Let us not kid ourselves with those lofty catchphrases about elections in India being a festival of democracy. Because the hollow epithets mean nothing. Because it is merely a day when people above 18 are indulged and made to feel special and important. The visuals of people queuing up suggest they are the real power who can make or mar a politician's career. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Goa, Telangana, Andhra, Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Bihar. Aaya Ram Gaya Ram now comes in different regional variants - Konkani, Telugu, Tamil, Bhojpuri, Meitei. It does not matter what you promised the voter during the election campaign, it does not even matter if you said you will be left of centre or right of centre in your policies if you came to power. Once you are elected as an MLA, you are free to swing like a pendulum. “Inner voice” is an effective synonym these days for a suitcase or the threat of CBI or ED action.
Which is why Nitish's decision to separate from his partner of 20 months to reunite with his ex, with who he ruled for over eight years, is hardly surprising. It does not matter that the voters of Bihar chose the Mahagathbandhan over the NDA in 2015, it does not matter that Nitish ran a Bihari vs Bahari campaign. In Nitish's book, if the people of Bihar could accept his friendship with a tainted Lalu Yadav, they should be okay with his U-turn on Narendra Modi as well. Too bad if they don't, he can always spin a new yarn in 2019 and 2020.
This is the nature of Indian politics now that once elected, the MLA has a free run for five years. Ethics can go, eat mud or cowdung.
Look at the two Telugu states, setting new low standards in political morality. 12 of the 15 Telugu Desam MLAs in Telangana have shifted to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti, a couple of them within three months of being elected on the TDP ticket. Leaders shamelessly explained it as “political realignment”. K Chandrasekhar Rao even inducted early bird T Srinivas Yadav into the cabinet, proof that it pays to be a turncoat.
Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu protested against the manner in which his TDP was sought to be decimated in Telangana. But did Naidu, who brags about being a honest politician, follow a different template in his state politics? No. He followed KCR's example and poached on 21 YSR Congress MLAs, making four of them ministers in his cabinet.
In the world of convenient horse-trading, voters are asses. And with the Speaker in both states turning a blind eye to the defections, the anti-defection law is not worth the government paper it is printed on.
Manipur and Goa which voted in hung assemblies saw the BJP race ahead with the support of smaller parties and crossovers from the Congress, which had emerged as the single largest party. The four examples are proof that ideology is a fake figleaf. Politics is a business and what matters is the bottomline. If a different political party offers better prospects for growth, netas are willing to jump into any bed. They do not fuss over the quality of the mattress, whether it has more coir and less foam, or more corruption and less Hindutva.
Tamil Nadu presents an even more startling case. Where without winning a single seat in the assembly, you can control a government through remote control. All you need to do is to get the Income Tax, CBI or ED to knock at the door of the powers-that-be, to push them into a state of political arthritis. Political corruption in India is a great leveller, it ensures everyone in the political spectrum gets a share of the power pie, irrespective of whether the people voted for them or not.
In 1999, Shankar directed a Tamil film called `Mudhalvan' (remade in Hindi as `Nayak'), the story of a journalist who becomes CM for one day. Nitish did the opposite in Patna. He chose not to be CM for 24 hours, resigning on Wednesday evening to get ready to take fresh guard with a new running partner in BJP leader Sushil Modi. The interim period has seen him get his kurta washed at the Patna Dhobi ghat near Raj Bhavan. Mr Clean of Bihar politics now has NDA certification.
But Nitish, KCR or Naidu are not the only ones to mock at the people's mandate. In 2015, the people of Bihar gave another chance to Lalu Yadav in the hope that he would no longer be a votary of jungle raj or indulge in corrupt practises. The fresh set of charges against his family are an indication that old habits die hard. Lalu, who considers himself a master of realpolitik was so blinded with putr-moh (love for the son) that he failed to read the writing on Nitish's wall. Loss of power should give him some fodder for thought. And his egoistic “I made Nitish CM'' utterances, underlining his stature as kingmaker proved to be his undoing. They were also an insult to the people of Bihar who were the ones who voted the duo in.
Seventy years after Independence, voters are neither shareholders in Indian electoral democracy nor stakeholders in the system. They are votebanks, e-ATMs (Electoral ATMs) if you please, to tap into once in five years. Once the vote is transferred into the neta's account, what he does with the power in his pocket is his business. Which is perhaps why the voter in Tamil Nadu and Andhra has put a price to his vote so that the neta knows there are no free lunches or votes in politics.
The voter is dead. Long live the Neta.
