As 2017 comes close, electoral alliances has become the flavour of the season. It is not that the Opposition, is plagued with the problem, even the ruling part also has its own share. The MGP MLAs attending the BBSM meeting has brought their problem to the fore. The Opposition is more in a difficulty due to their dwindling numbers. The new entrant Aam Admi Party (AAP) making a concerted bid has added to their misery. By all reports the AAP shall damage the Opposition more than the ruling party as it has stormed the old conquests areas of Salcete and Bardez.
History shows that whenever Congress Party enters into alliances with regional parties, it gets edged out. However in a BJP-led alliance the regional players are at the receiving end. They get devoured by the organizational set up backed by a well-oiled RSS machinery which pushes the smaller parties to a corner, like it happened to the MGP in Goa, and All India Lok Dal in Haryana. In 1996 the then prime minister P.V. Narsimha Rao worked out an alliance with BSP and was accused of having compromised the party’s position in UP.
The last time the Congress commanded a majority in Parliament was 1984. The approach of the Congress Party has always traditionally against alliances, but that was understandable as for three decades they had charismatic leaders on whose name and at whose behest the party would collect votes. The charismatic leadership approach led to the neglect of the organization. Twenty years after the decline of the Congress started in 2004 Sonia Gandhi took a decisive stand on alliances and if her leadership is to be measured, her pitch towards alliances stands out. She goaded all anti-BJP forces to be together. It is that visionary approach that made the United Progressive Alliance-led by the Congress president to rule the country for 10 years. Gandhi saw the writing on the wall and succeeded in overcoming the limitations faced by the party. The NDA 1 and NDA 2 are also great strategies to overcome the problems of history and in getting catapulated as central pole of Indian politics
After achieving power any party is unable to have incremental effect of an alliance or the alliance does not take the party forward despite being in power, it only shows the organizational failure. That is exactly what has happened to the Congress and regional players like MGP. These parties never had its strength coming from the organization and the cadres but always drew strength from the leadership.
In any alliance one party has to cede space for the other party. Coalition partners compete for same political space. Which party will cede how much is of course depends on their relative strengths and weakness. An alliance may fail to take off, so parties have to be battle ready. It is from that perspective any party’s pre-election stand has to be understood. There is another aspect regional players change sides for better bargains. DMK and AIADMK chose BJP and Congress at different times. Mamata Banerjee was a railway minister under NDA government and her party was a part of UPA. Ram Vilas Paswan has been a minister almost from the time coalition politics came to this country. It is this aspect of regional players shifting sides the national parties are wary of. Normally pre-election coalition stays together at least for sometime.
If Left parties despite opposition from the cadres and some of its senior leaders settled for an alliance, it was because they were aware of their relative strength. The left was in no position to fight Mamata Banerjee, the Left-led alliance certainly halted the rise of the BJP. The stand alone principle in Assam proved costly for the Congress. Power alludes the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh for decades for its failure to strike an alliance with any of the major parties.. As against this the maha-gatbandhan had stellar success in Bihar.
Coming to Goa the opposition seem to be facing a dilemma. The Congress which had 9 MLAs has almost been reduced to 6. Among the elected, the dominant view it appears is that the party must lead an alliance if the decline of BJP is to be harvested but the unelected executive seem to think otherwise. The unelectable has been dominating the party and that is their bane.
For the past 4 years the opposition Congress Party has not attracted any major players, but has lost some of its MLAs. The party’s performance in the house and outside the house has been pathetic. The mass mobilization on any issue has been dismal. Without any charismatic leader, there is nobody amongst them who has caught the imagination of the people. Four and half years down the line, the party has failed to build new equations and expand its base as 2017 draws near. It is in these circumstances that the opposition must strategize whether it shall go by its old principle of no alliances and permit the ruling party to become a potent force with the divided opposition, AAP notwithstanding. The Congress is in no position to fight the BJP alone and will have to join forces with other political players if they intend to wrest power. The responsibility of stitching an alliance must remain with the bigger party. The bigger party must also be aware of ground realities before taking any stand. The other players also must see the writing on the wall before taking any belligerent stand. That is the coalition dharma. It is not who can defeat whom but who can make it to the figure of 21. It only requires special talent not to understand that. The art of politics is to work towards achieving that magic figure called majority.
(The writer is a practicing Lawyer and lecturer in law.)
