Stooping To Conquer: Why BJP Should Offer Pranab A Second Term As President

A good general chooses his battles and battlefields carefully. He seldom chooses to expend energies on battles that are immaterial to his larger goals.

With the Election Commission sounding the poll bugle for the presidential polls to be held on 17 July, all eyes will be on the BJP’s choice. After winning the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the BJP nearly has enough votes to win this election, as long as it can keep its NDA allies on its side and get one or two regional parties to back its candidate. Even if one of its allies were to defect (most likely the Shiv Sena), it can get the numbers by tying up two or three non-affiliated regional parties from among the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), and YSR Congress.

The NDA as it stands now has 48.64 per cent of the presidential votes, and minus the Shiv Sena, it has just over 46 per cent. The additional four per cent can come from the AIADMK alone (which has 5.3 per cent of the electoral votes).

The President is elected by an electoral college comprising all MPs and all MLAs of all state and Union Territory assemblies. An MP’s vote is worth 708 votes, while an MLA’s vote depends on the size of the state he comes from. Thus, each MLA in UP is worth 208 votes, while Sikkim’s MLAs have a vote value of just seven each.

In all, there are 11,04,546 votes to be won, and the winner needs a minimum of 5,52,274 votes.

The point, though, is simple: should the BJP opt to get its own nominee in, or try for a consensus?

This is where strategic calculations come in. If every electoral battle needs a minimum amount of political capital to be invested in it, the BJP should ask itself what it gets from getting its own candidate in the teeth of opposition.

First, the Presidency is largely a ceremonial post in India, with few powers. About the only time a President can exercise choice and discretion is when there is a hung house, or when he or she occasionally asks a government to reconsider legislation considered unwise. Put simply, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s current tenure will not be impacted no matter who the next President is. Post the 2019 elections, Modi has to worry only if the NDA falls short of 272, or if the BJP itself falls short of 200-220 seats, which seems an unlikely possibility right now.

Second, the BJP will surely face political embarrassment from the Shiv Sena, which sees an existential threat to itself in Maharashtra from the BJP’s rise. It will probably not back the BJP nominee. It has already queered the pitch by proposing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for President, knowing for sure that no BJP ally or anyone in the opposition will back Bhagwat. In the last two presidential elections, when the Sena was less unsure about the BJP, it still broke away from the NDA and voted for the Congress candidate.

In Maharashtra, where the Sena is taking on aggressive positions on farm loan waivers and other issues, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis faces the possibility of a mid-term poll if the Sena withdraws support. While Fadnavis himself may not be opposed to a mid-term poll in order to seek a better mandate for the BJP, he will have to offer huge political sops to the electorate to procure this mandate, and still be not sure of the final outcome. Reason: this time the Congress and NCP will surely fight together to thwart the BJP.

Partly in recognition of this reality, Fadnavis, who led his party to victory in many of the local body elections earlier this year, did not press the BJP’s claims to mayorship in Mumbai, where it was just a few seats behind the Sena. With Congress trying to pry the partnership apart, Fadnavis decided that discretion is the better part of valour.

The party in Maharashtra does not need a premature rupture with the Shiv Sena, especially over an inconsequential issue like who will be president.

Third, replacing the Shiv Sena’s vote with those of other regional allies means the BJP will have to do backdoor deals with parties like the AIADMK, TRS or YSR Congress. This means political capital or special sops will have to be given to them or their states. Is this investment in picking up new allies worth it?

Fourth, the BJP has much bigger battles ahead on the economic and political fronts, including the battle to prevent farm loan waivers from becoming the norm, which can have serious consequences for both central and state finances. That is when it will need allies, and free political capital to seal its fortunes in 2019.

If we accept this logic, the BJP should try and spring a surprise by proposing either a second term for Pranab Mukherjee, or asking the opposition for its own neutral choices and evolve a consensus around him or her.

In fact, if it wants to trip up opposition unity and wrongfoot the Shiv Sena, it should propose an extension for Pranab Mukherjee, whose terms ends on 24 July.

By all accounts, Modi has had no major conflicts with Mukherjee. Apart from a few stray observations on divisive politics, which a President is entitled to speak his mind on, Mukherjee has not exactly been a thorn in this government’s flesh.

Mukherjee’s nomination will confuse both the Congress and the Sena. They can’t oppose the candidate they backed in 2012, and the Sena has anyway said it may back Pranab for a second term.

The BJP should, okay, fine, we are willing to accept your ideas. It should take up their offers at face value and call their bluff. If they suddenly change their positions, the BJP can point this out and get its own candidate in. If they propose another candidate, the BJP can win brownie points by agreeing to someone who is apolitical and acceptable.

Not only will this set a good precedent, it will also make the BJP seem less like a bully that is constantly thumping its chest and flexing its muscles.

Sometimes, it is worth trying something else: stooping to conquer.