Map these polls

An exercise in mapping political power in India would throw up several curiosities. One among them is the strongly location-specific presence of the three most important political entities in the country today. The Congress, the BJP, and the Left appear to be limited by their political geography. This is more than a mere oddity to be noted and then forgotten; it has extremely significant consequences for the nature and development of Indian politics.

Let us look at this map again after the latest round of electoral exertions. You have the Congress Party scattered all over the country — but not in the crucial heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh — and Sonia Gandhi’s handsome victory in Rae Bareli does not contravene this basic assumption. The BJP has some presence in northern India, but apart from a toe-hold in Karnataka, through a mutually convenient arrangement with Kumaraswamy’s Janata Dal(S) and a coalition in Orissa — the party is very much a junior partner in both these states — it is conspicuous by its absence in the east and south. As for the Left, its citadels of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, has virtually entombed it. Try as the Communist parties do, they have not been able to make any significant forays anywhere else in the country. Two other significant political formations — the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party — have been thrown up by the politics of India’s largest state, and remain to this day largely confined within its borders. Talk of the tyranny of geography!

If Indian politics has to mature into a stable, bipolar arrangement — as we believe it should — it would require the two national parties, the BJP and the Congress, to search for ways to break out of their locational straitjackets. Indeed, if they are to remain relevant as national parties, they would need to strategise on how to expand their social and locational base, and enhance their pan-Indian political appeal.