[Reader-list] Election verdict 2009

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear all

Since we have had discussions on the Verdict 2009, I think it would be
better off to look at some articles published in the leading journal of
India, the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW). I hope we can discuss this
article and try to see if we can arrive at certain conclusions instead of
arriving at media generated large based verdicts.

At the outset, I also wish to state that I differ from the view of the
article in one particular aspect, the NREGA. I believe the act is
revolutionary and would have helped the Congress much in UP in particular
because the implementation of the NREGA was quite bad in UP. Similarly it
could have helped the BJP in MP and the Congress in Rajasthan as wel to a
certain extent. Of course, I may be wrong and would be quite happy to be
proved so.

Hope you all enjoy the article.

Regards

Rakesh



*May 23, 2009

Economic & Political Weekly EPW may 23, 2009 vol xliv no 21
5
*
*Verdict 2009: Myths and Hypotheses
*
The verdict demands a reflective understanding of why voters in different
states voted as they did.It has been a week since the votes of the
month-long elections to the 15th Lok Sabha were counted and yet we remain
far from possessing a coherent understanding of Verdict 2009. The only
certainties are the results themselves: the triumph of the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA), the dramatic surge of the Congress Party’s tally
of seats in the lower house of Parliament, the convincing defeat of the
National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the rout of the Left and the decimation
of the Third/Fourth Fronts.Rather than contribute to the cacophony of voices
in the media, on television in particular, it may be appropriate, for now,
to refrain from making sweeping generalisations. It may be more useful
instead to dwell on the outcome, discuss what the verdict does not mean and
very tentatively offer multiple hypotheses. A period of reflection and a
study of the voting patterns could lead to a more meaningful theorisation of
what the verdict does mean.


That the NDA was fortunately denied a second opportunity to govern from New
Delhi was not a surprise in itself. Though most observers did not expect any
pre-poll alliance to get a majority, it was more or less certain that the
UPA would emerge ahead of the rest. The surprise that does not lend itself
to simple explanations is the UPA achieving a near-majority on its own and
the astonishing performance of the Congress. This has been converted in the
age of the two-second sound bite into a “spectacular” result. But such an
assessment has little going for it. Since 1967, the Indian electorate has
rarely if ever ceased to shock the pundit and the pollster, either in the
outcome of the Lok Sabha elections or in the scale of victory of one or the
other party. It would take just a moment’s reflection to remember that the
surprise in Verdict 2009 is far less than the stunning outcomes in Verdicts
1971, 1977 and 2004, and the triumph of the victorious was far greater in
Verdicts 1980 and 1984. Many unexpected outcomes of the past have been, in
retrospect, easy to explain; not so Verdict 2009 which has thrown up both a
surprise and complex regional patterns.


The many myths that have already emerged about the results reflect little
more than the predilections and desires of the commentators
who make them. This is only to be expected. When in 2004, those who saw
value in the “India Shining” message were caught on the back foot, they were
quick to coin the theory of “rising aspirations” – i e, the people of India
wanted to enjoy an even better life than they did under the NDA! If that was
bizarre, one theory to explain 2009, that India has no place for the
“politics of extremism” (i e, for either the Hindutva groups or the Left) is
only a shade less fanciful. And if over a decade, “anti-incumbency” used to
be a favourite and shallow explanation of all electoral outcomes, the new
and equally meaningless generalisation of the results of the 2009 elections
is that “performing governments” are now being rewarded.


Politics is not only about electoral battles and politics is not reflected
solely in the outcome of elections. Yet, those who are uncomfortable with
the influence of caste in contemporary politics have been quick to announce
the end of identity as a factor of importance in Indian elections, all
because of the less than expected gains for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Those who are uncomfortable with the idea of coalitions have been equally
quick to see in the 2009 resurgence of the Congress the return of the
bipolar/single party era. Those who prefer the simplicity of dealing with
personalities are quite willing to see Rahul Gandhi as the new saviour of
the Congress and India – investing in this fourth generation member of the
Nehru-Gandhi family all the attributes of the three previous prime ministers
from the family.

It does not take much analysis to reject these myths.


First, the Congress has no doubt increased its tally in the Lok Sabha very
impressively, from 145 to 206. But in spite of contesting more seats this
time (440 in 2009 versus 417 in 2004) its vote share has increased by barely
2 percentage points. (Tables 1 and 2 on pages 9 and 10 of this issue present
detailed information on vote shares in the past two elections.) The Congress
seat tally may be the highest in the five parliamentary elections after
1991, but its vote share is far from the 40% plus it routinely used to
register until the late 1970s. The Congress was able to make a large
increase in votes polled in the two most populous states (Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh), but take away those increases and its share in the rest of the
country has remained more or less the same.


Second, there is no sign of a return to national parties holding sway, for
if we look at the support of the two largest parties, the Congress and the
BJP, they contested many more seats (873 versus 781) and yet saw their share
of all-India votes fall by 1.3 percentage points.


Third and correspondingly, some of the regional parties like the Rashtriya
Janata Dal (rJD) and the Janata Dal (Secular) certainly saw their support
dwindle, but the large increase in voting for others like the Biju Janata
Dal (BJD) makes any generalisation about the future of regional parties too
simplistic to stand scrutiny.


Fourth, the votes polled by certain major parties that have mobilised on the
basis of identity have increased, not decreased. The BSP, for instance, has
increased its vote share (6.2% versus 5.3%), though it must be noted that
there has been a decline in support for the party in Uttar Pradesh since the
2007 assembly elections and it did contest more Lok Sabha seats in 2009 (500
versus 435).


Fifth, Rahul Gandhi should take the credit for the Congress in UP winning
the largest number of seats in a quarter of century, but not all his big
bets have paid off. The decision not to kow-tow to the Samajwadi Party in UP
resulted in spectacular gains, but its refusal to go along with the RJD in
Bihar led to an equally spectacular loss. In any case in both UP and Bihar,
the Congress decision to go alone was forced on the party at the last minute
and was not born of any sagacity or long-term commitment.

What all the contra-trends show is not that one story is more complete than
the other, but that perhaps only all of them together
can tell the complete story. In the aggregate and in most states, voters
have leaned towards the Congress in the 2009 elections,
but that is as yet more of a nudge than a shift. The regional and
identity-based parties have suffered here and there, but they have also
gained in strength elsewhere. In other words, state and regional factors may
have played a role in determining the 2009 outcome as well, even if the
impact has been moderated by the strong showing of one “national” party in
many states. None of this should be surprising. Parliamentary politics in
India as influenced by one leader of one party – as it was by Jawaharlal
Nehru and Indira Gandhi – ended a quarter of a century ago. Democracy in the
country is now the story of individual regions/castes/classes/groups and
their alliances jostling to assert themselves.
All that will not disappear with one election. It may take a lot more for
the Congress to permanently reverse the decline in its fortunes
as a “national” party, a process that began in the late 1980s.


The interesting aspect of the Congress triumph – yes, the story of Elections
2009 is more the triumph of the Congress than of the UPA – is that the
state-level factors and fragmentation on account of identity may have
actually helped the party. The victory of the Congress in both the assembly
and the parliamentary elections in Andhra Pradesh appears to have been
boosted by the split in voting occasioned by the new regional/caste outfit,
the Praja Rajyam Party. Yet, the same vote split did not help everywhere –
not in Bihar, Karnataka and, especially not in Orissa, where the Congress
was unable to capitalise on the BJD-BJP split. This diversity of outcomes
perhaps cannot be understood with a single “national” explanation.


“National” factors in any case do not help us understand why the Congress
won convincingly in certain regions and did poorly elsewhere. Consider, the
“NREGA” factor (the introduction of the employment guarantee) which has been
suggested as one major reason – along with the spending on welfare and
social sector programmes such as the Bharat Nirman and National Rural Health
Mission – for the major gains by the Congress. Possibly. But we have already
forgotten the inflation factor that was expected to hurt the Congress/UPA in
Elections 2009. Election after election has shown that if there is one sure
determinant of voting decisions it is high inflation. And over the past year
– at a time when growth has also slowed both in rural and urban India – the
burden of inflation has been heavy. The official figures on wholesale
prices may show that inflation has ceased to be a problem and that we are
closer to a deflationary rather than inflationary situation, but (a)
inflationary pressures on wholesale prices have eased only over the past six
months, (b) annual consumer price inflation remains close to double digits,
and (c) even in the wholesale price basket, the prices of cereals and food
items continue to rise. Why did all this not neutralise the NREGA effect?


In the end we may have to consider another factor that could have influenced
Verdict 2009. That this was an election that the NDA lost rather than the
UPA won. It may not have been any positive message of the UPA/Congress that
drew support to the alliance in many states. It may have been the refusal of
voters to endorse the hate politics of the BJP and a surprisingly
incompetent election campaign that together spelt doom for the NDA.