Opinion Calls for boycotting Bihar polls: You can’t win if you don’t play

History offers a cautionary tale from our own region: Bangladesh, 2014. That year, the country’s largest opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), boycotted the general elections, demanding that the ruling Awami League hand over power to a neutral caretaker government for the conduct of polls. Their fears were not unfounded — there were legitimate concerns about state capture and political persecution. But in choosing to boycott, the BNP ended up vacating the entire field. As a result, 153 of the 300 parliamentary seats were won uncontested, mostly by the ruling party and its allies. I was in Dhaka soon after. Ironically, many observers told me that had the BNP not boycotted, they were actually winning. Their boycott gifted the ruling party a walkover and left them politically marginalised for years.

India, too, has witnessed its share of election boycotts — Punjab’s 1992 assembly elections, for example. With the Shiromani Akali Dal boycotting, turnout plunged to as low as 13 per cent in some districts, and Beant Singh won on the votes of a tiny fraction of the electorate. The boycott handed Congress an easy victory and left democracy poorer for the lack of real competition.

There have been many other boycotts, though often from non-mainstream or separatist quarters. In Jammu and Kashmir, separatist groups have historically called for poll boycotts, arguing that participation would lend legitimacy to Indian governance. Yet, elections were conducted regardless of turnout, and governments formed. In some instances, low turnout allowed particular parties to win with wafer-thin mandates, undermining broader representation.

In central India, Left-wing extremist groups have regularly used violence and intimidation to enforce poll boycotts. But the EC, committed to protecting the democratic right to vote, has pushed back — with security deployments, special polling booths, and remarkable logistical efforts. The message has been consistent: Democracy will not be held hostage to boycott threats.

Globally, too, boycotts have fared poorly. Venezuela offers a textbook warning: In 2005, the opposition boycotted and the ruling alliance took every National Assembly seat; in 2018, a partial boycott helped Nicolas Maduro secure reelection amid ~46 per cent turnout; and in 2020, another opposition boycott saw ~31 per cent turnout and delivered the government a supermajority. In Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the 2008 runoff allowed Robert Mugabe to claim victory unopposed. International criticism followed, but in vain.

Serbia in 2000 proved the opposite. By contesting and then mobilising against fraud, the opposition toppled Slobodan Miloševic. Had they boycotted, he would have claimed victory uncontested, as in Venezuela 2005. But such outcomes are exceptions, not the rule. More often, a boycott becomes a symbolic gesture — loud in rhetoric but empty in consequence.

In India, the Constitution does not provide for invalidation of elections due to boycotts or low voter turnout. The EC is duty-bound to conduct polls as per schedule and to declare winners based on the votes polled. A boycott, therefore, does not halt the process — it simply ensures a walkover.

This is why the call to boycott elections in Bihar, in response to the SIR controversy, must be reconsidered. Yes, the SIR process must be subjected to robust scrutiny. The EC must remove all doubts of every party and civil society to ensure transparency in deletions and provide effective grievance redress mechanisms. Civil society, media, and courts must remain vigilant. But the electoral arena should not be abandoned.

To vacate the field is to forfeit the fight. Let us not forget that in a democracy, absence is not protest — it is abdication.

Equally self-defeating is the Opposition’s habit of boycotting Parliament. While walkouts and prolonged disruptions are sometimes intended as symbolic protest, their practical effect is to gift the ruling party a free hand to pass crucial legislation without scrutiny or debate. In India, several landmark laws — from the farm bills in 2020 to key constitutional amendments in earlier years — were pushed through in near-empty Houses as Opposition MPs staged walkouts. In Bangladesh, the opposition’s long parliamentary boycotts in the 1990s and 2000s allowed the government to legislate virtually unopposed. Pakistan offers similar lessons: Opposition boycotts of the National Assembly, most recently in 2022 after the change in government, enabled the Treasury benches to pass finance bills and controversial amendments with minimal challenge. Such tactics may momentarily grab headlines, but they deprive citizens of robust debate, weaken legislative oversight, and ultimately erode the very democracy the opposition claims to defend.

Democracy thrives on participation, vigilance, and constructive engagement. Whether in elections or in Parliament, the opposition’s role is to challenge, question, and hold the government to account. Boycotts may offer an outlet for anger and frustration, but they also abandon the very platforms where battles for accountability are meant to be fought.

History shows that the most effective Opposition leaders have been those who stayed in the arena, however hostile, and used the tools of democracy to expose wrongs, build public opinion, and win people’s trust. By walking away, the Opposition concedes both the space and the narrative to its adversaries — a political blunder from which recovery can take years, if not decades.

Remember, an empty Opposition bench is the ruling party’s dream and democracy’s nightmare.

The writer is former Chief Election Commissioner of India and author of An Undocumented Wonder: The Making of the Great Indian Election