He who holds Bangalore

The Congress fought this in a now-familiar Congress fashion. About eight chief ministerial candidates, para-trooping national leaders, weekend election managers, not a single local face to embody its politics and, most of all, no real “politics” it could claim as its own. The farm loan waiver was projected as something for farmers here, but there was nothing much done to project itself as a party sensitive to rural India. The Janata Dal (S) too proved very hard to edge out in the southern Old Mysore region.

For the Congress, the failure to project itself “politically” has implications for its future in the medium term and for the next Lok Sabha polls. Now “political” is a vague though much bandied-about term, which alludes to a strong sense of association with what is going on in people’s lives, and an ability to transform that information and instinct into an idea or larger policy; charisma is an important part of one’s ability to connect, but not the only thing required. So the Congress did well in seats visited by Rahul Gandhi, but the stamina needed to turn his freshness and charisma into a new or energetic “politics” (not just seats) just wasn’t there.

The BJP was imaginative in the way it played the electorate in different regions of the state. It spoke the “city” language in Bangalore (read, “infrastructure”, which affects all city-dwellers). So while delimitation has meant more urban seats, it was also sensitive to the fact that the nature of Indian cities has changed, and it is not just posh colonies that “city” means, but more of the aam aadmi leaving villages to seek a better life. The BJP worked to pick up reserved seats, reflecting national aspirations to build up the Dalit base and not to be known as a party of Hindi-speaking upper castes.

They fought this not as a Hindutva election, which should help in later attempts this year and after 2009 to broaden the NDA network and appear more electable, consequently, more “align-able”. Reports from the ground suggest they did their best to prevent this election from taking on communal overtones, to prevent consolidation of minorities, poor and non-Lingayat backwards around the Congress. They fought this, to use the same vague but very important word, “politically”; they spoke of price rise, referring to the Congress government’s non-acknowledgement of the problem as inept and indecisive. And they constantly reinforced the point that they had a backward candidate as the CM aspirant, one who had been “betrayed”.

What this result should also impact, nationally, is the recent bonhomie between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. While the BSP, having contested virtually all seats, has not exactly damaged the Congress (the margin is wide in most assembly constituencies), what should worry the Congress is how aligning with the SP in Uttar Pradesh gives Mayawati a great reason to strike any kind of alignment she wants to with the BJP/NDA, and that affects the Congress nationally. The Congress may reconsider aggressively taking on the BSP, and return to its original “ambivalent” position and keep all options open.

A strong sentiment amongst Congress leaders, especially the younger ones, is to cut clean of the UPA’s allies (“be firm”) and the Left’s politics (“go it alone”), to call elections after pulling off the nuclear deal and to “take on” some alliance partners (which certain confrontational moments with the NCP would testify to). This view may be hushed for a while, with the Centre wanting to use the last lap to do more things on a redrawn Common Minimum Programme, and appear more cohesive.

However, December 1, 2003 saw three large north Indian states being swept by the ruling BJP, but in just five months they were out of power in Delhi. So, while local elections matter, they sometimes matter not just for what the numbers are. What matters is what political parties do with them and after them. Then, the BJP called early elections in 2004 and said India was “shining”. The Congress president walked down Janpath to build alliances (the first with the only significant Dalit leader in the UPA today, Ram Vilas Paswan). The distance between Gandhi and Paswan’s homes was a short one, but it remains to be seen whether anyone wants to walk the mile this time or the fact of being in power results in the lethargy that parties in power often slip into.

But one of the most significant signals from Sunday was an unusual interaction on CNN-IBN. The much-Sanskritised chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who had also campaigned in Karnataka, was calmly in conversation with the TV anchor, commenting on national issues. Very difficult to engage on matters outside Gujarat usually, he signalled his stepping onto a national stage on Sunday — a Sanskritisation (a phrase coined by a Kannadiga sociologist M.N. Srinivas, incidentally) in political terms, which could have violent consequences for not just his party, but also for how politics may take shape quickly, and feverishly, before 2009.

seema.chishti@expressindia.com