Rajya Sabha elections and AAP verdict are just the beginning as we enter election year
In a year from today we are scheduled to elect a new bunch of chaps, in a gender-neutral sense, to govern us. In the interim, politics will perforce become meat and drink to even those blissfully ignorant of the difference between the BSP and the MSP, as it were. But that is the way of democracy. And the price we pay for ruling ourselves rather than having a monarch rule us.
The Rajya Sabha elections on Friday have once again proven, with the BJP picking up an extra seat from Uttar Pradesh by beating Mayawati's candidate and thereby extracting revenge for the shock by-poll losses in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, if any further proof were needed, that in Amit Shah the BJP has found an indefatigable politician who never backs off, never surrenders and makes sure every slight presumed or real is paid back in full measure. It's actually quite wonderfully refreshing to have a man in charge of the largest political organisation in the country, nay the world, who doesn't have the hypocrisy — which passes as sophistication but is often nothing more than mere sophistry — of ancien regime political managers who did the bidding of their masters like so many lackeys, tails tucked neatly between their legs, but never admitted to it in polite conversation. It is to the eternal credit of the BJP and the Communist party, and their original leaders/builders lK Advani and PC Joshi respectively, that they provided a meritocratic organisational culture which attracted the best and brightest to their respective folds and was one in which connections, family lineage or a flexible spine were not essential prerequisites to get ahead. Shah, in working closely with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for the Rajya Sabha polls, also sent out the message to the party and its adversaries that whether or not there is any truth to the theory of their existing a coolness between them which may have contributed to the by-election losses, when push comes to shove the party leadership will stand together. The fact that the BJP has gained 11 seats in the Upper House after the latest round of polls consolidating its position as the single-largest party in the Rajya Sabha is also, in many ways, a tribute to the relentless political push by Shah and his team in the 21 States of the Union where the BJP and allies are currently ruling. It is this feat, after all, which has enabled the steady climb in Rajya Sabha numbers for the party.
On the other hand, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), once seen as a national alternative to the BJP in the fullness of time before it seemed to lose its way in internecine battles and over-ambition, was entirely justified in feeling vindicated on Friday when Delhi High Court set aside the controversial disqualification by the Election Commission of 20 of its MlAs from the Delhi Assembly for holding offices of profit. While there is some truth in the criticism that AAP tends to play victim when things don't go its way, it is equally true that the party doesn't really have much of a choice on most occasions when it cries victimisation because the political establishment does gang-up pretty mercilessly against these newbies in the political game. While the relief provided to AAP may be temporary, to the extent that the Court has directed the EC to conduct a fresh hearing of the case given the principle of natural justice was not adhered to by the Constitutional body which failed to give a proper hearing to the legislators, the question of the EC having acted under political pressure cannot be elided. That allegation, if found true, holds very dangerous portents for India's democratic institutions. In sum, interesting times informed by relentless politics are in store with a year to go before what promises to be the most bitterly fought General Election in Indian history.