Opinion The invisibles

But for the forthcoming assembly elections once again,interestingly,keen questions are being asked about “small” parties altering the electoral map,thereby giving a lease of life to those who think there is life beyond a two-dimensional understanding of party politics in India. With the first big

assembly polls (Maharashtra) approaching,there is a lot of anxiety around the political battle that is likely to take place. The morale of the beleaguered Shiv Sena and the BJP there is low and even generally the opposition,both Right and Left,continues to appear bereft of argument and voice. The Congress and the NCP are set to go in together as an alliance,as are the Shiv Sena and the BJP. The fight is for a key western Indian state where the Congress-NCP bucked anti-incumbency in 2004,and is now optimistic after the alliance’s performance in the Lok Sabha elections.

The course that a single party seeks to adopt,Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS),a party that did not even send one MP to the Lok Sabha,seems to hold a crucial key to success. Though the MNS’s appeal is not spread evenly across the state,a cursory look at the results of the Lok Sabha polls will establish how it inflicted the kind of damage on the BJP-Shiv Sena combine they had hoped the BSP would do to the Congress-NCP. The MNS,with just 11 candidates put up,picked up a significant vote share,significant enough to make a difference to the fortunes of the Congress-NCP alliance. Consider some of the Mumbai seats. In Mumbai North-West,the MNS got 1,24,000 votes; in Mumbai North,even more,about 1,50,000 votes. All in all,in Mumbai,not only was the MNS vote greater than the margin of victory for the Congress-NCP,the Sena-MNS vote combined was more than half of the votes polled. This could mean that as long as the MNS is firmly kept out of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance,in the forthcoming assembly election it is the small party that could make the big difference.

So while the polls closed on a note that suggested the unequivocal triumph of the bigger parties — especially the ruling Congress — the past year has actually seen the power of smaller parties to alter the equation between the bigger parties.

Exactly a year ago,in July 2008,when the Indo-US nuclear deal threw UPA-1 in disarray,with the Left parties withdrawing support in a huff,it was a smaller party,the Samajwadi Party,that made all the difference and allowed the Congress-led UPA to stabilise and make a base that enabled it to consolidate itself,in effect taking away the initiative the Left had attempted to give itself — the right to decide when the general elections would be held. Earlier this year,it was again a then-small party,the Trinamool Congress,with exactly one member of Parliament in the 14th Lok Sabha,whose alliance with the Congress threw the Left in West Bengal off course,ensuring the biggest upset there in over three decades. However much the discontent against the Left Front there,the results would not have been as dramatic as they have been had the Congress not tied up with an ostensibly small party.

Cut to Elections 2009. Of the several states where the UPA did well,three were the largest and most significant; other than Maharashtra,it was Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu where the UPA exceeded expectations. While it would be churlish to grudge the incumbent YSR government credit for the victory,it is also clear that minus the presence of the “small” opposition,the Praja Rajyam,which again like the MNS did not win seats in the parliamentary election,the Congress may have seen a different script playing out. With a total of over 17 per cent of the vote share,coming mostly from coastal Andhra,the PRP helped the Congress wrest more seats than the underwhelming Mahakootami put together by Chandrababu Naidu.

Tamil Nadu,with a reputation for electoral tsunamis that benefit one or the other of the Dravidian parties,belied predictions as there was a new factor stirring the pot — as in the assembly elections in 2005,actor,“Captain” Vijaykanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) was a force to contend with. On a “progressive” social justice platform,the DMDK said it was in the fray to liberate Tamil Nadu from the stranglehold of the two Dravidian parties. The party secured well over one lakh votes in constituencies like Virudhanagar,Arani,Kancheepuram,Kallakurichi,Dindigul and Dharmapuri and almost a lakh in places like Krishnagiri,Erode and Cuddalore — in all,about 9 per cent of the vote in the entire state — and,despite two excellent alliances giving it a bi-polar feel,helped split the opposition vote silently. Again,the DMDK’s representatives do not get to sit on a green bench on Sansad Marg,but interesting and significant vote shares again helped break any possible anti-incumbency wave that the AIADMK alliance might have capitalised on.

There is no moral of the story here,but it is just a useful reminder of India’s political complexities that remain,especially at a time when politics appears monochromatic and the opposition appears bereft of an identity. The power of the “small” remains a big story.

seema.chishti@expressindia.com