Gun-toting campaign

Each new BJP public rally brings signs of a growing obsession with Bofors. United Front leaders, reacting defensively, are pushing the campa...

Each new BJP public rally brings signs of a growing obsession with Bofors. United Front leaders, reacting defensively, are pushing the campaign agenda in the same direction.

People in Varanasi surely would have wondered whether the clock had stopped in 1989 on hearing the BJP’s prime minister-designate thunder on and on about India’s self-esteem being at stake because of the scandal. In Jalandhar, meanwhile, the Prime Minister was repeating his line about premature disclosures jeopardising the investigation. It is obviously no mystery why Bofors looms larger than any other scam under Congress regimes although some recent ones were more lucrative than the Rs 64-crore howitzer pay-offs. For the BJP it may make sense to concentrate on knocking out the sole ace in the Congress hand and to use Bofors rather than the unplayable `foreigner’ card. What is curious is the shape Bofors is taking of putting the Gujral government in the dock and leaving the Congress and its star campaigner with no particular need to engage in the dispute.

If Sonia Gandhi continues to draw big crowds, it is possible to foresee a situation develop where everything else that matters to the country pales beside this single issue. Granted, it is tough getting shopkeepers in Allahabad worked up about multinationals. Prudence demands that Ayodhya is mentioned as little as possible and Gujarat, at least, is unlikely to think stability is a credible promise coming from a party which threw away a two-thirds majority. But what makes Atal Behari Vajpayee imagine Bofors will resonate in gullies and mohallas in 1998 as loudly as it did in 1989? Are people concerned about why the Swiss lawyer, Marc Bonant, was relieved of his brief or the prospects for employment, social peace and good governance? Certainly the Bofors names should be named and the last commission rupee tracked down. People would want to hear the BJP and the UF promise this and to root out corruption and run a clean government. But of immediate importance to the majorityis knowing what parties are going to do about providing good schools, health care, drinking water, housing, roads and public transport. Can anyone recall a recent Vajpayee or Gujral speech focussing on bread-and-butter issues? How soon can people expect their daily lives to improve given the slowdown in the economy?

Single-issue election campaigns offer obvious advantages to political parties. At a time when alliances and defections have blurred the lines between them, one electrifying issue could help voters distinguish one from another. The Congress and BJP have in their time both benefitted by focussing single-mindedly on assassination or a Ram mandir. For the BJP this time around, there is a dilemma. On the one hand it needs to seize ground vacated by the Congress by broadening its appeal. On the other, projecting itself as all things to all people fuzzies its image. So, what does it do to define itself in opposition to the Congress? It aims its howitzer at I. K. Gujral because a direct attack on Sonia Gandhi could have the effect of provoking popular sympathy for her. As a political weapon, Bofors has endless possibilities.