chhattisgarh chief minister …… is addressed has some track record that can be envy of his opponents within and outside the BJP. Yet, he has to contend with a resurgent Congress which has tasted by-election successes, cashing on his Maoist ‘handicap’.
Election to these three states can be advanced to April to suit the Lok Sabha dates arguing that it would help cut down expenditure. Any how already a precedent has been set in Himachal Pradesh, where the Election Commission rather arbitrarily advanced the elections due in Feb to December it self.
But is it worth the trouble. Why not give a longer rope to the BJP to tie itself in knots with anti-incumbency? This question is doing the rounds now. And there appear to be many takers for the idea of pushing the Lok Sabha election to 2008 end.
For this section, November is a better bet for Lok Sabha election. According to them, it would mean advancing elections by some six months. ‘That is not a big deal in electoral politics’ and the government can be deemed to have run its full five year course.
Another plus is that Sonia Congress can lay a rightful claim for an ability to run coalitions. The UPA is its first coalition experiment.
Hitherto, BJP has been projecting itself as the only expert in running multi-party coalitions. It has been taking digs at the Congress. A November poll will therefore certainly blunt the BJP edge.
Another plus from the Congress perspective is the time it will have to derive full advantage from the slew of sops and the multi-crore rupee Bharat Nirman publicity campaign presently under way.
Informed sources in the Congress and the Left circles say Sonia Gandhi, personally speaking, is inclined towards November. The Ministerialists, however, are advocating March –April to deny the BJP and BSP the breathing space they need to put their act.
Analysts outside the Congress also are not unconvinced by the argument that November would give some benefit to the BJP and BSP. According to them, the BJP is a divided house with no quick fix in sight.
The result in
In so far the BSP is concerned, these analysts contend that the Maya phenomenon will have a limited reach and impact even in normal times. Mayawati has to put in long hours of work and effort to repeat her experiment outside Uttar Pradesh. As such March-April or November makes no difference.
In other words, the advancing of Lok Sabha elections has once again become an open ended issue.
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