:: Nihal Singh

Tale of six leaders in search of a PM

S. Nihal Singh

April.23 : External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee referred to Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello even though he had forgotten its title and author (something he had read in college, he said) while fencing with his political opponents.

In the process, he inadvertently went to the heart of the question everyone is asking about the 2009 general elections. Are six leaders in search of one office of Prime Minister? And will this tale follow the original Italian play in leading to a farcical tragicomedy?

Politics is a game of achieving and retaining power; some, of course, have other interests in entering a crowded field. But this election must rank as unique in the annals of Indian general elections for having whetted the appetites of a record number of regional leaders to throw their figurative hats into the ring for the highest political office in the land. In the end, these leaders might cancel each other out, but the perceived vulnerability of the two main parties has given wings to their ambitions and they are flying high before they fall to the ground with a thud.

However this drama ends, perceptions are important in politics as in life and they have changed the game of campaigning as it is being played out. Indeed, regional leaders feel that if they cannot get the top job, they would enhance their bargaining power with either of the parties forming a coalition. It is taken for granted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), given its pitch of anti-Muslim rhetoric, will have a tougher time cobbling a coalition than the Congress.

Like in the original play, the plot keeps shifting, is interrupted often and the political characters make up the plot as they go along. Armed with this knowledge, the outside observer can watch the actions and declamations of the regional leaders fall into place like in a solved jigsaw puzzle. But the Pirandello play, first performed in the early 20th century, carries a warning that it initially met with catcalls, its subtleties were appreciated only in later performances after the playwright had explained his intended meaning.

Take Lalu Prasad Yadav for instance. While cutting out the Congress from a neat three-party arrangement he had formed with Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader, Ram Vilas Paswan, he was singing Sonia Gandhi’s hosannas and retained his affiliation with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for a rainy day. Then, suddenly, he administered a left hook on the Congress by partially blaming it for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, on his part, is continuing to recite the dirge of an ungrateful Congress he had rescued by helping surmount the Parliament hurdle for the Indo-US nuclear deal. How far he will go with this dirge remains unclear but it does give the SP greater room for manoeuvre in the post-May 16 scenario. The party’s limitation comes from the rising fortunes of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) because it cannot coexist with its nemesis in Uttar Pradesh.

The Maharashtra stalwart Sharad Pawar has come into his own in the revised version of the Pirandello play. Which side is he on? He has a seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress in Maharashtra, while he is contesting elections with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Orissa. In a broadside, he declared that since the Congress was contesting elections on its own, except for seat alignments in states, each party had the right to nominate a prime ministerial candidate, and he added for good measure that there was a feeling in his state that a Maharshtrian should have a chance of occupying the highest office. He attends a BJD and Communist political love fest in Orissa one day and is jointly garlanded with Sonia Gandhi in Maharashtra on another.

The two prima donnas of Indian politics, Ms Mayawati and J. Jayalalithaa, have adopted different approaches to playing their parts. The BSP has fielded a sea of candidates across the country and its leader is traversing the land from one end to the other. Her accent is on visibility to claim national status. And Varun Gandhi’s hate speech has handed her a bonus — she has strengthened her credentials as the protector of Muslims in the state she rules, as indeed of other communities.

Ms Jayalalithaa opened her account by administering a snub to L.K. Advani, who had suggested the existence of back channel talks with her party.

And she has been candid in declaring that she is keeping her options open. In a fluid political situation, why should she and her party, the AIADMK, commit hara-kiri by tying the knot with either the BJP or the Congress? Nor does she broadcast her prime ministerial ambitions, unlike the other prima donna. She is ready, if and when the time comes.

We are forgetting the sixth character in search of an author. Mamata Banerjee is not quite in the league of Ms Mayawati and Ms Jayalalithaa for the simple reason that she is unlikely to secure the numbers to make a major impact on the post-poll scenario. But she has dented the Marxist fortress of West Bengal, giving the CPM a taste of its own medicine by employing strong men and agitations over an evocative issue to humble the almost-immovable rulers of the state.

Before the votes are counted on May 16, leaders of the two main parties are like bit players. They are so busy knocking each other out that they seem oblivious to how the play will end. Mr Advani has made attacking the persona of the Prime Minister to prove his point that he is the strong leader. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too has responded in kind by suggesting that the supposed Iron Man has feet of clay with the way he retreated to a corner as he saw his fellow Sangh Parivar adherents demolish the Babri Masjid before his eyes. And how he, as home minister in then BJP-led government, extracted dangerous terrorists from prison to send to Afghanistan with foreign minister Jaswant Singh. The motto of the Big Two is plain: Not knowing how the play will end, it is better to fight each other than annoy regional leaders they will need to buttress their claims to form the next government.