Medium Term: The lessons that have emerged from this round of elections

Now that the Assembly elections are finally out of the way and we have had a few days to reflect on the results,

here’s my take on the lessons that have emerged from this round of elections.   1)      State elections are

becoming increasingly about state issues. Nobody cares too much about central parties, their leaders or their promises.

 

   This was most clearly demonstrated in UP where the battle was fought between two regional parties. But the same pattern recurred in other states. The Punjab election was a straightforward Badal family vs Amrinder affair. Goa ended in disaster for the Congress because it ran a terrible government. Manipur exists outside of the national mainstream anyway. And Uttarakhand had nothing to do with Delhi and even less to do with neighbouring UP (of which it was a constituent till recently).

 

2)      Too much is probably made of national leaders and their campaigns because the voters in each state see them as figures of no relevance. Rahul Gandhi made no difference to the Congress’ performance in UP. Nor did Uma Bharati matter at all. The UP voters recognised her for what she was: a paratrooper from Madhya Pradesh.

 

   So, the large crowds that Sonia Gandhi got in Goa proved to be illusory and irrelevant. And I am not sure it would have made any difference to the BJP’s prospects in UP if Narendra Modi had campaigned.

 

3)      Not only are elections decided on state issues, they are also determined by performance.

 

   Long before polling day, a Congress leader who had been touring UP told me that the only visible trend that was emerging was disillusionment with Mayawati. She would lose over a 100 seats, he predicted. The question was: who would pick up the seats that she was losing?

 

   At the end of the campaign I spoke to a BJP leader who had just returned from UP. He was worried about the result, he said. There was so much anger with Mayawati’s government that people were voting tactically to defeat her. This meant, he said, that the bulk of the protest vote was going to Mulayam Singh Yadav.

 

   “You know,” he explained, “we keep counting the number of caste votes but when there is an anti-incumbency wave, these calculations become irrelevant. If I am right, then the sky could be the limit for Mulayam. And neither the Congress nor us count for anything.”

 

   As we know now, he was right.

 

4)      But there are two identity-votes that did influence the UP result. Despite everything critics are now saying, it seems clear that the Dalit vote remained united behind Mayawati. It was the other votes (Brahmin, etc.) that she had picked up last time that switched. As for Mulayam, Mayawati may be exaggerating only slightly when she says that he got 70 per cent of the Muslim vote.

 

   Mulayam’s ability to hang on to his Muslim support base is bad news for the Congress. In its desperation to attract the Muslim vote, the Congress had sunk to new depths during this campaign. Salman Khurshid even risked the Election Commission’s ire by promising quotas to Muslims and embarrassed his party by announcing that Sonia Gandhi had wept when she heard about the Batla House encounter.

 

   One lesson that the Congress should have learnt from this election is that Muslims vote tactically for parties that they think are likely to come to power. They are not swayed by populist rhetoric.

 

5)      Was corruption an issue in this election? Yes, it was. It is an issue at nearly every election. But I don’t think that the anti-corruption wave that emanated from the TV studios of Bombay and Delhi swept the nation in the way that Anna Hazare’s people had predicted.

 

"As far as the electorate is concerned, Indian democracy is thriving. That’s why so many people voted. And who can deny that they affected real change?"

   In fact, the voters sent out mixed signals. In Punjab, the Badals, who have frequently faced corruption charges, made history by bucking that state’s anti-incumbency record and winning again. In UP, Mulayam, who has been a champion of crony capitalism during his previous stints in office, did not find that he had to clarify his stand on corruption. Only in Goa can the corruption issue be said to have played a major role in the defeat of the Congress government.

 

   Most curious of all is the case of Uttarakhand, where the BJP replaced its chief minister because of corruption charges. The new chief minister General Khanduri is a remarkably honest man and he passed a Lokayukta Bill that had the Hazare people purring with delight. But guess what? When the results came in, it was revealed that Khanduri had lost his own seat and that his corrupt predecessor had been re-elected.

 

   Moreover, for all of Anna Hazare’s threats, there is little to suggest that the campaigning by his followers in such states as UP, made any difference. Certainly, it did not deter Mulayam who has frequently demonstrated his contempt for the Hazare movement and its Lok Pal Bill.

 

   This is bad news for the Hazare movement, whose natural constituency is now revealed to be Facebook where it would still win any election. But at a deeper level, it is also bad news for India. Corruption matters and it should have the power to swing elections across the country.

 

6)      It’s no good claiming as some people now do, that the poor voter had no choice. In fact, turn-outs were extra-ordinarily high across India. The middle class may be disenchanted with the political system and may prefer to set up an alternative Parliament at Jantar Mantar. But as far as the electorate is concerned, Indian democracy is thriving. That’s why so many people voted. And who can deny that they affected real change?

 

7)      If state elections are fought on state issues then is it right to say, as the national parties are now claiming, that these results will not be reflected in the Lok Sabha polls?

 

   Well, yes and no.

 

   Experience has shown us that tactical voters do not necessarily behave the same way in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. So yes, if they think that a vote for the SP or the Akalis will be a wasted vote, then they will not support these parties in a Lok Sabha election. But here’s my question: will it actually be a wasted vote?

 

   Everything we have seen over the last year tells us that the Congress is on a downward spiral and that the BJP is not emerging as a national alternative. In the circumstances, the most likely winner of the next general election may well be some third front-type coalition of regional parties. If these parties can get their acts together over the next year and go to the polls as a unified entity, promising to form a coalition government at the centre, then a Third Front may seem like a real electoral option. And voters will not see a vote for a regional party as a wasted opportunity.

 

   It is this prospect, more than any other, that should keep the leaders of the Congress and the BJP awake at nights.