NEW DELHI: With world attention still focused on international terrorism following the Sept 11 attack on the United States, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is trying to cash in on the terrorism issue to win key state assembly polls later this month. Vajpayee is using last December’s terrorist attack on the Indian parliament - promptly blamed on Pakistan - and New Delhi’s nuclear standoff with Islamabad to whip up nationalistic fervour which, he hopes, will gain votes for his BJ at four state assembly elections due between Feb 13-21.

Elections will be held in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttaranchal and Manipur. The most crucial is UP, the most populous state in the country - and one that can make or break governments. Vajpayee himself has gone on record as saying that the UP polls would decide the survival of the federal coalition government headed by BJP.

The political balance emerging thereafter could also influence the choice of India’s new president in July 2002. The president is voted for by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of parliament and the elected members from all state assemblies.

With neither the BJP nor the Congress Party having a majority in the electoral college, any loss of ground by Vajpayee’s government in UP and the other states at the forthcoming polls could well give the Congress Party an upper hand in the presidential election.

There is every reason for the BJP to be nervous now - the last two parliamentary elections have clearly shown that the temple issue has faded in appeal. The number of seats it won to the Lok Sabha from UP dropped from 57 in 1998 to a mere 29 in 1999. The general tendency to vote against the incumbent government could also affect the BJP in two other states voting this month - Punjab and Uttaranchal.

At present the BJP rules in only six of 30 states. Its main rival for power in New Delhi, the Congress Party, rules in nine. Any Congress gain in the February elections will be a boost for Sonia Gandhi, widow of slain Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and current Congress president, who aspires to lead the country. Congress has a presence nationwide, while the BJP is confined to north India.

Opinion polls on the upcoming elections conducted for two newspaper groups - the Times of India and Outlook weekly - show that in UP, the BJP is running neck-and-neck with a third party, the pro-lower caste Samajwadi (Socialist) Party (SP) that has the support particularly of agriculturists and firmly anti-BJP Muslims.

Hoping to revive its fortunes, the BJP appointed a new chief minister for UP in October 2000 - Rajnath Singh, a new-generation leader known for his dynamism and manipulative qualities. Singh tried to woo voters by populist measures like hiking the salaries of teachers and increasing the prices of agricultural produce.

The most controversial was a quota of jobs for “most backward castes” (MBCs) within the quota already reserved for the lower castes, nationwide. Politics in UP is caste-oriented, and Singh’s move was intended to draw lower caste votes away from other parties to the BJP.

But with his gimmicks making little impression on the electorate, the Sept 11 terrorist attack proved an unexpected blessing. The Vajpayee government quickly introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) and banned the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

And following the Dec 13 terrorist attack on India’s parliament, Vajpayee threatened to “use any and every weapon” against Pakistan, while Advani and defence minister George Fernandes hinted at bombing terrorist camps in Azad Kashmir. Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechuri accused the government of whipping up “national jingoism to bolster the electoral prospects of BJP in the forthcoming assembly elections”. Sonia Gandhi launched her party’s election campaign in UP by asking how terrorism is related to elections when the state is confronted with basic problems like poverty, unemployment and increasing lawlessness.

The BJPis encouraged by the perception that its focus on terrorism and its macho nationalism have generated a new receptivity for its policies - at least among its core constituency. The BJP’s current worry is that if its display of bellicose nationalism fails and it cannot form a government in UP, the opposition will make Prime Minister Vajpayee the whipping boy, contending that the assembly elections were a referendum on his governance. — Gemini News