Mamata Banerjee's win is a tribute to our democracy

The five assembly election results have been on expected and yet not-so-expected lines. While the tide in favour of Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal was apparent and visible, the Jayalalithaa-led killer wave against the DMK in Tamil Nadu was a much more silent one, though equally significant.

It brings to power two women in two large states in the country. Women, if you take Mayawati in UP and Sheila Dikshit in Delhi, will now be ruling just under one third of the country, in terms of the Lok Sabha seats they control.

It goes without saying that Mamata’s win was historic, bringing to an end a 34-year-old Left rule in the eastern state. In the last 15 years, Mamata, who parted company with the Congress in 1997, to form her own Trinamool Congress, managed not only to take that Congress’ place in West Bengal, but also to oust an entrenched Left front government. The significance of her victory, also a tribute to our democracy, however faulty, lies in the fact that as a woman, functioning in a male-dominated society and polity, she could do this without a godfather and without belonging to a political family.

Mamata had been working hard for this day. The turning point had come in the 2008 local elections in which her party fared well. But it was her performance in the 2009 general elections which convinced people that she could emerge as a viable alternative to the Left Front.

Unlike Mamata, Jayalalithaa, on the other hand, was relatively dormant during the last years. However, with the alliance she stitched up with the DMDK, she managed to emerge as an alternative  to the DMK and emerge as the beneficiary of the aspiration for change in Tamil Nadu, which was as strong in the southern state, as it was in West Bengal, and not confined only to the urban centres, as had been expected.

(As it always happens, there was a spill-off effect of Tamil Nadu in Puducherry where the AIDMK-led alliance will form the government.)

Corruption was obviously a major issue in these elections. With the mega 2G spectrum scam pointing to the involvement of DMK leaders A Raja and Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, the landslide for Jayalalithaa showed that there was silent and seething anger against the DMK which had been building up.   

In Tamil Nadu, it manifested itself in a vote against the first family, and this was repeatedly asserted by Jayalalithaa all through the campaign — it is a development which should alert political families in other states. At public meetings the AIDMK chief addressed, people repeatedly made the point that while her earlier regime was also marked by corruption, she might do more for the state, since she did not have a family!

In Kerala too, the impeccable credentials of CPM’s octogenarian CM VS Achutananandan was one of the reasons why the Left revived enough in the state to almost knock at the doors of power again. Though the Congress-led UDF is all set to form the government in Kerala, it was such a close call that had the Left managed just 3 seats more, it would have continued in power.
Going by the results of the 2009 general elections and the local elections held last year, the Congress-led UDF should have swept in Kerala. That this would happen was taken for granted till last year. Instead, the Congress won by the skin of its teeth. The various scams in Kerala involving the UDF’s leaders in recent months obviously took a toll.

Tarun Gogoi’s clean image was also responsible for giving the Assam chief minister a third term, as was his handling of the insurgency in the state, and his decision to open dialogue with the ULFA,  and to initiate action in cases of corruption. He was helped in no small measure by a divided opposition. The AGP, as also the BJP, are trailing way behind in Assam. It would be enlightening to study the fineprint on why the Congress did well in Assam and not as well in Kerala as was expected.

The BJP was a hardly a player in these elections (which account for around 125 Lok Sabha seats) and the ascent of Mamata and Jayalalithaa in such a decisive way, also marks a strengthening of regional parties, which should worry both the mainline parties.
The results pose no immediate threat to the UPA government. A chastened DMK will stick with the Congress. Given a hostile state government, headed by Jayalalithaa, it will need a friendly Centre, as it has to deal with serious graft charges against some of its important functionaries, including the CM’s daughter.

But the Congress will have to contend with a more assertive Mamata, flushed with her victory as a giant killer. This will, for instance, have a bearing on legislations like the Land Acquisition Act, which had been put on the backburner because of her reservations — even as P Chidambaram has declared that the government planned to bring it in the monsoon session of Parliament.
She is not likely to rock the boat in Delhi, knowing that she will need the support, monetary or otherwise, of the central government in order to try and deliver on the promises she made. Conscious of her aam admi credentials, she may well come to play the role in UPA II that the Left parties played in UPA I. It is her Left-of-Centre politics which enabled her to replace the Left Front and she is not likely to forget that.

The victory of the Congress in Assam and Kerala, and in West Bengal, as the junior partner of the Trinamool Congress, should give the party a psychological boost, beleagured as it has been by scams. It could give the Congress a window of opportunity to do course correction. 

It remains to be seen whether the prime minister seizes this opportunity to go in for a decisive reshuffle of his Cabinet that he has been talking about, but unable to effect, to bring in dynamism, and get rid of the deadwood.
While the results give the Congress cause for some satisfaction,

it should not overlook the sub-text of the verdict, and that is the erosion in its base in the southern states. In Tamil Nadu, it was reduced to five seats (in Bihar last year, its tally was four); it has not done as well in Kerala as it should have; it is out of power in Karnataka; and rebel Jagan Mohan Reddy’s runaway 5.4 lakh victory in the Kadappa bypoll, and the continuing agitation for a separate Telangana state, is bad news for the party in Andhra Pradesh, which played a decisive role in brining it to power in 2004 and in 2009.