Rewind to assembly elections, 2001

People want change. Not change for the sake of change, but change for better governance. And they will not hesitate to use their votes to ensure that this happens. This seems to have been the most obvious message that has emanated from the assembly elections in the four states of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and in Pondicherry. If West Bengal bucked this trend, it is only because of the state CPM’s politically imaginative decision to jettison a geriatric leader and reinvent itself. Playwright Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee not only defeated the actress, Madhabi Mukherjee, in Jadavpur by playing to the Bhadralok sentiment, he came up with some new lines that were not in the script thus far, including the need for West Bengal to ride the information technology wave…

To the voter’s mind it appears that clean governance is not necessarily synonymous with good governance. What else can account for the Amma Wave on Mother’s Day? Interestingly, in both Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Kerala, marked by bipolar politics, the karma of the pendulum’s swing has long taken a toll on inefficient governments. Remember 1996, when the AIADMK was left grievously wounded with just four seats? Perhaps the people of the state have now decided that that was punishment enough and that it’s time to go back to the AIADMK, its unsavoury legacy notwithstanding. Yet this is something that will not go away. No matter how much J. Jayalalithaa talks of putting Tamil Nadu back on the rails, her troublesome history will continue to mark the politics of the state to its possible detriment. It is only to be hoped, however, that were she to become Tamil Nadu chief minister — another extremely vexed issue — she will conduct herself with more scruple than she has thus far. On the face of it, corruption may indeed not be a top-of-the-mind issue for the voter, as the success of characters like R. Balakrishnan Pillai and A.N. Nadar, with serious cases of misappropriation and misconduct against them, indicates in Kerala. But it should also be noted that it is the relatively clean personal image of CPM leaders in West Bengal that has helped the Left Front, just as it is the rank corruption of the AGP that was a major factor for its sharp decline.

For the Congress, the results have come as a much-required dose of steroids. Clearly, the party’s willingness to shed its Pachmarhi arrogance and accept the realities of coalitional politics has been a major factor in this success. But the Congress’s inability to convert its spectacular wins in three northern states in the November 1998 assembly elections should caution it on the dangers of being importunate. While the NDA’s record of governance at the Centre did cast a pale shadow on the recent polls, they cannot be regarded as a referendum on its performance, seeing how fiercely local most of the decisive issues were. However, the NDA government has been put on notice. Incumbent governments don’t stand unless they deliver.