At election time deaths and corruption undermine BJP support
New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) Twenty-one women, seven of whom were young girls, were trampled upon and suffocated to death by an huge throng of poor people stampeding to get their hands on Indian sari dresses given away by the Prime Minister Vajpayee.
The tragic event occurred on Monday, Apr. 12, at a birthday party held in Lucknow, which for many was really a election rally. A small difference in support could however damage the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) image. BJP, the majority coalition currently in power since 1996, might lose support just before the general elections.
The handing out of sari dresses to women and liquor to men is common practice for Indian political parties. Yet is forbidden to do so at public election events.
In order to avoid any negative repercussion undermining Atal Behari Vajpayee credibility, his deputy prime minister, Lal Krishna Advani, immediately specified that even if so many people had gathered there for the event, they had come to celebrate Lalji Tandon's birthday, coincidentally the local BJP party head and one of Vajpayee's close collaborators.
Making things slightly more complicated is the fact the a famous Lucknow gangster had organized Tandon's party.
However, it seems likely that the prime minister will be disqualified from competing in elections, given that it would lead to institutional crisis if he weren't removed from ballot lists.
Despite what happened, election surveys indicate that BJP will sweep the upcoming elections. Polls are scheduled to open on Apr. 20 and will close on May 10 after 5 separate deadlines in various regions of the country.
Election engines are warmed up and ready to elect India's 543 members of Parliament. Special trains have been organized to transport the 4 million state workers in 26 Indian states needed to work at the country's 700,000 polls.
Meanwhile 130,000 federal troops and 2250 poll station invigilators stand ready to make sure elections are conducted in an orderly and legal manner.
There are 750 national and local parties on ballot lists. However the major competing parties are just 2: the nationalist Hindu BJP party (a 22- party alliance) with fundamentalist tendencies and the Congress Alliance, a collation of secular moderate parties. The Congress Alliance is headed by Sonia Gandhi, by wife of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassinated in 1991. The latest surveys, however, give her party little hope, as it is predicted the Congress Alliance will win just 170 seats while rival parties should win 283.
Vajpayee, in his election platform, promised to make India a major world power by 2020. The Premier is counting on the support of recent robust economic growth (growing by more than 10% in the last 4 months) to be able to return to office for the fourth consecutive time.
The drifting mine at election time is Hindu fundamentalism, which seems to influence BJP decisions ever more. The Congress Alliance needs around 670 million votes to distance the government from religious nationalism. "The elections offer the chance to choose between two different views of nationalism," said Gandhi. "Between that of the Congress Alliance, a secular perspective seeking equal opportunity for all, and that of the BJP, inspired by short sighted provincial nationalism."
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