India's BJP plays second fiddle to regional parties

By Pratap Chakravarty

NEW DELHI (AFP): Local elections in India have opened a gaping hole in the political armor of the ruling Hindu nationalists, who had to be carried to power in two of four states on the backs of their regional allies.

For Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's BJP party, the results marked a hollow victory, mitigated only by an equally poor showing from the main opposition Congress party of Sonia Gandhi.

The real winners were the regional parties, whose powerful performances underlined the steady power shift in Indian politics from the national to the local level.

"It's a very red-faced victory for the BJP," said political analyst Anand Ojha from Delhi University.

"The allies have performed outstandingly well and that indicates a shift in Indian politics where regional and marginal parties will now go from strength to strength.

"National parties such as the BJP and the Congress party will become weaker because of their failure to read the pulse of the electorate and their pathetic inability to analyze their own shortcomings," Ojha warned.

The polls in Bihar, Haryana, Orissa and Manipur states were the first popularity test for Vajpayee's four-month old BJP led coalition government and an acid test for Gandhi's leadership of the Congress party.

The BJP and its local ally, the BJD party, won 106 seats in the 147-member Orissa legislature, but the Hindu nationalists only picked up 38 seats in their own right.

In the 90-member Haryana state assembly, the BJP was again totally overshadowed by its ally, the Indian National Lok Dal, which bagged 47 seats, compared to just six for Vajpayee's party.

Dal leader Om Prakash Chauthala said his party would form the state government on its own if the BJP felt uncomfortable about forming a coalition administration.

A regional party combine won a majority of seats in the politically insignificant state of Manipur.

Final results had still to come in from Bihar, but again it was a regional party -- the RJD led by political maverik Laloo Prasad Yadav -- that looked set to win double the number of seats of any other single party.

"Why should I ask the Congress or any party to join me? Let them come to me for help," crowed Yadav, who had been all but written off as a spent force by pre-poll surveys.

BJP vice president Jana Krishnamurthi admitted that the party had made mistakes.

"Selection of candidates was delayed in Bihar and an impression that we were fighting among ourselves caused this situation."

Congress, meanwhile, won only 26 seats in Orissa -- where it was the incumbent government -- 21 seats in Haryana, and looked set for an equally dismal showing in Bihar.

The results are sure to increase the pressure on the Italian- born Gandhi, whose leadership of the 115-year-old Congress has been under question since the party's humiliating rout in last year's general elections.

"I would say Sonia should resign or run the risk of being ousted," analyst Ojha said.

Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi ruled out any leadership challenge as a "figment of the imagination," and argued that the real post-electoral heat would be felt by Vajpayee and the BJP.

"It is the BJP which has been wiped out everywhere," Jogi asserted.

But a former Congress federal minister who did not want to be named, strongly hinted that a challenge to Gandhi was a real possibility.

"Temperatures are rising and once it reaches boiling point, we may finally see the party react," he said.