Emerging contours of Political Competition
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 23rd Feb. 2018
Much ink as well as screen space has been wasted in trying to explain the ‘wave’ factor, by an ‘illiterate’ media. Yes, ‘illiterate’, as they don’t understand ‘Game’ and how is it being played out. They would again look at results to decipher ‘waves’ but would fail to fathom ‘Game-factor’ for such results and that’s their best bet both for the parties as well as the Netas. So thought that it’s best to put out an explanation so that we have somewhat better understanding. The present ‘opposition’ is now raising ‘issues and noise’ which are much closer to people and which were fanned by the Netas to ride into government. We hear things related to ration-supply, toilets or its quality, security of life/women, water-related woes either for irrigation of potable water, agri-produce prices, quality of educational institutes, jobs or related maladies like collapse of government institutional framework or even pakoda-factor etc. much more. The Netas in government want to ‘counter’ it on the back of ‘credible face’ and possibly the little delivery (and lots of stats) and scores of further promises. The government-side is represented more by their ‘serious looking Mantris’ rather than local Sipahsalar, and the opposition puts out it’s own ‘celebrity face/s’ with a barrage of charges. The lack of ground-presence of the Sipahsalar itself becomes a definite issue and droops the credibility by a huge margin and guess it has already been rightly sensed in some corners. Also, because of this lack of ground-presence including own bombasticism in past, the Netas are unable to effectively raise the issues around maturity of the ‘opposition’ Netas to be able to address ‘scale’.
Attempts are also on to find or create popular ‘mudda’ other than development & jobs. There are some attempts to reiterate actual delivery of subsidies like people actually getting ration or those who got gas-connection, toilets or some benefits out of some yojna. However while planning to deliver these supplies, the government is prone to leakages as is well known. This is besides the large chunk of benefit actually going to the suppliers of such wares who are the real beneficiary of the government largesse. The leakages make for a negative publicity enough to erode much of the ‘earned goodwill’. Had the Netas been on ground then the bureaucratic level leakages could have been plugged or at least it may not have become large-scale, but that’s hardly the case. For ordinary public, the Netas seem focused on their business priorities and to ensure favourable outcomes for the ‘donors’ while bureaucrats have their ‘own focus’. The challenge to address scale seems to be a big issue and that’s true for all parties and Neta. To take an example the politicians would find issues with things like GST and find ways to pin blame or justify the benefits of unorganized and non-compliant businesses rather. If instead, this is taken as an opportunity say to give select businesses some 3-5 thousand per month for first year to hire a computer trained person who would help with billing/accounting/taxation instead of say support related PF contribution, then the budget could have been better spent. Some subsidy to those paying GST between say Rs. 25,000 to 100,000 would have encouraged many business to become compliant faster rather than exploring models. This would have brought smile to many, but the Netas remain oblivious to such things since the ‘donors’ would not prefer/approve such things.
The ‘Game’ predicts that irrespective of the results of by-polls, the ability of the Netas to depict ground-connect/presence with things like Putting Priorities in Perspective, Ability to handle Scale and Visibility of Evidence would have tremendous bearing. There are Netas who had had little ground-connect but a heavy media-connect and this cuts them of and impacts ability to site ‘Visible evidence which has local relevance’. Having ‘priorities’ in line with the expectations of the local population and the ability to understand and address the ‘scale’ are other important criteria. It may be noted that the Netas who claim to have ‘doubled or multiplied’ delivery have washed away hands from being able to address ‘scale’. Basically what was required on count of Priorities, Scale and Evidence could be understood as follows- to smoothen traffic flows and ease logistics, may be a faster work on GST, a higher number of by-passes along with better waterways may have been better if done properly rather than say Kilometers of road and lengthy speeches in all probability, and there is need to identify a chunk of such ‘smart solutions’. ‘Hamari Sarkar ne yeh kiya aur isko karne ke liye contractor par kitna paisa kharch kiya’ is not the question but tends to be answered with vigour by not only those in government, but also committed by the opposition. While there is a greater tendency to cite stats however local evidence of the same has had much higher resonance and this seems still not understood well by the Netas especially those having media-connect. It is to be noted that the newer Netas are becoming more organized and some of the older Netas also seem to be turning their coat/issue/polity. The commercial news media seems to be on new ‘Game’ of by-poll results after the debacle of ‘survey results’ and is being abetted by Netas both in government as well as in opposition, who do not want to put up hard work but continue to ‘create waves’. The ‘smarter’ Netas as well as people should now be better equipped. Let the ‘Game’ evolve….