When the dice rolls in Haryana

UNDER a hot, afternoon sun on Thursday in Haryana’s Shahbad constituency, with mere hours to go before the campaigning for the Assembly polls formally drew to a close, BJP workers seemed somewhat downcast as they emerged from a meeting where Yogi Adityanath had just held forth for 20 minutes. But the applause for the UP chief minister had been weak and scattered, as if the fire in his belly had been missing and the response to it bewildered.

If the BJP loses Haryana, PM Modi knows that one more excruciatingly important domino will fall.

“Yeh to phir bhi baazi paltega,” said one BJP worker, insisting that the party strongman would reverse the throw of the dice, which seemed insensibly stacked against the BJP. That despite the disarray in party ranks, even in this last moment, the party would be able to showcase all its splendid works — the roads, the subsidies, the schemes for men, women and farmers.

But, the BJP worker and his friends also conceded that it was not going to be easy. For example, they said, the jealous rival to the official party candidate in Shahbad had openly undermined the latter’s candidature. “Woh uske gale main maraa hua saanp daal ke bhag gaya hai,” one said. (He has thrown a dead snake around the BJP candidate’s neck and fled.) A third man, explaining the lack of a crowd at Yogi’s meeting, pointed out that the citizenry were so angry with the outgoing BJP MLA’s arrogance that they were determined to punish the current candidate for it.

“Uski gardan mein se sariya nikalna toh hai hi,” a fourth man said. We have to remove the iron rod from the neck and spine of the BJP candidate.

If Shahbad is the model, then small wonder that the stakes for Haryana’s 90 Assembly seats in Haryana are so high. Almost as if when the EVMs are switched on this bright Saturday morning, the equivalent of the fourth battle of Panipat will be joined — this time between the Congress party’s Bhupinder Singh Hooda and outgoing chief minister Nayab Singh Saini, an affable enough man who should have replaced his guide and mentor Manohar Lal Khattar much earlier than the six months he was given in March.

That’s because, for nine-and-a-half years, no one could touch Khattar. He ruled Haryana with an iron, arrogant hand, ever since PM Narendra Modi first waved the magic wand in 2014, because he and Modi went back a long way. As Modi recounted at a rally earlier this year, back in the 1980s, both he and Khattar often slept on the same durree and rode on the same bike all over Haryana as RSS pracharaks trying to spread the message. The story goes that Saini worked in the BJP office at the time, typing out notes and press releases, and ever since has owed his rise and rise to Khattar.

The problem with Haryana is that the echo of history is so loud that it tends to drown the noise of the present. Saini is Khattar’s protégé, who, in turn, is close to Modi — all best friends, determined to battle on the same side. And then you hear the dice roll. The sound of the EVMs pinging and the finger being softly pressed on the button. The people of Haryana have decided. It’s no longer about Saini or Khattar or Hooda — or even, Modi.

It’s about removing the ‘sariya’ from the neck of the arrogant man. It is to punish the arrogance of their leaders that Haryanvis will vote today.

For Modi, the stakes can’t be higher. The fact is, tiny Haryana, with only 90 seats, is where it all began, where the blueprint of power was first imprinted on the collective subconscious of the people of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Loyalty, friendship, love, betrayal, violence, hatred — the ebb and flow of every emotion was first tested here, in Haryana, in the run-up to the battle of Kurukshetra, during and after.

Delhi was always the jewel in the intended crown of the Afghan tribals and the potential Mughal rulers — but the sack, rape and pillage of Delhi could only take place if Haryana allowed the strongman to have his way. The Haryanvi understood that his power lay in assessing the strongman’s power. Should he allow him to have his way? And if yes, then at what price?

Modi understands this better than any other politician in India today. If the BJP loses Haryana, Modi knows that one more excruciatingly important domino will fall. Sandwiched between the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and Punjab, a defeat or victory in Haryana has already acquired the psychological importance of a silver bullet.

Then there’s Jammu & Kashmir. And Maharashtra, in November.

Haryana is no longer just 90 Assembly seats — depending on how you see it, it is either the foreword to Uttar Pradesh, or it’s extension. That loss of 29 seats in UP this past summer, which punctured the BJP’s majesty in the Lok Sabha, still hurts. What Haryana does this morning will either turn that pain into agony or a moderated ecstasy.

For Hooda and the Congress, Haryana offers the idea of the alternative. That the BJP is not invincible, that it can be defeated at its own game, on its own turf, by employing some of the same methods. Kautilya comes in handy as it does for every wily, potential ruler. Saam. Daam. Dand. Bhed. That’s how it has always been in this part of the country.

At his last rally of the campaign in Panipat on Thursday evening, Hooda exited the meeting with a cloud of dust raised by every one of the enormous 22 SUVs in his cavalcade. “Aa rahi hai, Congress,” screamed the banners and the hoardings. Hooda’s men were behaving like he was already installed upon the ‘gaddi’ in Chandigarh.

Perhaps, there’s something about Panipat that tolerates this kind of behaviour. Perhaps Haryana knows that even if it isn’t as prized as Delhi, it holds the key to how to win the shiny prize. That without it, Delhi is bound to lose half its shine.