The real victors

One remarkable feature of the elections is the increase in the number of small parties and the Lok Sabha seats won by them. The other is that as many as 200 Lok Sabha seats overall changed hands 8212; an index of voter disenchantment with politicians of all hues. Regional and caste-based parties have done well, a surprising outcome of the third national elections in three years. It was widely assumed 8212; and opinion polls reflected that assumption 8212; that voters had had enough of the comings and goings of central governments and would vote for stability by backing national parties. This has not been so. Far from small parties yielding seats to the two big national parties, the BJP and Congress, the reverse has happened. The BJP has stayed where it was in 1998 with the same seat tally; the Congress has done worse and actually lost seats. And the real gainers among small parties are the regional and caste-based parties which have wrested seats in Uttar Pradesh, for example, from the BJP and in Andhra Pradesh fromthe Congress.

One reason for greater political fragmentation in the 13th Lok Sabha is that no national issues emerged during the campaign although the BJP in particular tried to talk-up a pan-India wave. Evidently the electorate was not greatly impressed by the BJP8217;s chest-thumping on Kargil. Nor did the Congress succeed in capturing the national imagination in any way. Both these major national parties made no serious effort to sell or educate the electorate on economic reforms, a truly national issue if ever there was one. It was a colossal missed opportunity. And the more is the pity from the point of view of the NDA government for it will have to take a number of tough decisions to speed up the GDP growth and give birth to the so-called second generation of reforms. Many signs point to the fact that voters are no longer swayed by demagogues and grand visions. They are focussed on what will or will not improve their living conditions. When local issues matter, parties attuned to those issues which makethemselves accessible to local groups or form tactical alliances to give themselves clout, such parties have tended to benefit.

These were not municipal polls as one TV pundit sourly remarked. But voters were not looking at the horizon, they were looking squarely at what was right before them. They generally did not like what they found. Good governance or rather the almost universal lack of it loomed large. So large, in fact that dissatisfaction with state governments has been decisive in the Lok Sabha verdict right across the country in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bihar, UP and even Maharashtra where the Congress split saved the ruling alliance from ignominy. There are several implications here for the Centre too. The next stage of economic reform depends crucially on the states. Regional parties and caste-based parties in the states will play the predominant role for better or worse on major policies. They can build a consensus or wreck central government initiatives. Therefore the Centre must notallow itself to function as the Delhi durbar of old but as a partner to bring about change in the states.