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When BJP's Ram Nath Kovind defeats Opposition's Meira Kumar in Presidential race

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Rajeev Sharma
Rajeev SharmaJun 23, 2017 | 16:59

When BJP's Ram Nath Kovind defeats Opposition's Meira Kumar in Presidential race

The Ram Nath Kovind versus Meira Kumar contest for the presidential elections is like an India-Namibia cricket match. Everyone knows the result. The only point of interest — and that too for the statisticians and not the masses — will be the margin of defeat.

That’s how the presidential election between the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Kovind and the Congress-led Opposition candidate Meira Kumar is generally seen as. And yes, realistically speaking, it’s a David versus Goliath fight but this time the vital difference is that no one can expect the unexpected. Not even Meira Kumar herself would be seriously considering her chances.

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And yet, the upcoming presidential polls, to be held on July 17, are politically symbolic. The only thing that the Opposition would be fighting for will be pride. The all-important question won’t be whether Meira Kumar would lose but how badly she would lose. Going by the current political arithmetic, Kovind will be a way clear winner. However, the Opposition would be nursing its hopes on to what extent it narrows down the margin of defeat.

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The so-called Opposition unity remains as badly fragmented as it was three years ago when Modi made mincemeat of it.

In other words, the upcoming presidential election is nothing but a litmus test for the Opposition unity — a political mirage that has plagued the Opposition for last three years since the era of Modicracy dawned on the Indian political firmament with the only exception of Bihar assembly polls of late 2015.

Yet again, Bihar is in the thick of the political melting pot as the opposition has fielded a woman candidate from Bihar to take on someone who has been a governor from the state in a Dalit versus Dalit contest. There are no doubts that Meira Kumar is a much loftier presidential candidate in terms of stature and far better known than the virtually nondescript Kovind.

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However, the electoral politics doesn’t go by perceived stature of the candidates but by the all-important political arithmetic.

If the presidential election were to be seen as a tug of war between the Opposition and the Narendra Modi-led BJP ahead of the 2019 general elections, then the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already emerged as a runaway victor.

The so-called Opposition unity remains as badly fragmented as it was three years ago when Modi made mincemeat of it.

The only point of interest in the presidential election will be how many votes the Opposition is able to wean away from the NDA when the formal results are announced on July 20. The Opposition will inevitably try to score a brownie point over Modi’s BJP by narrowing the margin of its defeat and how many fence-sitters it is going to snare, if at all.

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By fielding Meira Kumar rather than Shinde, who is from Maharashtra, the Congress party has made things more difficult for Nitish Kumar. Photo: IndiaToday

Eventually, it is going to be a mere symbolic fight. And the Opposition knows in the hearts of its heart that it may not be able to wean away many fence-sitters to its side. In any case, if Kovind were to walk away with more than 65 per cent votes of the electoral college, if not more, it would interest only the statisticians, not the general public.

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While the writing on the wall is quite clear and the point about the fragmented nature of the opposition remains an open secret, it would be a mistake to view it as a final prognosis of the political situation before the 2019 general elections simply because 2019 is still two years away and the political mood of the country in the 2019 general elections — which are direct elections — cannot be determined by the presidential poll which is an indirect election.

Moreover, hasn’t it been a political tradition that the ruling party at the Centre has always been in the driver’s seat when it comes to elections to such high constitutional posts as president, vice president and Lok Sabha speaker?

The matter of interest here is that a contest is actually going to happen and irrespective of the fact that the opposition is battered and marginalized, it hasn’t thrown in the towel.

The Congress made a clever decision of fielding Meira Kumar rather than former home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, also a Dalit, as its presidential candidate.

Under the current political climate, Meira Kumar can achieve strategic political goals much better than Shinde. That’s solely because of the Bihar factor. It’s the Congress way of scoring a brownie point over Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar who has been asked a question subtly whether he would side with someone who has been a governor of the state or whether he would support a woman politician of reasonably high stature who hails from Bihar.

By fielding Meira Kumar rather than Shinde, who is from Maharashtra, the Congress party has made things more difficult for Nitish Kumar.

Clearly, the Congress party is touching a raw political nerve in Bihar, a state where the question of outsider versus an insider has always remained an emotive issue.

This is the Congress' way of dealing with Nitish Kumar whose open dalliances with Modi’s BJP have not gone unnoticed.

In the ultimate analysis, it’s a win-win situation for the BJP. The Opposition has nothing to lose. Nobody is expecting an upset in the upcoming presidential election.

The real battle would be which side is able to eat into the rival's side and to what extent.

It’s going to be an election where the margin of victory or defeat will matter more than the result.

Last updated: June 23, 2017 | 21:07
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