Who is India’s next Prime Minister?

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The next general elections scheduled in India is in 2014. If Dr. Manmohan Singh survives and completes his full term (as is very likely) he would have completed 2 full 5 year terms in office. He is already India’s third longest serving Prime Minister.

It is however unlikely for Dr. Manmohan Singh to become our Prime Minister for a 3rd term; principally for 4 reasons.

1. The Congress and the UPA need to come back to power. There is no guarantee of that happening. The political cost of their colossal mishandling on Anna Hazare’s Jan Lok Pal bill is not yet know. In all probability they will lose heavy in Urban areas with the chief beneficiary being the NDA and BJP. They will hope and pray that in 2 years time their bungling will be forgotten and the controversies of Adarsh building, 2G, Commonwealth games, Cash for votes etc. will be forgiven and glossed over. The public will also blame them for the rising prices, interest rates and  inflation over the last few years.
2. He will be near about 82 years old in the 2014 elections. If he does serve a 3rd time, then he will become the oldest person to be sworn in as Prime Minister in India, a feat that is unlikely.
3. The popularity that he enjoyed in his first term 2004-09 is missing in his second term. While majority of the public have no doubt about his integrity and honesty, his second term has been a disaster with a number of ministers embroiled in controversies and scams while he himself has been largely silent on the issue.
4. Finally, after 10 years crisscrossing the country and spending time in the back benches of the Parliament, it is widely believed that the time for Rahul Gandhi to lead Congress has come. He is odds on favorite to be the Congress’s Prime Ministerial candidate during the campaigning for 2014. In the unlikely event of UPA fighting anti-incumbency trends of the last decade (04-14), it will be Rahul Gandhi who will take Centre stage and not Dr. Manmohan Singh.

We are still two and a half years away and a lot can change during this time. I would still think that UPA-II has committed so many mistakes that it is highly unlikely that they will have a similar or larger strength in the 2014 Parliament. They will have smaller numbers which may or may not be enough to form the next government. Can they muster enough support or will the NDA led by BJP take advantage? What about the so called Third Front.

My best guess is that this is going to be a hung parliament. We may have political instability and/or minority governments with external supports like in the days of V. P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, H. D. Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral.

From the BJP/NDA stables
L.K Advani will be be 87 or 88 years old in 2014. A 5 year term means he will be in office at the age of 93 in 2019. I think it is very unlikely scenario ever since he ceded power to the likes of Shusma Sawarj and Arun Jately.

Narendra Modi has age on his side and fanatical support in some parts of the country. The problem with his candidature is that people are either in full and complete support or aghast at the idea of him becoming Prime Minister. There is sharp divide in opinion and BJP allies may desert them if Narendra Modi becomes Prime Minister. It will also not go down well with BJP politicians in Delhi who have nursed ambitions on the high seat. He can become Prime Minister in the following scenarios
1. BJP wins enough numbers by itself. If it crosses simple majority or even falls short by small numbers, then the allies will fall in line and those that don’t will not hurt the stability of their government.
2. BJP does not announce a Prime Ministerial candidate during the election campaign. Given the apathy to UPA-II people vote for UPA. BJP Parliamentarians elect Modi who will then have 6 months to get himself elected through either the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha.
3. Advani is PM candidate for the 3rd time running and fulfills a long standing ambition of becoming PM. Mid-way to his term, he retires and gives Modi a back door entry.

I will be surprised in the extreme if the BJP announce Modi has the prime ministerial candidate ahead of the general elections. That would ruffle too many feathers both within the BJP and its allies.

Nitish Kumar is an outside choice within the NDA. If BJP depend on allies to form a government and Advani rules himself out, it creates an interesting position. Are the next 2 or 3 leaders strong from BJP strong enough to emerge from the shadows or will Nitish become consensus candidate. With the NDA he has a secular image and has done well for himself and Bihar in recent years.

Other BJP candidates like Shushma Swaraj, Arun Jately etc seem to cancel each other out, sort of vetoing each other off. I don’t know if the equation will change in the coming years and balance of power will shift to one side conclusively. Based purely on the last decade that looks highly unlikely that status quo will change or if either of them will cede ground for the greater good of the party.

The Third Front otherwise known as The Others
1. Mayawati – Her only hope is that the House is so messed up that she can become Prime Minister by cobbling up a motely crew for herself. Outside support from Congress or BJP would be a requirement. Even if she doesn’t last the full term she would have achieved a naked ambition she has nursed for years. If anyone withdraws support they will of course have oppressed Dalit rights and were always against Dalits in the first place.
2. Practically anyone – This is a scenario where Congress or BJP is giving outside support. Just about any consensus candidate can emerge for a minority government surviving on outside support. This happened with Chandra Shekhar, H. D. Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral. The government will be highly unstable and will not last more than a year or two.

Game Changer – Anna Hazare
Anna Hazare seems to suggest that he will ask the people of the country to back those parties that have zero tolerance to corrupt politicians. If there is a political party (either of the big two) ready to field candidates with no taint of scam/corruption/criminal cases against them and Team Anna backs them – then what? Will the people back Anna and respond? I don’t know the answer. Is his support widespread or is it just a TV audience.

As things stand, I see a lot of uncertainty in the coming elections. The ruling coalition has been disappointing and the main opposition parties show lack of strong leadership.

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The mandate to rule India

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There is an interesting sub theme to the Jan Lok Pal Bill agitation led by Anna Hazare and the India Against Corruption movement. Civil society activists lobbying the government for enactment of such Bills are not the people’s representatives. They have no locus standi because they do not represent us in our Parliament. They stand outside our democracy and tell our elected representatives what to do and if our elected chaps don’t agree, then they agitate, go on hunger strike, mobilize aam janta support and make the government lose heavy political capital in the bargain. When the politicians tell us that this is a subversion of parliamentary and democratic norms, they are actually right. (Never mind the fact that the aam janta that voted them also supports India Against Corruption wholeheartedly.) After all our MPs and our MLAs are duly elected by us and send as our representative to Parliament.

Politicians that are in the ruling coalition always tell you that they have the mandate to rule for a 5 year term. This is significant. It signifies that the people of India have selected their merry band of politicians to see them through another 5 years of unfulfilled promises. But do they really have the mandate to rule us? Are they really in power because of popular support?

I have been wanting to determine popular support and quantify it for a very long time. I am undertaking this exercise based on the Indian General Elections 2009 – since it was our last one. You can choose any election results (state or central) and determine popular support if you like. This is not meant to show any political party in a bad light; it is merely my attempt to quantify what the media and politicians refer to as popular support and mandate.

Here are some undisputed facts:

1. The population of India stands at 1.2 billion people. That’s 120 crore people.
2. The number of people who were eligible to vote in Indian in 2009 were 71.4 crores as per Wikipedia.
3. The average voter turnout was 59.7%; that means approximately 42.6 crore people voted. (That’s probably a bit too high than it actually is because the declared statistics are not of actual number but of the averages across each constituency of varying populace). For the sake of ease, lets assume that it is indeed 42.6 crore.
4. Indian National Congress was the single largest party and the major partner of the UPA II coalition. Their vote share in the 2009 election was 28.6%. That means out of the 42.6 crore that bothered to turn up, 28.6% of them voted for the ruling party that formed our government. That comes up t0 12.18 crore.
5. Lets assume the remaining allies of the UPA polled another 10% together, that’s another 4 crore.

So basically the votes of roughly 16 crore people out of 120 crore have ensured that the UPA rules for another 5 years.

That’s 13.34% of all citizens in India.

That’s popular vote and mandate to rule. That gives our government the license to formulate laws and govern us. If you look at NDA stats of 1999 general elections you will come up with a similar number. If you look at most state elections, you will come up with a similar number.

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Right to recall

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Right to recall your elected representative – wow – that' is what Anna Hazare wants next. It basically means that someone elected as my representative can be recalled from Parliament. With Anna Hazare now having a nation wide recognition, civil rights representatives will use him symbolically to set up corrective measures in our democracy making politicians and bureaucrats accountable.

First there was the Right to Information Act, passed in 2005 by the UPA and part of the Congress’s election manifesto which it delivered. It took active participation from people like Aruna Roy and Arvind Kejriwal for this to become reality. Anna Hazare played a role here too, by forcing the Maharashtra government to pass a strong Maharashtra Right to Information Act in 2003. This became the basis on which the law was enacted at the national level.

Then the entire “India Against Corruption” movement and the Jan Lok Pal Bill. Once this bill is passed it will act as a deterrent and add accountability to government officials and the members of parliament. I hope the parliamentary members don’t drag their feet for too long on this otherwise the civil movement will continue to protest.

Next on the agenda is the Right to Recall. Does this mean we can recall our representatives whenever we feel like? NO. It requires certain circumstances before this can happen. For example, there are allegations of corruption against your representative and the constituents feel that until a probe determines reality, it is inappropriate for the MP to continue in office.

Doesn’t that give opportunities for political opponents to stir up trouble for the duly elected parliamentarian? Not really. Political opponents will always try to lobby against elected officials. The way this should be implemented is that an MP/MLA can be stripped of his office by the people through a referendum. If enough number of people want to recall him, then he is recalled otherwise the referendum has failed.

The referendum itself cannot be held until a certain number (or percentage) of the MP/MLA’s constituents sign a petition asking for a referendum. If the election requires popular support, then so too must the recall.

The Bill to recall such representatives will have the determine/define the circumstances of recall and the size of a successful petition to hold the referendum either in actual numbers or percentage. There will be other challenges in implementation of such a law in a country of our size. Determining eligible voters for the referendum for instance or checking the validity of signatures on the petition. You can trust the political machinery in India to exploit such a law and all such loopholes must be plugged and such actions preempted. A certain amount of electoral reform is required for this act to become reality and for it to be enforced effectively.

That brings us to the next item of Anna Hazare’s wish list. Electoral reforms. I think electoral reforms is a big enough topic for a separate blog post.

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Constitutional rights of Anna Hazare and Government strategies.

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Everyone and his dog knew that come 16th of August 2011, the anti-corruption movement would gather fresh momentum. The Anna Hazare movement and the Government of India were headed for a showdown. At 7:30 AM on the 16th, he was arrested because he would have broken prohibitory orders of the local police and staged a fast unto death.

The media coverage was a full blast as expected. Political analysts were bemoaning the infringement of rights citizens of this country have as per the constitution. Opposition parties in an extremely rare show of unity screamed foul and even contemplated boycotting the Parliament for 3 days. Elsewhere across the country people came out in support even if they didn't "Jail Bharo" as Anna wanted. The Government's position as articulated by its numerous representatives on New channels was that it had nothing to do with the whole situation.

The government expects its people to believe that
1. The Delhi police independently and without any political backseat driving set stringent rules that Anna Hazare could not/would not except.
2. That Delhi police on its own visited Anna Hazare and arrested him as - preemptive measure - because he was going to go to JP Park.
3. That the Delhi police and the judiciary sent him to a 7 day remand on his declining to provide a bond for his release.
4. That the magistrate then had a change of heart and as is his prerogative, decided to send release orders to Tihar jail.

We can talk hoarse about how the government has no right to stop its citizen from protesting and discuss constitutional rights. We can also talk about how a citizen has no right to dictate what a duly and legally elected parliament should or should not enact. I think there is fair amount of arguments for both. If the Government thinks that it is being blackmailed then there is enough evidence to support such a thought process. Equally one can question the effectiveness of what civil right activitist are adamant is a watered down version of a Lok Pal Bill that will not be effective (or as effective) in tackling corruption.

What surprises me is that the Congress and the UPA have known about Anna Hazare's intentions on 16th August for many months now. While they tried to engage with him, some of its members called into question his integrity (for allegedly spending 2 lakhs for a birthday celebration), called him a stooge of the opposition, talked about conspiracy theories. At the same time another section talked about elected parliament (i.e. people's mandate) versus civil rights activists who are not the people's representatives. Its reactions and back tracking on the 16th show a lack of proper plan to handle an emotive and explosive situation. Media seems to suggest that Mr. Sibal and the Home Minister had planned the strategy. Now both of them are well known and eminent lawyers, articulate and well educated. If it is them that came up with this solution that I am very disappointed with the thinking of the UPA.

Perhaps with the Delhi police setting up conditions (only 3 days and less than 5000 people) for the fast and Anna Hazare refusing to accept them, gives the Delhi police a leg to stand on in a court of law. The police and therefore the Government can say it is following procedure in accordance to law. So what if a bunch of people invoke the memories of Emergency. At the same time the government is in a position to quell/disburse the movement without too much political damage. I do not know if that is what the political strategists of the government thought and I cannot but feel that they miscalculated on two fronts.
A. They underestimated the mood of the common people. By calling corruption an issue that bother's urban/educated populace is a very dangerous presumption. 
B. Even if they are right in their actions (which multiple lawyers claim they are not), politics is as much about perception as it is about right or wrong. Their actions have only made Anna Hazare's movement stronger.

Anna Hazare in all likelihood will walk out of Tihar Jail on his own terms, i.e. fast as long as he wants to with no restrictions on number of people. If the Government does not bow down to his terms that he will continue to fast from Tihar Jail. Either which way his goals are met.

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