2009 Poll Prospects And Alignments

[ramana]

Three reports from Deccan Chronicle, 20 Dec., 2007

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Maya to make UP out of AP
 

Hyderabad, Dec. 20: The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati, has deputed two top leaders to find out ways to expand the strength of her Bahujan Samaj Party in Andhra Pradesh.  This is part of the BSP’s efforts to seize power at the Centre in the 2009 polls by projecting Ms Mayawati as Prime Minister. It also has ambitious plans to come to power in AP. The BSP general secretary, Mr Mahesh Arya, and the Rajya Sabha member, Mr Bilihari Sri Babu, toured the state extensively.

A 10-member team of intelligence officers from UP police is also in the state gauging the political mood. “The response in the coastal districts was tremendous,” said Mr Arya, who is in charge of BSP affairs in the state. “We got three lakh members in just six months. It will reach 10 lakh by next March.”  <b>He said the BSP would contest all the 294 Assembly and 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the next elections.  “We are going to spring some surprises here,” said Mr N. Surya Prakash, BSP State wing president. “Many big leaders vexed with the Congress and the Telugu Desam may join us.” </b>Ms Mayawati has also allowed the party to take up the Telangana issue in real earnest. “The TRS and its leadership betrayed Telangana people and they are looking at the BSP as an alternative,” said Mr Arya.

“We have got the support of artists and intellectuals of Telangana.” Balladeer Gaddar participated in the BSP’s Jogipet meeting and expressed his unhappiness over the style of functioning of  the TRS chief, Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The BSP is trying to field Gaddar against KCR.

Mr Surya Prakash claimed that some powerful Kapu leaders had also been making overtures towards the BSP. “The only thing that is stopping them from announcing their support openly is the Chiranjeevi factor,” he said. <b>The BSP was ready to offer the Chief Minister post to Mr Chiranjeevi if he joined the party, Mr Surya Prakash added. Ms Mayawati is visiting the state on January 5 to hold talks with “important” leaders. Sources said Chiranjeevi may also have a meeting with her. The party is also planning to hold a mammoth public meeting on January 6.</b>

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and

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Cong quandary: Who for PM? </b>
 

New Delhi, Dec. 20: The BJP’s decision to project Mr L.K. Advani as the next Prime Minister has placed Congress leaders in a quandary as <b>they are not sure whether party president Sonia Gandhi will project Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a second term. It is also not certain whether she herself or her son Rahul Gandhi will now contend for the top government post as and when the general elections are held.</b>

<b>Congress leaders are increasingly of the view that a mid-term poll cannot be avoided, and May 2008 currently is the time schedule being given out by party MPs informally.</b> The Left parties also admit that the first possible date for a general election will be May 2008 if the government operationalises the nuclear deal, as expected, by early next year.

Congress leaders point out that the party will risk a mid term election if it is confident that the nuclear deal will go through. <b>“We do not want to be in a situation where we have neither the government nor the nuclear deal,” </b>a senior leader said. In the party’s assessment, the Left Front is not likely to back off and will not continue with the support if the government decides to go ahead with the nuclear deal.  At the same time, there are many leaders at the top level in the Congress who do not want to break relations with the Left completely. <b>They admit, however, that if the government falls on the nuclear issue the Left could be persuaded to support the Congress post poll only if Dr Manmohan Singh is not brought back as Prime Minister.</b>

This, the sources said, immediately makes the position of Dr Singh during and after the next elections “vulnerable”. <b>The Left parties make no secret of the fact that they regard the Prime Minister as the architect of the new strategic alliance with the US with several senior leaders, in particular, disposed more kindly towards Mrs Sonia Gandhi and minister for external affairs Pranab Mukherjee. </b>During the negotiations on the nuclear deal between the Congress and the Left, Mr Mukherjee has been able to project himself to the latter as a “reasonable man”. <b>The choice before Dr Singh, according to his own party colleagues, is to remain Prime Minister till 2009 and forego the nuclear deal, or go ahead with his commitment to US President George W. Bush and then wait for circumstances to catapult him into the position after an early poll.</b>

The Congress is mentally prepared for a mid-term election and sources said, “We will be very surprised if the government completes its full term.” <b>The party is not keen to face a mid-term election on its own, and will prefer to contest as part of the United Progressive Alliance. The only addition, party leaders expect, is the Trinamul Congress with Ms Mamata Banerjee having given sufficient indications of her willingness to join the UPA for the next polls. </b>Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati is seen as an unpredictable entity, and at best a post-poll partner.

However, <b>the Congress and the BJP both expect the BSP to play a decisive role in the formation of the next government with Ms Mayawati seeking lucrative ministerial posts for her party at the Centre.</b> The Congress grapevine has been told that Mrs Gandhi will not become the Prime Minister if the party comes back into power. <b>Her preference would be Mr Rahul Gandhi who, however, has not impressed senior party leaders with his few public appearances.</b> “He needs time,” is the general consensus although those within the charmed circle claim that he “has the ability to learn on the job”. <b>Dr Singh </b>still remains Mrs Gandhi’s favoured leader outside her family, but unlike after the last elections his <b>popularity even within the UPA has waned</b>.

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->‘Return to basics for BJP’
 

New Delhi, Dec. 20: An editorial in the forthcoming issue of People’s Democracy, the CPI(M)’s weekly journal, says that the anointing of Mr L.K. Advani as the BJP’s candidate for Prime Minister is central to the “return to the basics” strategy employed by the RSS-BJP combine and its affiliates to arouse communal passions and consolidate the Hindu votebank.

“The effort is to recall the memory of the infamous rathyatra led by Advani in the early ’90s preceding the demolition of the Babri Masjid, with the hope that this will help consolidate the Hindu votebank. The BJP’s hardcore Hindutva campaign in the recent elections in Gujarat led by Narendra Modi and the venomous speeches of their leaders, highlighting the three core issues of Hindutva agenda — construction of the temple at Ayodhya, uniform civil code, and the abolition of Article 370 — in the Himachal Pradesh election campaign only confirms this,” the editorial says in the December 23 issue of the publication.

“As the next general elections draw closer, such aggressive communal polarisation will be on the rise,” the editorial, titled “BJP’s return to its basics”, will also say. The CPI(M) believes that the façade of coalition dharma, which was frequently articulated by the erstwhile Atal Behari Vajpayee government, will increasingly take the back seat.

“Apart from the fact that the BJP’s allies in the NDA would be thrown into a state of high discomfort, this aggressive return to the basics by the RSS/BJP does not augur well for the future of India’s secular democratic republican foundations,” it says. The editorial criticises the BJP in general for opposing the programme for minority welfare on the ground of “communal budgeting” and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in particular for leading an attack on the issue in Wednesday’s meeting of the National Development Council.

“The Sachar Committee findings have comprehensively nailed the lie of the BJP’s vicious campaign of ‘minority appeasement’,” the editorial says. The CPI(M)’s central committee on Thursday began its three-day meeting in New Delhi. The 85-member committee will firm up the political resolution for adoption at the 19th party congress, which will be held in Coimbatore from March 29 to April 2 next year. It will also discuss issues of foreign and economic policies. The party congress held every three years is the highest decision-making body of the CPI(M).

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So looks like a hot summer ahead in 2008.