Seldom have any state elections given so unambiguous a pointer to what is likely to happen in the elections to parliament. The BJP has gained eight seats in Delhi, has lost only one seat and stayed in power in Chattisgarh, registered a substantial gain in seats – from 143 to 165 – in Madhya Pradesh and scored its most staggering gain, from 78 to 162 out of 200 seats, in Rajasthan.
By contrast, except in Chhattisgarh where it has gained one seat, the Congress has been soundly thrashed. It has lost 75 of its 96 seats in Rajasthan, 13 out of its 71 seats in Madhya Pradesh, and 35 out of its 43 seats, and been shoved into third place in Delhi. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the BJP is crowing about a Modi wave and looking forward to a return to power in Delhi next May, and stock market prices have skyrocketed in anticipation.
But in elections based upon the first-past-the-post voting system, swings in the number of seats are deceptive because they invariably exaggerate the winning margin of the largest party. A more accurate measure of the popular mood is the change in the share of the votes.
In the recent elections, this points to a far more complex shift in public opinion. It is a shift that bodes well for Indian democracy and the future of the country, if it is understood and acted upon. It can become a precursor to violence and a breakdown of governance, if it is not.
The voting pattern confirms that the Congress has lost ground but, except in Delhi, it has not been decimated. In Chattisgarh, its share of the vote has increased by 2%. Had the BJP too not increased its vote at the expense of local and minor parties, it would have overtaken the BJP and swept to power.
But the BJP too increased its vote by 2%. So in the end, the Congress gained only one seat and the BJP remained in power. The losers in Chhattisgarh have been independents, and local parties whose supporters have learned to shy away from wasting their vote by giving it to someone who stands no chance of coming to power. This consolidation has worked equally in favour of both the major parties. So if there is a Modi wave, it is certainly not visible in Chhattisgarh.
In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP increased its share of the vote by over 9% to 47%. But here too, the Congress has also increased its share by almost 6% to 38% at the expense of local parties and independents. Given Shivraj Chauhan’s record of good governance, it is difficult to find much of a Modi effect in the 3% higher consolidation in favour of the BJP.
The only place where a “Modi wave” is discernible is Rajasthan, but it is not the mighty tsunami that his followers have been claiming and the 12% rise in the BJP’s vote suggests. 8% of this has come at the expense of minor parties and independents. But in sharp contrast to MP and Chattisgarh, the remaining 4% has been wrested directly from the Congress.
The most significant results have come from Delhi. The rejection of the Congress has gone far beyond anything that can be attributed to normal anti-incumbency sentiment. In Delhi the party has lost an unprecedented 15% of its vote, and it has done so in spite of a 10.33% rate of growth during the past five years, a budget in which two thirds goes into social welfare programs, and perhaps the highest rate of delivery to intended beneficiaries in the entire country. This impression is strengthened by the debacle in Rajasthan, where too a government with a good record for the delivery of social benefits has lost more than a tenth of its support base.
Delhi, and to a lesser extent Rajasthan, show that the Congress’ strategy of ignoring the middle classes and the modern sector of the economy and relying upon handouts to the poor under the rubric of ‘inclusive development’ has failed.
But the elections also show that there is no significant Modi wave either. Despite Narendra Modi’s hectic personal campaigning, and the BJP leaderships pulling out of all stops in his favour, the party’s share of the vote has actually fallen by 3.2%, and with 31 seats in a 70 member house, it has little chance of forming a government.
The strong anti-incumbency sentiment against the Congress has not therefore translated into a wave in favour of Modi and the BJP. One swallow does not make a summer. But the Delhi results at least suggest that where voters have a credible third choice, those disliiusioned by the Congress will prefer it to the BJP.
There are profoundly important implications for the strategy that the so-called Third Front needs to follow. So far, they have believed that a pre-election coalition between them will serve little purpose except to expose the huge fissures that exist between their ambitious leaders. They have, therefore, been content to wait till after the elections to explore the possibility of forming a government.
This strategy must change. The AAP’s landslide arrival onto the Delhi political scene has shown that by creating an explicit alliance (not coalition) and announcing a clear cut, responsible common program of action before the elections, the Third Front will acquire the power to influence the voters’ choice in their favour in each of their home states. They need therefore to sort out their leadership and policy issues now, well before the elections are announced.
What should these policies be? To understand that, they need to examine the causes of the Congress debacle more closely. It could not be more apparent that whatever has made the voters turn so sharply away from the Congress in these two states has very little to do with the performance of their governments. The anti-incumbency wave must therefore arise from deep dissatisfaction with the policies of the Congress at the Centre, ie, of the UPA government.
Sonia Gandhi has blamed the price rise for the debacle. Sharad Pawar has blamed it upon the weak government at the centre. The AAP sees it as a reward for its championship of the poor man against a corrupt elite. But the most important cause has, strangely, been left unvoiced. This is the total collapse of the economy in the past four years, and the conviction that it has been brought about by a government that is totally out of touch with India’s reality.