Politics of power on display in India

Political parties in India have proved beyond doubt in this Lok Sabha election that their primary objective is to attain power. They have adopted the most unbecoming methods to try to increase their numbers without any sense of guilt. They have pushed out issues and replaced them with personal attacks and whatever else suits them. The polity has remained fragmented as the idea of India has become distant.

The ruling Congress has been the biggest sinner. It has stopped at nothing to try to be victorious. It has had no compunction in using criminals, fundamentalists and casteists for garnering votes. Money and liquor is not taboo either. Some 12 per cent of the Congress candidates are charge-sheeters. The assets the party nominees have declared is an average of Rs10 million per candidate.

The Congress has seen to it that Octavio Quattrochi, an Italian and known to be close to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is off the list of those who received payoffs for buying Bofors guns from Sweden.

The party's claim to be secular does not wash because it has not implemented even one recommendation of the government-appointed Sachar Committee report which pointed out last year that the plight of Muslims was worse than that of dalits or untouchables.

The BJP's attack that the Congress uses Muslims as the vote bank, without doing anything concrete for them, is justified. Indeed, the party brings secularism to the fore only during the polls and forgets it after coming to power.

Backwardness of Muslims is a sad commentary on the Congress which has been in power for more than 50 years since independence. Yet the Muslims do not seem to have many options.

They cannot vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) because of its extremist fringe. Nor do they have much confidence in regional parties which are getting too parochial and too imbedded in caste and local problems.

However, the community may still vote for two or three main regional parties. With the Congress and the BJP, teetering at somewhere about 150 seats each, these regional parties become important because they provide some 75 members to enable any party or a combination to reach the magic figure of 272 in the house of 543.

Muslims constitute 15 per cent of nearly 700 million voters and can make a difference at least in 200 seats. But their earlier tendency to vote for a winnable candidate against the BJP has been dissipated.

There are several secular parties claiming the community's vote. Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar has been getting most of Muslim vote. But both are unhappy about the community's lukewarm response to them.

Muslims look like moving towards the Congress, which was their first choice till 15 years ago. Sensing this, the party has gone it alone in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar even though it has destroyed the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The party has jettisoned Singh who helped the central government survive the vote of confidence some six months ago.

Similarly, Yadav who has stood by the Congress has been told that he may not be included in the cabinet if the Congress comes back. One thing the party has proved: Infidelity thy name is Congress.

Again, it is the Congress which made it difficult for the communists to continue in the UPA. The nuclear treaty with the US was crucial for both - for one, it meant nearly the membership of the nuclear club and, for the other, it indicated New Delhi's strategic alliance with Washington. The communists have founded the third front. But it is tragic that their present strength of 62 may go down to 45 when they need the numbers most.

The BJP is conscious that its 80-year-old prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani does not appeal to the 23 million young voters. Rahul Gandhi sells better. But his stock has not yet risen so high that he can be chosen prime minister despite the efforts of his mother Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Rahul's press conference can spell out the party's strategy, but not bring votes.

Yet the main challenge which Indian political parties will face after elections is how to accommodate the nation's diversities in the political structure. Problems have been left unsolved for years.

The National Integration Council cannot bring about the emotional unity. The issue continues to be how to string together the local and regional forces for the central idea of India.

A federal structure can only tie up loose threads. New Delhi has to decentralise power. Troubles in Pakistan began to increase when the authority came to be concentrated at Islamabad. New Delhi cannot stay smug or suppress aspirations that different regions represent. It has to make them feel that their entity means a lot.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian high commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Rajya Sabha member.