How Chandrababu scuttled Mulayam’s chances of becoming PM in 1996

Did Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, who played king-maker in the non-Congress coalition politics in the mid-1990s, commit a historical blunder by choosing Deve Gowda over Mulayam Singh Yadav as the Prime Minister?

The demise of the Samajwadi Party chief has engaged political buffs in a discourse around Naidu’s so-called faux paus.

After the fractured verdict that emerged in the general elections in 1996, the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led BJP with 161 seats came to power and lasted for just 13 days. The government eventually fell after Vajpayee failed to prove his majority in the floor test.

Also read: Why ‘kingmaker’ Chandrababu Naidu finds it tough to forge an alliance now

This made way for the formation of the United Front with the TDP’s Naidu as its convener. The Front formed two governments between 1996 and 1998 — one headed by HD Deve Gowda and the other by IK Gujral — and the coalition governments survived with the outside support from the Congress and the BJP as well.

Successor for Vajpayee 

The coalition partners entrusted the job of finding Vajpayee’s successor to CPI(M) leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who proposed Mulayam Singh’s name as the next Prime Minister after his party’s West Bengal stalwart Jyoti Basu turned down the offer.

Surjeet, a staunch opponent of the BJP’s politics of religious polarisation, apparently found a potential secular leader in Mulayam to check the rise of right-wing politics. However, Naidu chose HD Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal from the southern state of Karnataka over Mulayam and his move was backed by Lalu Prasad and Sharad Yadav.

Why did the TDP leader choose Gowda over Mulayam? Probably, he found Gowda to be relatively light-weight and easily pliable when compared with Mulayam, observed an analyst.

The ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress (YSRC) of Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday took the public discourse to the next level by accusing Naidu of having scuttled the prospects of Mulayam to become the first OBC Prime Minister much before Narendra Modi catapulted himself to the post with a similar social background.

In a bid to drive its point home, Jagan’s party quoted journalist Shekhar Gupta, who squarely held Naidu responsible for Mulayam missing the bus at the last minute. The jibe apparently aims to send a message to the OBCs — who constitute TDP’s major vote bank in Andhra since the days of NT Rama Rao — that Naidu is not trustworthy and that he could not deliver social justice in the real sense.

Bhasmasura hastham for Naidu?

Naidu’s critics attributed his present plight marked by his party’s rout in the last election to his alleged lack of vision and forethought over choosing dependable and trusted allies. Naidu has been slipping into the wilderness after having served as CM for 14 long years and calling the shots in national politics. His ‘flawed’ preference to sail with the BJP is being blamed for this. As an invincible regional satrap from Andhra Pradesh with adequate number of Parliament seats in his kitty, he chose to side with the BJP right from the general elections in 1999, only aid the rise of right-wing politics.

Also read: Mulayam: Astute politician with a finger on pulse of caste politics

When the Vajpayee government fell in 1998, there were hardly four regional parties on the BJP’s side when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was floated. The NDA’s partners then were Janata Dal (United), AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal and Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP). The number of NDA partners who backed Vajpayee in 1999 rose to 24. The party which was considered an outcast by regional and national parties, fearing erosion of their Muslim votes, became a rallying point for a huge number of constituents within a year or so.

But Naidu, in return, failed to get his due from his alliance partner in line with the spirit of mitra dharma. This forced a fallout with the NDA before the elections in 2019. And, with the tacit support from the BJP-led NDA government, YSR Congress decimated Naidu’s party in that election.

It’s Mandal vs Kamandal politics

Naidu is credited with helping Vajpayee comfortably settle in his office in the second term (1999-2004). The TDP and the BJP together as alliance partners secured 36 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in that election from Andhra Pradesh, regardless of the fact that the saffron party was not a force to reckon with in Naidu’s home turf. The Modi factor apart, the BJP-led NDA got absolute majority in 2014 by securing 282 seats, out of which 19 came from Andhra Pradesh only because of TDP’s backing.

Siddhanna Gowd Patel, a left-wing intellectual from Karnataka who edits a magazine called Hosaphu, described Naidu’s embrace with the BJP as Bhasmasura hastam – Bhasmasura is a demon in Hindu mythology who has been granted a boon to burn up and turn into ashes anyone on whose head he lays his hand — which eventually led to Naidu’s downfall.

After all, the BJP headed by Modi and Amit Shah is known for its cannibalistic politics. It is aggressively trying to grow by eating into its alliance partners. One can see what has happened in Maharashtra, Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Naidu should have been wary of the BJP and should have consistently associated with the Left and secular parties, Patel told The Federal.

The BJP’s growth and its potential of coming to power would have been delayed by at least 10-15 years had Mulayam Singh become the Prime Minister at that time, commented right-wing ideologue Raka Sudhakar.

Also read: Mulayam: Stalwart who stalled Hindutva’s rise in UP for 2 decades

Mulayam successfully stalled the surge of Hindutva politics for two decades in his home state of Uttar Pradesh by countering the BJP’s Kamandal politics with his Mandal plank, marked by Muslim-Yadav (MY) coalition. He used the assertion of caste in the post-Mandal politics to his advantage to keep the BJP out. Mulayam and his so-called MY formulae would have weaved an electoral magic across the Hindi belt had he been allowed to head the coalition government, Raka told The Federal.