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BJP, Congress begin preparing for June poll

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

India's two biggest political parties have already begun looking ahead to the mid-term election. The Bharatiya Janata Party's national executive is meeting on May 1 and 2 to discuss the campaign, while Congress managers and planners have gone into overdrive.

Both parties are working on the premise that the election will be held in June. Some believe the polls might be deferred to September since the Election Commission is in the midst of revising its rolls. But both parties are keen to have the election as soon as possible, for their own reasons, and prefer June, giving the commission six weeks to prepare for the world's biggest electoral exercise.

Elections are usually avoided in the monsoon, which stretches from June to September. But given the constitutional obligation that Parliament has to meet within 180 days of the end of its last session -- which means October 21 in this case -- a monsoon election is unavoidable this time.

But to minimise the difficulty in campaigning and to farmers who are busy with sowing and harvesting in this period, the preferred months are reduced to June or September.

The BJP believes it can cash in on the sympathy generated by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's defeat in the Lok Sabha. Indeed, the very fact that Vajpayee lost by just one vote has become symbolic of the fact that he "almost enjoyed" a majority in the House and the government would have continued but for the Opposition's machinations.

But the Congress is wary of allowing the BJP to remain in power even as a caretaker for almost six months. It fears the BJP will strengthen its grip on the administration and implement certain populist schemes that will benefit the party.

While it is still too early to say what the various parties' strategies for the polls will be, the outlines are already becoming visible. Today, the BJP strongly criticised the Congress and the Communist parties for destabilising the government without an alternative arrangement, thus plunging the nation into an expensive and unwanted elections.

"Certain Opposition leaders were boasting that once the BJP-led alliance government fell, they would have a new government in place in five minutes. Where are they now?" scoffed BJP spokesperson M Venkaiah Naidu.

A BJP source said the party would now not hesitate to attack Sonia Gandhi personally. In the last election, the BJP had hesitated to do so because Gandhi was not even a member of the Congress, and was only campaigning on its behalf.

"If we had attacked her then, we would have hurt our image," said the source. "But now she has exposed herself by seeking power at all costs, by bringing down a government just so she could become prime minister. This time, we will not spare her."

While the BJP is unlikely to overtly speak of her foreign origins, covertly the topic is never far. And non-political allies of the BJP, especially certain religious groups, are expected to make the Congress president's Italian roots a key issue.

The Congress on its part is clearly planning to go hammer and tongs at Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav. The goal is clear: target him as the culprit who has harmed secularism by not allowing the Congress to form the government at the Centre, and simultaneously encroach upon his base in Uttar Pradesh, especially by wooing the Muslims.

The party has termed Yadav's "sudden anti-Congressism" an act of betrayal and even hinted at an understanding between the BJP and him to rationalise the overnight change in its stand.

Congress spokesperson Arjun Singh dodged questions on why his party was unwilling to form a coalition government if protecting secularism was its primary aim. But he said the Congress was unwilling to support Jyoti Basu as prime minister because of its bitter experiences in backing governments from the outside [the United Front].

For the Congress, any hope of forming the next government, alone or in coalition, hinges upon its success in Uttar Pradesh, a state that holds 85 seats in the Lok Sabha. And the key there may be the Muslims. While the all-India proportion of Muslims is 11 per cent, the community accounts for 20 per cent of the electorate in Uttar Pradesh.

Salman Khursheed, Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president, has already declared war on the Samajwadi Party by blasting Yadav for failing to protect secularism. "Mulayam was born from the BJP and lived in its lap. Now it is time for us to finish the Samajwadi Party and consign it to the pages of history," he declared a trifle grandiosely, adding, "Future political battles in Uttar Pradesh will be only between the Congress and the BJP."

Khursheed did not rule out a tie-up with the Bahujan Samaj Party, saying it and others are welcome to join the Congress. "But the Congress will be the leading party," he said.

He refused to say how many seats his party expects to win in the state, but insisted it would do "very well".

Khursheed repeatedly used a term that has become very popular among politicians today -- "political space". "Yadav," he said, "has occupied our political space. It is now time for us to reoccupy it."

That, of course, was why Yadav refused to play ball with the Congress in the first place. But Khursheed refused to see the point. "He should have supported the Congress government," he insisted.

On the key issue of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a topic raised once again by Yadav, Khursheed said the Congress stand is that all sides must respect the judgment of the Supreme Court, which is seized of the matter right now.

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