With the Delhi elections throwing up two parties of which neither has crossed the halfway mark,and with a general election round the corner pushing each party to be circumspect,the prospect of a re-election is being spoken of each day. It is not a first in Indian state politics. And the reasons for an absence of attempts at gathering support in such cases have been rooted in well thought-out political calculations,then and now. Two instances stand out from among assemblies where government formation was not possible because no party or coalition had got a single majority in an almost evenly split mandate. The more recent of the two also marks the only instance so far of a state assembly going to polls twice in the same year. In 2005,when the RJD was in power in Bihar,the election threw up a fractured mandate,and the lines were drawn so sharply that it became very difficult for a viable government to emerge. In a house of 243 MLAs,while the RJD got 75 seats,then main opposition JD(U) got 55,the BJP 37 and the LJP 29. Government formation was seen to be well near-impossible,but,says Prof N K Chaudhry,Patna-based political scientist,Nitish Kumar [JD(U) was sworn in and tried to somehow manage support,but never really got a chance to prove his support in the House and the assembly was dissolved. That re-election,though within the same calendar year,yielded surprising results. The mood remained averse to the ruling RJD,and the electorate voted in the main opposition,JD(U),as the ruling party. Along with the BJP,it secured a comfortable figure to run a coalition and figures changed all round,with Paswans LJP coming down to just 10 seats. The first time this happened was as early as in 1965 when,after the elections in Kerala,a hung assembly continued without a government for two years. The governor gave two years to allow for the possibility of some ruling arrangement emerging,but that did not happen. Then the Kerala assembly consisted of just 133 seats 67 was the majority mark. The Congress got 40 seats,the CPM 36,the Kerala Congress 23 and the Samyukt Socialist Party 13. Apart from the fact that the mandate was splintered so completely,this was also a time of great churn in Kerala,with all three parties,CPM,SSP and Kerala Congress,having been formed just then,and in no mood to do business with others elected,worried that it may dent what they stood for in the electorates eyes. This remains the only time in India that the assembly was not even convened,says Thiruvananthapuram-based political scientist Prof G Gopakumar. He adds,The sixties was a time of great political ferment in Kerala,when the state Congress and the CPI experienced a split. Very much like the Aam Aadmi Party was underestimated by the Congress,so was the Kerala Congress,and in fact the Kerala Congress got 12 per cent of the votes then and 24 assembly seats. But the newly-minted parties CPM and KC made any idea of a coalition impossible. An election in 1967 yielded much more distance between parties. A sharp fall in the Congress votes left it at nine seats,and the CPM with 52 and the CPI with 19 were able to forge a Left Democratic Front with seven parties participating. This was when coalition politics was initiated in Kerala and it holds even today.
