The developments last week highlight two severe side effects of the subedari system. Lalu, Paswan, Mulayam and Mayawati are considered classical misusers of the worst form of casteism. Nitish Kumar is not normally included in this list. This time when Nitsh swept the polls, the issue was development, admittedly not casteism. Its main campaigners – Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and the PM – had made Nitish’s failure to use the central funds for development as a major issue. Yet the party’s seat tally dropped by half or less than 2 per cent of the total. Hence this time the party cannot claim to be a victim of casteism.

The trend highlights the ruling party’s position as a third or fourth party in at least four big states – West Bengal, UP, Bihar and Tamil Nadu – with a little less and 200 Lok Sabha seats. This was entirely due to its sultanate style party management. Indira Gandhi had evolved the style after she had crushed the ‘Syndicate’ revolt of 1989. Instead of evolving consensus or proper election, she thought the high command is in a better position to fix the right PCC leaders. She was the party’s only vote catcher, and there were no serious challenge from other political parties. Things began to sour when the coteries at the high command began making wrong choices and tried to eliminate popular leaders.

Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress are the living byproducts of the sultanate-style management. The first has made himself an equal challenger and the other pushed the Congress on to the third position. Things were not so bad until the regional parties emerged as credible alternatives. The raison d’etre of the appointment system is prevention of the rise of any single credible leader in states. Whenever some one gains on his or her own strength, the coterie would pull the person down. Last time they had tried to shred Sheila Kaul but she luckily survived. Similarly, some had wanted to cut Rajashekhara Reddy to size but political compulsions made him the sole choice.

The problem with the sultanate system is that by silencing the local challengers it also kills local talents and initiatives. When power and position are bestowed solely on the basis of the contacts with the Delhi durbar, it kills new talents. The recent local elections in Gujarat, UP and West Bengal and now assembly results in Bihar underline this grim truth: failure to develop a credible leadership at the state and lower levels. The dearth of leadership is equally acute in Orissa and MP.

Unfortunately, both the Congress and BJP are continuing with the same perilous practice. The way the same trouble-shooter team sent to Mumbai, their hasty return and midnight decision to impose Prithviraj Chavan as chief minister and replacing Rosaiah by Kiran Reddy in lightning speed all speak the same old style. The whole idea is not to give too much time for the local claimants to present their case. In Bihar, a couple of months before the elections, a new PCC chief was appointed under the Rahul model party management. Candidates were chosen at Delhi bungalows. Many selected candidates were unwanted defectors from other parties.

The BJP’s humiliating surrender to Yediyurappa’s challenge has been a case in point. On November 21, the party had decided to replace him to uphold the BJP’s moral high ground. He was summoned to Delhi but instead he used the time to mobilize support among the state MPs and MLAs. By the time he had reached the capital, Delhi’s resistance had already crumbled. He had threatened to dissolve the assembly. Seventeen BJP MPs had warned they will lose future elections without Yeddiyurappa’s Lingayat votes. He used the caste to the full by getting the support of Lingayat swamis and maths.

All this had unnerved the Delhi leaders. For them at stake was the BJP’s southern dream. In return, what the BJP high command got was promise of a judicial probe into his sons’ corruption and asking them to live separately. The party is now left between two self-made chief ministers who threaten to be a challenge to the Delhi leaders any time. Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Chauhan, another second-termer, is fast gaining in stature.

For the Congress, the Bihar outcome also sounds a twin jolt. First, its carefully drafted revival plans for the four ‘barren’ states has gone fut. Second, it has given a major setback to its Project Rahul’. Rahul’s go-it-alone strategy was the bottomline of the new game plan for the four ‘barren’ states. This was hoped to build an organizational base. Perpetual alliance was blamed for the blunt growth. There were great hopes when the Rahul line had enabled the Congress make marginal improvements in the last Lok Sabha election in UP.

In Bihar, Rahul concentrated on 17 districts for a full week. Sadly, out of 22 constituencies he had addressed rallies with massive mobilisation, the party could win just one seat. In most other places, the party came third or fourth. The Congress did not have its agents or booth managers in most booths. Students recruited for the work at the last minutes did not even know what to do. The failed miracle now looks to delay the entire Project Rahul to catapult him to the highest post.

Nitish’s rise as a formidable leader has prompted some people speculate: will he really rise as a new soft-liner Vajpayee of the NDA? However, a more immediate question is: will he eventually turn a Navin Patnaik and sever his links with the RSS? At the moment all this looks too premature. For, Navin himself had to turn against the BJP when the RSS forced him on the Kanthamal issue. The first question will entirely depend on the electoral future arithmetic at centre.. If the BJP manages a workable majority with its NDA allies, why should the RSS, which is increasingly micro-managing its political wing, give the position to an outsider?

In case the NDA will be short of the magic figure, Nitish will be forced to don a V.P. Singh mantle to take outside support from both the BJP and Left. For, most NDA parties would not like to be seen as backing a coalition in which the BJP will be a participant. At this stage, all such speculations look too far-fetched. What, however, looks certain is that the BJP will have to settle for a two-pronged political posture and election campaign strategy. While it will continue to ply its hard Hindutva for Gujarat, it will be unrecognisably diluted in Bihar in the east. The BJP’s two Modis were already pedaling two diametrically opposite postures to please the different constituencies. (IPA Service)