Column

The ongoing general election will prove to be a watershed for the Indian polity. Not because the results will be dramatically different from the last time but because the change will be subtle. Give or take a few seats here and there, we are going to end up with the Congress and the BJP remaining as the largest single parties. We will also — alas — be stuck with a whole bunch of regional parties that will make — and finally break — the next government.

The pundits are already calling this an election devoid of issues, where parties have abandoned ideology for power. Others have called it a bunch of state referendums masquerading as a national election. Yet others have observed a “municipalisation” of the election process. The electorate is asking candidates about water and electricity rather than the nuke deal or foreign policy or national security.

True as these viewpoints are, we are probably missing the wood for the trees. For several reasons. This is almost the first election in decades that is truly “normal”. If 1991 was held in the shadow of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, 1996 was a referendum on reform, aided by post-Ayodhya polarisation. The 1998 election was a vote against third front chaos, but not anything positive for the big two of national politics. The 1999 election was held in the midst of post-Kargil euphoria and 2004 went the Congress way because of the BJP’s premature celebration of economic success, severe anti-incumbency factors for its state-level allies and the post-Gujarat fallout.

Second, the fact that people are asking about water and electricity does not merely mean the municipalisation of a general election: it signifies a coming of age, a demand for governance and performance. The voters are not demanding electricity from the central government, but signalling that they expect national parties to set the tone in performance.

Third, the collapse of some regional alliances and the decision of the two national parties to fight it alone in some states show that their decline is being reversed.

Fourth, the caste factor is slowly becoming irrelevant. This has happened in a convoluted way. As all parties start fielding candidates from the same caste in constituencies seen as favourable to them, the caste card is effectively being neutralised.
Fifth, the Muslim vote this time will become even more tactical. The community just doesn’t trust any party any more. Everywhere, from Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh to Bihar and elsewhere, Muslims have realised that the so-called secular parties are essentially running a protection racket. They are slowly discovering their own agency, and they will not always vote for the usual suspects, and especially those who try to fool them in the name of religion. I doubt if any Muslim bought Sanjay Dutt’s claim that he was beaten because his mother was Muslim.

Based on these underlying trends, I would like to make a few predictions about this election. One, both the Congress and the BJP will improve their vote share in percentage terms. This may not mean too many more seats, but merely a renewed voter interest in them. Overall, the Congress may fare marginally better than the BJP.

Among the regionals, parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are likely to be in for big shocks, as the national parties are making a small comeback. Mayawati may get more seats than before, but her Dalit-Brahmin-Muslim alliance is fraying. The electorate is beginning to ask: how is her desire to become the country’s first Dalit PM going to help me? Similarly, Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi will get fewer seats than before, as Muslims start shifting allegiance to Mayawati and Congress.

In Bihar, the efforts of Lalu and Paswan to blame the Congress for the destruction of the Babri Masjid suggest that they are on a slippery wicket. But Nitish Kumar’s governance platform is working, and both Lalu and Paswan will realise that they were too clever by half in edging the Congress out of their alliance. The Congress may not win too many seats, but it will eat into their votes.

The BJP will slip in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab (with allies) and Karnataka, while holding on in MP, Himachal and Chhattisgarh. It will gain in Jharkhand and lose seats in Orissa even while improving its vote share. In Assam and Haryana, it will grab a few seats (in alliance), while in Andhra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu it will garner votes, not seats. Chandrababu Naidu’s alliance will get more than half the seats in Andhra, while Jayalalithaa’s front will wipe out the Congress-DMK alliance. The Congress’ main gains will come in Kerala, Orissa, West Bengal (along with Trinamool) and Punjab.

Net-net, we are going to end up with numbers that are not radically different from the previous Lok Sabha, but there is one big difference: people are voting differently, for change and status quo, based on perceived governance or lack of it. And that’s the sea change.