Unlikely electoral bedfellows

THE surging winds of Hindutva are sending regional parties into a search for new partners. The Congress-style cooperative federalism and regional federalism of the Akali Dal or the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) no longer has the emotive appeal when pitted against the siren song of Hindutva. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s reachout to the Congress marks an end to the slogans of linguistic pride and sub-nationalism that encouraged a significant support structure of the agrarian communities getting weaned away from the Congress.

The meeting between Naidu and Congress president Rahul Gandhi was on the cards ever since both sides struck an alliance in Telengana where both had come a cropper. It was logical to extend this alliance to the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh where the ruling Telugu Desam can no longer bank on the regional idiom of Telugu self-respect as an emotive force against the winds of Hindutva, combined with other regional factions. The Congress-TDP plus mahagathbandhan has the limited agenda of keeping the BJP at bay but the message will resonate across the Hindi heartland where regional parties are still playing hard to get with the Congress.   

Both the new-found partners are, of course, blithely overlooking the history of sustained animosity that helped in caste and class mobilisation and polarisation against each other. Now that the enemy of Hindutva lurks at the gates, the TDP has proven to be prescient. That Chandrababu Naidu, once convener of the United Front, has made up with an ebbing existentialist enemy to keep an emerging one away is bound to be factored in the political calculations of its regional counterparts in the Hindi heartland. Though the necessity of political crutches will be projected as a political virtue, the country also needs an air of hope and positive anticipation as we go into the next elections. The Congress and its other potential allies also need to frame an implementable and credible agenda for the future to elevate such alliances from the current marriages of convenience they seem to be.