Northeast to South: Rise of BJP is imminent
The mass defection of Arunachal Pradesh MLAs from the Congress to the BJP's new political platform, the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), has long-term strategic implications.
If the experiment works, it could be replicated elsewhere. A southern strategy dubbed the SEDA, patterned on NEDA, is already in the works.
Mistake
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi made a politically fatal mistake by alienating the party's Assam leader Himanta Biswa Sarma earlier this year, driving him into a grateful BJP's arms. The Congress rout in the Assam Assembly election followed.
Appointing Sarma convener of NEDA was a masterstroke by the BJP. The disaster that has since befallen the Congress in Arunachal is a direct result of the BJP's new strategic paradigm following its chastening defeats in Delhi and Bihar.
I've been a vocal critic of the BJP's decision to form an alliance government in Jammu and Kashmir with a soft-separatist party like the PDP.
The clock on that experiment has started ticking. But in the Northeast, the BJP has got it right. Singed by the Supreme Court ruling in July reinstating the Congress government in Arunachal, the BJP employed a two-track strategy.
One, it kept open lines of communication with chief minister Pema Khandu on an almost daily basis. Two days after being sworn in as Congress CM in Arunachal, Khandu sought an appointment with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
He was made to wait for three days. "I got an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi within 15 minutes," Khandu reveals.
Two, the BJP used Arunachal's urgent need for central funds to prise open the door. The mass MLA defection from its ranks may have stunned the Congress but it had been under planning for weeks.
The BJP's top interlocutors kept the prime minister closely informed. Sarma executed the plan with clinical efficiency along with Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
Losing Sarma to the BJP will come to haunt Rahul Gandhi for a long time. Sarma has cleaved open a path for the BJP in the Northeast with Assam and Arunachal in the bag.
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| Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal with PM Narendra Modi. (Photo credit: PTI) |
The NEDA can now target Congress-ruled Meghalaya and Manipur. Even Tripura, secure in the Left's grasp, could prove vulnerable if a classical domino effect plays out during the 2018 Assembly electoral cycle.
More worrying for the Congress than even the likelihood of losing the entire Northeast to the BJP is the threat of a NEDA-like thrust in the South.
By using a satellite platform like NEDA, the BJP can firewall its Hindutva agenda from potential allies. In the northeast, with its preponderance of minorities, the Sarma-led NEDA is seen as a more centrist partner than a direct BJP alliance.
The same policy can be used in, for example, Kerala with its 45 per cent minority population.
Kerala and TDP-ruled Andhra Pradesh could then conceivably, along with putative local SEDA satellite allies, penetrate bastions like Telangana.
The SEDA could even make inroads into Tamil Nadu as an era beyond Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi unfolds. Karnataka is likely to fall to the BJP in 2018, giving the party another southern beachhead.
Complacent
More Congress states may follow, including Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, leaving the Congress, if it loses Meghalaya and Manipur as well, with virtually no presence in any state across the country. That is a proposition unthinkable even three years ago.
But the BJP should not be complacent. It faces a stiff challenge in Uttar Pradesh where Mayawati is the clear frontrunner.
A post-poll BSP-Congress alliance, if the BSP falls short of an absolute majority, can't be ruled out. That would give the Congress a toe-hold in India's largest state and spark a mini-revival.
Punjab could be next. The fractious Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Navjot Singh Sidhu's new political formation will make the election a four-cornered battle. Monumental misgovernance by the BJP-SAD alliance will cost it heavily - as it should.
The best the alliance can hope for is a hung house and some horse trading with factions of various smaller parties. But the main contest will be between the Congress and AAP.
With AAP in self-destructive mode, the Congress could begin its national resurrection in Punjab.
Paradox
Meanwhile, the BJP will be hard pressed to defend Goa in 2017. Paradoxically, a three-way fight with the Congress and AAP might divide Goa's large minority vote and help the BJP - undeservedly - to cling to power.
The state's dispute with the local RSS unit bodes ill. It could prove costly for the BJP. Finally, Gujarat. Here too danger lurks.
The AAP is playing spoiler but again may unwittingly help split the Congress vote. Hardik Patel's exile from Gujarat ends in January.
He will have an entire year to create anarchy at the behest of his Congress benefactors. Will the Congress win back Gujarat after a gap of over 20 years?
Unlikely, despite its machinations, because of the triangular math. As the country heads towards the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress may be left with just Punjab (not a certainty though) and one or two pockets in the Northeast (again not a certainty).
Does that mean the BJP will suffer no significant reverses of its own? Not necessarily. Challenges lie ahead in Madhya Pradesh (2018) and Chhattisgarh (also 2018).
Both will face anti-incumbency in a binary contest with the Congress. Rahul would do well to refocus his attention on central India well before the 2019 General Election rolls along.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)