Electorate is looking for a change, but it is still circumspective as there is little choice between two major parties
by Ankineedu Prasad Nallapati, December 24, 2023
YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have geared up for a high voltage electoral battle in Andhra Pradesh with the ballot expected in March -April, if not much earlier. Election Commission is grappling with the poll preparations and thousands of complaints of irregularities in the voters’ list.
Election process in India is perhaps the most complicated than anywhere else in the world. Too many dynamics are at play to narrow down to the right person with winnability credentials.
Each constituency has its own peculiarities. Voters’ caste, sub-caste, religion, and creed carry heavy weight besides socio-economic status. A prospective candidate is generally the one who belongs to the majority or dominant community with wider acceptability. His financial and muscle power, and past performance, above all his public image are equally important.
Assessing all these parameters and making the right choice has become increasingly difficult for leadership of any party. So, political consultancy agencies have entered the fray with the promise to aid with their surveys for everything – candidate selection to campaign themes.
YSR CONGRESS: SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Businessman turned politician, Jagan Mohan Reddy, and the YSR Congress he had carved out of India’s Grand Old Party (GOP) are in the battle mode right from the word go. Strange as it may sound but the fact is their re-election preparations started the day after they were voted to power five years ago. This is as much due to their quest for political depth as due to changing political moods.
Every decision of his government is poll–centric. From social welfare schemes to volunteer system, and ministerial choices to witch-hunting the Opposition, are focused on one goal: How to win the next election. More than half of the cabinet was sacrificed mid-way ostensibly for unadulterated ‘social justice’ pursuit at the hustings.
This experiment with `social engineering’ has since reached its final stages. The `comprehensive caste-based census’ now underway will guide candidates’ selection, as also a poll plank – offer of new reservations in government services.
Various sub-castes under Scheduled Castes (SC), Backward Classes (BC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) will get weightage according to percentage of their population.
A whopping seventy percent of YSRCP seats will go to these sub-castes, according to some media reports. If some party loyalists and stalwarts, including from Jagan Reddy’s own caste, are to be sacrificed, so be it.
MASTER STROKE FOR RETURN JOURNEY
Jagan Reddy is making Social Engineering his main poll plank. Will it work? The Andhra voter will decide. Empirical evidence should make Jagan eggheads to return to their strategy sessions though YSRCP reaped some dividends with some sort of Social Engineering five years ago, in the Year 2019. The gains came from some rudimentary brush at social engineering.
Grand Old Party of India, the Congress, adopted this very social engineering plank or `caste-basis criteria’ in the just concluded elections in four states. It lost in three which are Hindi heartland states but won in Telangana, where caste factor is not that pronounced as in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh or the Hindi belt.
The credit for pushing social engineering concept to the front line goes to the short-lived coalition government of Prime Minister Viswanath Pratap Singh in early 1990s. Facing threats to his survival, VP Singh pulled out the long-forgotten recommendations made by an expert commission for 52 percent reservations to OBCs.
Political nirvana, however, eluded VP Singh.
His government fell soon due to widespread violent movement spearheaded by students against his policy.
Also due to the political engineering mounted by the Congress party.
Soon afterwards the Bhartiya Janata Party, BJP, orchestrated Hindutva politics to counter VP Singh politics. And reaped electoral benefits as never before.
Social engineering remained a plank. This does not mean there are no adherents, and practitioners to this creed. Nothing more, nothing less.
The recent flare up in Manipur, a state in Northeast India, is no more than a blow to the very idea of social engineering.
The Meitei community, which is concentrated in the Imphal valley, wants tribal status but the Kukis and other tribal communities, who are mostly on the hills around the valley, are not amused.
They see a direct threat to their privileges such as reservations in government jobs. The clash between the two groups has claimed over 200 lives.
Political narrative is of late increasingly turning against `social engineering’ experiments. “It (social engineering) will further divide the country with disastrous consequences unseen yet”.
Obviously, there are no takers for this narrative in the Jagan camp. Its eyes are riveted on the Poll Score Board. For electoral nirvana.
The sturdy Telugu voter will deliver his verdict on the Jagan master stroke.
COME BACK WARRIOR
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of Chandrababu Naidu is in the comeback mood. It is beset with several internal contradictions though.
Tardiness, not speed, is the TDP haul mark with Naidu’s penchant for consultations and more consultations.
Now that the loyalists believe that they are preferred choice in what is certainly a two-party battle, many aspirants have sprung up for the prized party ticket.
Wrestling with the selection process, the leadership will have to pick up what they consider as the winnable candidate. And be ready to countenance the damage the losers will seek to inflict.
TDP is also grappling with other issues.
One, the demand for higher representation to the SCs, BCs and OBCs. This is notwithstanding the fact that backward classes are the backbone of the party from North Coastal Andhra to Rayalaseema regions.
Two, its ally, Jana Sena Party (JSP), is demanding its own `pound of flesh’. It had won only one seat in the 175-member assembly last time, and that too it soon lost to the ruling YSRCP.
Yet, Jana Sena cadres want to see their leader, Pawan Kalyan, a Silver Screen Hero, as the next Chief Minister. That all silver screen heros are not heros at the ballot box is a reality that has few takers.
Three, the biggest obstacle on the TDP way is the roadblocks the Jagan Reddy government is placing with a plethora of criminal cases against Chandra Babu Naidu, and TDP’s crown prince, Nara Lokesh.
The idea seems to drown them in criminal – legal web and thus slow down their election preparations.
WELFARE PLUS – BABU WAY
Opposed to YSR Congress party’s Social Engineering plank, the TDP is banking on Social Welfare plus.
TDP leaders assert that their plank is rooted in the reality of the need for welfare with development that leads to job creation.
Welfare, development and jobs are inter-related. There is no one minus if progress is to be broad based and deep rooted, according to TDP egg-heads.
Will the Telugu voters sway by the TDP logic and rhetoric?
There are no ready answers though empirical evidence appears to bring smile to TDP loyalists.
ELECTORATE IS CIRCUMSPECTIVE
The electorate is looking for a change, but it is still circumspective as there is little choice between the two major parties.
The truncated Andhra Pradesh state, formed in 2014, is ruled by the TDP for the first five years and the YSRCP the next.
Together, they wasted precious ten years that robbed the state of any development and job creation.
TDP at least had a vision and laid the foundations for grandiose developmental plans, but the YSRCP devoted all its time to party centric-welfare schemes. Its legacy is a whopping public debt that will hardly allow any elbow room for future growth.
To win the confidence of the voters, the two parties have a tough job.
They need clearheaded plans for taking the state forward to its rightful pinnacle.
The Jagan – Babu Social Warfare is neither here nor there.
The YSRCP’s social engineering alone is unlikely to make a dent.
The TDP’s fuming slogans against Jagan are no substitute to a winnable plank.
Nor Lokesh’s `Red Diary’ bullying, which may turn out to be an albatross around his neck.
If it wants to be the comeback boy, TDP must show its grit to take the bull by the horns. ####
(Ankineedu Prasad Nallapati is former Additional Secretary to Govt of India and President of the Hyderabad-based think-tank, `Deccan Council for Strategic Initiatives’)
