Changing Face of Elections 2009

The exercise for the democracy has begun. The country is getting ready to elect a new Parliament. It is by no means amused by the antics of the current occupants whether on the government benches, the Opposition or even known independents. Except for a few honourable exceptions, politicians are held in contempt. The chances are that most of the current herd will face ignominious defeat. Parliament will doubtless have a new look. Will it be pleasing or even uglier than before remains a troublesome question to be answered. No one should venture a correct prediction.

Different Scenario
With the two major national parties showing signs of age or debility, many small and medium entities in India’s political jungle have begun to flex their muscles and disrupt the democratic ecosystem that has been carefully developed and nurtured over the last six decades. Thanks to the overweening sense of self-importance of many bit players in the political process or their greed, the two main coalitions that had emerged over the last few years — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led-National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) — have begun to come apart. The Congress, which was only the other day gloating over the plight of the NDA, suddenly finds the ‘secular’ grand alliance crafted by it five years ago withering away. The dilemma of the two main parties and the coalitions formed by them shows that the political system is under severe strain. This has been brought about by a host of reasons.First, India’s social diversity has, over a period of time, translated itself into political diversity and spawned dozens of caste and region-based parties all over the country. These political entities, like the Pattali Makkal Katchi of the Vanniars in Tamil Nadu, command the loyalty of the caste groups which they seek to empower, ensure huge turnout of supporters in their pocket boroughs on election day, and get them to ‘caste’ their votes, even in a Parliament election. The rest of the electorate, lacking the drive and determination of the dominant caste, largely stays away from polling stations and allow local, caste-based electoral opinions to prevail over national issues.Second, the electoral system that we have adopted is deeply flawed as it just does not enable us to ascertain the view of the majority in every constituency and at the macro level in the country. Since voters are under no legal or moral obligation to vote, nearly half the electors stay away from polling stations, thus allowing a small but fiercely committed minority to ‘win’ the seat. What we, therefore, have before us after a Lok Sabha election is not the opinion of the majority of India’s electorate but the aggregate of the opinions of hundreds of minorities. Combine this flaw with the first-past-the-post system and you realise how illogical the democratic system has become. The main players and the political system would have been able to cope with all this if smaller political parties which are part of the two main alliances respected the coalition dharma and showed at least a modicum of loyalty to the groups they belong to. But, as political developments over the last couple of weeks show, this is not to be. If the political promiscuity that is currently on display is any indication, we will be entering a free trade zone in our national politics once the Lok Sabha results are declared.

All parties are now hastening to get their act together. It is open season for dumping partners, building alliances, striking deals and, generally, assembling winnable assets for entering the general elections. As yesterday’s rivals turn today’s allies, friends fall by the wayside and scruples go for a toss, every party will be seeking to maximise the situation in its own favour.The battle will be different this time. About 499 of the 543 constituencies will be different because of the latest round of delimitation. Check out the contours of your constituency — some parts of it might have disappeared and new parts added. The New Delhi and South Mumbai seats, for instance, are nothing like they used to be.

Picture of Vulnerability
The cumulative pressure from different quarters has led to an abrupt change in the chemistry of the 2009 general elections. Far from its re-election at the Centre being regarded as inevitable and unstoppable, the Congress now presents a picture of vulnerability. If the BJP is a non-player in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, the Congress has ruled itself out of consideration in all but six of the 120 seats from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. With Lalu Yadav also spewing venom on a Congress that dared accommodate his rebel brother-in-law, it is now apparent that the UPA, which was crafted in the aftermath of the 2004 poll, has been terminated. The unity of “secular” forces, which was the justification for the 2004 arrangement, is no longer seen as the primary driving force.

If the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha also carries out its threat to contest all the 14 seats in Jharkhand and if the wily PMK switches its loyalty to the AIADMK-led alliance, the coming days could see the perceptional change of the Congress from the favourite (to emerge as the Number One party) to the underdog. The formation of another UPA type Government, which the media had taken for granted, may not be inevitable.

Had the disintegration of the UPA taken place prior to Naveen Patnaik’s departure from the BJP-led alliance, there is little doubt that the NDA parties would have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of hangers-on in their election offices. The loss of its most loyal and least troublesome ally came as a very rude shock to the BJP. But it also forced the party to cement its alliances elsewhere. On balance, the loss of alliances in 21 seats in Orissa has been made up by alliances that cover a total of 35 or so constituencies in Assam, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.

Race For Prime Ministership
In fact, this will be first election since the first in 1952 in which a Dalit leader in the form of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati will make a strong candidature for the prime ministership. She will try to take advantage her caste identity. For Jagjivan Ram, the last Dalit to have been projected as candidate for the top job in 1977, his caste was more of a handicap than a political plus. This is also the first election that you will have two declared prime ministerial candidates, Dr. Manmohan Singh and senior BJP leader L K Advani. And that is not counting many more with known aspirations but who have not made their claims public as yet.At the level of leadership too, a generational shift is evident. Several key players of 2004 will be missing this time. V P Singh, Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Chandra Shekhar are no more, while Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Jyoti Basu will be staying away from the action on account of old age. This is the first election that will take into account India’s massive urbanisation over the last three decades.

In 2004, Lok Sabha constituencies were based on the population spread as per the 1971 census; this time, it will be based on the census of 2001. Between 1971 and 2001, urban population has nearly doubled and the number of towns has gone up from 2,590 to 5,161. In 1971 there were 22 people in cities for every 100 in the countryside; in 2001 there were 38. Voters of urban India will have a higher say compared to 2004 and will be wooed by parties perhaps for the first time.

The Possibilities
In the 2009 general elections, the fight may end up with any one of three possible outcomes: a Congress-led UPA win, a BJP-led NDA victory or a Third Front coming out ahead. At present scenario, the ruling UPA looks to be the frontrunner. But so did the NDA at this stage in 2004. With each passing day, the NDA looks less and less likely to emerge the winner, but it is too early to rule it out. After all, the Third Front looked as good as dead till a fortnight ago. Today, it has bounced back into contention, perhaps ahead of the NDA. With the exception of 1996, it is difficult to think of an election as open as this one.

At the same time this suspense is not born out of uncertainty. Though the possibilities of Government formation are wide open, the range of possible electoral outcomes is actually very narrow. Unlike the elections of the 1970s and 1980s, there will be no nationwide wave. The final outcome will reflect the sum total equilibrium of political forces at the State level. This will result in yet another hung Parliament, like every Lok Sabha election since 1989. Unlike 1999, no pre-poll alliance will secure a majority. With a little bit of risk, a dramatic fall in the tally for the UPA cannot be ruled out, or a dramatic rise for the NDA. Not many would disagree if you predicted a sharp fall for the Left and a rise for other partners of the Third Front.

In the race for the 15th Lok Sabha elections, States are going to play crucial roles. Even though the election is at the national level, the voters will exercise their ‘principal’ choice at the State level, which is reflected in a derivative way at the national level. There are many States (with 116 Lok Sabha seats, 72 of them held by the BJP) where the State Government was elected in 2008 or so and can look forward to an easy confirmation of its probation. Even 10 to 20 seats changing hands can alter the equation dramatically.

However, the largest category is that of States facing a mid-term review. This accounts for a little over a majority of the seats in the Lok Sabha: 55 in UPA-ruled States, 84 in NDA-ruled States and 142 seats in States run by third force formations like the Left and the BSP. And then there are 137 seats in States where the Government awaits a final approval or disapproval of the electorate. But anti-incumbent outcomes in these States cannot be assumed.

The Biggest and Smallest

The Election Commission (EC) has come out with some interesting facts and figures regarding Parliamentary constituencies in the country. If area is taken into account then Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir is the largest Parliamentary constituency, as per the EC list of 10 largest and 10 smallest Lok Sabha constituencies.

Ladakh, with an area spreading over 1,72,37,41,08,504 sq mt, is followed by Barmer (Rajasthan), Kutch (Gujarat), Arunachal East, Arunachal West, Mandi (Himachal Pradesh), Bikaner (Rajasthan), Bastar (Chhattisgarh), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Mizoram.

Lakshwadeep, with an area of 3,02,92,967sq mt, heads the list of smallest constituencies. It is followed by constituencies in metropolitan cities like Mumbai South, Kolkata Uttar, Mumbai North Central, Mumbai South Central, Chennai Central, Hyderabad, Mumbai North East, Mumbai North West and Chandni Chowk (Delhi).

Incidentally, as per another list released earlier, Lakshwadeep is also the smallest constituency as far as the votes’ strength is concerned. The latest delimitation exercise has seen addition of 43 million new voters in the country and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh with 18,97,474 electorates emerged the largest, while Lakshwadeep with 44,424 and 40 polling stations the smallest constituency in the country.

The country on the whole saw an increase in electorate from 671 million in 2004 polls to 714 million in 2009. The total eligible voters -- 71,42,87,814 -- will use 10.5 lakh electronic voting machines to exercise their franchise at 8.3 lakh polling stations. There has been a substantial increase in polling stations from 6,87,402 in 2004 elections to 8,28,804 in 2009.

Third Front

The Left and some regional parties, spearheaded by former Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda, have joined hands to cobble up a eight-party Third Front in a bid to form an alternative to the combines led by the Congress and BJP on the plank of decentralisation of power.
According to the leaders of the new alliance both the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA have failed to address people’s grievances and discounted suggestions that some regional parties were coming together on an “opportunistic platform.”

The new Front comprises the Left—Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Forward Bloc—Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telanga Rashtra Samiti (TRS), Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Bhajan Lal’s Janahit Congress Party. In the 14th Lok Sabha, tally of Third Front constituencies was 83 (CPM-42, CPI-10, BSP-16, TDP-4, RSP-3, FB-3, TRS-3 AIADMK-0, HJC-0, JD(S)-2). On the fence NCP, BJD and SP have 11, 10 and 33 seats respectively.

The launch of the Third Front raises more questions than it provides answers to. That is only to be expected given the imponderables in a situation where no party or alliance is a clear frontrunner in the run-up to the general election. While the principal contenders — the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA — have, predictably, sneered at the launching of the Third Front, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar has taken a realistic view of the emerging proposition. Pawar may have stated the obvious in saying that if neither of the two alliances get a majority, they will have to talk to the Third Front. Yet, in doing so, he has shown both savvy and candour; savvy in keeping open his lines of communication to the Third Front, and candour in acknowledging the circumstances in which the Third Front could become a critical player.

That underscores both the strength and weakness of the Third Front. Its strength is that it is a platform ostensibly equidistant from the Congress party and the BJP. The platform is ideologically disparate enough to hold all comers, and the lack of cohesion can be projected as the flexibility of those who constitute the grouping. With the exception of the TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu, no heavyweight in the sense of a prime ministerial aspirant, has come up on the Front’s platform. Yet this is precisely the Front’s weakness — of being a platform for too many aspiring Prime Ministers who are not even willing to stand up and be counted now.

For its part, the CPI will contest 53 seats including some in the traditional Hindi belt of Uttar Pradesh (9), Bihar (8), Jharkhand (4), Madhya Pradesh (3) and Chhattisgarh.

As for the CPI manifesto, it reads more like a four-year report card, with the party claiming credit for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDCA) and Traditional Forest Dwellers Act (TFDA). On the economic front, the CPI, like CPIM, lists its moves to prevent the dilution of government equity in banks, privatisation of insurance sector and transfer of pension and PF funds into speculative markets. On the whole, the manifesto calls for a non-Congress, non BJP alternative to defend the country’s secular fabric, pursue an independent foreign policy and a pro-poor economic course that ends neo-liberalism.

Emergence of King Maker
Nearly five years after suffering a humiliating electoral drubbing in his home State of Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party Chief N Chandrababu Naidu looks set to play the role of a ‘King Maker’ once again at the national level. The emergence of Third Front, a conglomeration of disparate regional players and Left parties, has revived the hopes of Naidu who has been on an image make-over exercise to regain the confidence of voters.

During his hey days, Naidu was widely seen as a poster boy of reforms and had earned the sobriquet ‘King Maker’ for his crucial role in both the United Front and NDA regimes. The regional satrap had saddled the two ends of the political spectrum with equal ease and finesse.
It is expected that the 2009 general elections will throw up a situation similar to the one that prevailed in 1996 when regional parties emerged as crucial players in the formation of government at the Centre. The TDP chief, one of the prime movers of the UF, went on to influence its course in the subsequent years. From formulating the political strategies to building consensus over Prime Ministerial candidates, Naidu’s influence was overwhelming during the United Front dispensation.

However, he pulled off a surprise in 1998 by switching sides and supporting the Vajpayee Government in return for Lok Sabha Speaker’s post for his party nominee. The TDP’s alliance with BJP continued for seven years till both the parties suffered defeat in the previous elections. After a series of policy reversals in the wake of rout in the 2004 polls, Naidu is now positioning himself as a ‘pro-poor, populist politician’ and assigning a bigger role for himself at national level.

Role of Regional Parties
It is noticeable that Congress, which is supposedly the anchor of the UPA Government, is reduced to less than a junior status in the matter of allocation of seats for the forthcoming elections at the hands of regional parties in the politically crucial States of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. While in the former, the Samajwadi Party left only six out of 80 seats where it stated that it would not contest against the Congress, in Bihar the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party divided 37 of the 40 seats among themselves and condescendingly left a paltry three for the Congress. This is not even the proverbial crumbs and the ignominy is not lost on anyone. The Congress, which was asking for 11 out of the 40 seats, had come down to six but Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan did not give it even the measly four that it had contested in 2004. The Congress has decided to contest “many more seats” in Bihar, just as it is putting up candidates on at least 60 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. But that brave face cannot hide the national discomfiture. After all, in the last elections, it had contested as many as 73 seats in Uttar Pradesh and had won only nine.

The reasons for its growing irrelevance in the two large states are not far to seek. The Congress never allowed leaders of stature to grow roots in the states. They were just hangers-on who owed their position to their proximity to the central leaders in Delhi. So, the aspirations of the local populace were never taken into account adequately. In contrast, regional parties strengthened their grassroots, leading to the stage where the Congress virtually became a non-entity. That the BJP is faring no better is hardly any consolation for the Congress.

Power of Women Trio

Women politicians may not be able to get their rightful share in the 15th Lok Sabha, but three of their colleagues --- BSP supremo Mayawati, AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa and Trinamool Congress boss Mamata Banerjee --- are all set to play an important role in the 2009 general elections.

Political observers maintain that no alliance is likely to be formed without the active support of the three women in question. Even their detractors in rival parties acknowledge that if anyone has the capacity to make a difference, whether to the UPA, NDA or the Third Front, it is the trio.
Apart from Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Mayawati, Jayalalithaa and Mamata will play key role in these elections. Together, they have the capacity to influence results in 70 to 80 Lok Sabha seats. Interestingly, neither the Congress-led UPA nor the BJP-led NDA is projecting a woman leader as its prime ministerial candidate. While Manmohan Singh continues to be Congress’ choice, LK Advani is the BJP man for the post. As of now, the Third Front is also mum on the issue. Mayawati has made it clear that her party would fight the Lok Sabha polls on its own. She declared that BSP alone can deliver the nation from misrule by the Congress and the BJP. But the Dalit leader has not ruled out an alliance with the Third Front after the elections. What she wants is a clear commitment from the Third Front as she knows there are others in the running.

Mayawati’s victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections two years back was viewed by political pundits as a defining moment in the country's politics when handiwork of smartly undertaken “social engineering” worked. It is this “social engineering” formula that she hopes will come to her aid at the national level as well. She has the capability of winning at least 40-45 seats in Uttar Pradesh. If the Samajwadi Party and the Congress manage to get together, her tally can reduce. But if they do not then Mayawati will be the clear beneficiary. She may get a couple of more seats from other States as well.

In West Bengal, the Trinamool chief Mamata has emerged as a power to reckon with. She managed to corner 28 good constituencies for her party’s kitty out of the total 42 despite having won only one seat in the 2004 general elections. Her seat-sharing partner Congress, with six sitting MPs, had to be contend with 14 seats.

Interestingly, Trinamool’s 28 constituencies include “good, winnable seats”, some of which the Congress had been demanding. Mamata’s bargaining power is evident from the fact that majority of 14 seats that the Congress will now contest are those which it either already holds or those which she had offered in the beginning of the alliance.

Counting anti-incumbency as one of her main winning points, Jayalalithaa is upbeat about the prospects of her party AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. Jayalalithaa is more “neutral” in her ideological stance and does not believe in taking hard position on any issues related to Congress or BJP in order to retain the bargaining power in post-election scenario. She had also made advances to the Congress, asking it to leave the DMK and come with her. In 2004 her party manged to secure close to 30 per cent vote share and if she manages to pull the PMK with her, of which there are indications, her situation will only improve.

JD (U)-Samata Merger RejectedIn a setback to the JD(U) and the Samata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha poll, the Election Commission has rejected their merger on the ground that it was not “total”. The Commission stated that the merger was not total in view of a dispute.

The merger plan of the Samata Party with the JD(U) had run into rough weather following the objections raised by dissident Samata Party member of the dissolved Lok Sabha Brahmanand Mandal, who had claimed before the Commission that he was with the original Samata Party.
The Commission allowed the Mandal faction to operate under the Samata Party’s name. The Commission has, however, not taken any decision on allotting the Samata Party’s “torch’’ symbol to the faction. It has asked the party to apply for a reserved symbol under Rule 10(a) of the Representation of People Act.

Congress-NCP Pact
The Congress, however, has managed to cobble up a seat-sharing pact in Maharashtra with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) under which it will field 26 candidates and leave 22 seats for the Sharad Pawar-led party in the Lok Sabha elections. The deal sees the NCP getting one seat more than in the previous Lok Sabha polls. Both parties, however, remained evasive on whether the alliance would also extend to other states like Goa and Gujarat. They also sidestepped questions whether Samajwadi Party could be accommodated in the alliance in Maharashtra. This is the second formal alliance of the Congress with a UPA partner after the one with the JMM in Jharkhand.

Strategy Against Left
There is no surprise when Congress finally blinked in Bengal. It had already accepted Mamata as the senior partner of the alliance. But state Congress leaders delayed the inevitable by pleading for two extra seats so that the morale of party workers could be boosted. It finally took an ultimatum from Mamata this week to make the Congress fall in line and accept the alliance on terms dictated by Trinamool Congess. The national party had already surrendered the anti-CPM political space in the state by flirting with the Left, so much so that in Bengal it has had to live with the dubious description that the party resembles a water melon — green from outside but red within. From the perspective of the Congress, the alliance could not have come at a better time. With pre-poll alliances falling apart and the post-poll situation looking increasingly uncertain, an alliance with TMC made political sense. It also sends out the signal that Congress will not be averse to the role of a junior partner in the even more important state of Uttar Pradesh.

It is no ‘magic of Mamata’ but an upsurge of anti-CPM sentiment in Bengal which the alliance hopes to cash in on. The alliance has a token presence of the SUCI, a radical Left party with strong pockets of influence, and is likely to get the support of the Maoists as well, who had earlier made common cause with Mamata against the State Government? They include policies on industrialisation and acquisition of land. The steady decline of the CPM in the State was indicated by the reverses it suffered, first in the panchayat elections held in 2008 and subsequently in the byelections to the State Assembly in February 2009.

Varun Gandhi Controversy

In an unprecedented order, the Election Commission has recommended to the BJP that it should not nominate Varun Gandhi as a candidate for the Lok Sabha elections after holding him guilty of violating the Model Code of Conduct for his hate speeches against Muslims. Coming down heavily on the 29-year-old son of late Sanjay Gandhi and Menaka Gandhi, the Commission stated that Gandhi’s controversial speeches in Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh) recently contained “highly derogatory” references and seriously provocative language of a “wholly unacceptable” nature against a certain community.

A defiant BJP has rejected the Election Commission's advice to it, not to nominate Varun Gandhi as candidate in the Lok Sabha elections and threw its full weight behind his candidature in Pilibhit. The young member of the Gandhi family also put up a defiant posture accusing the EC of acting in "haste" and going beyond its "jurisdiction", "pressurised by political considerations".However, it is unfortunate that the BJP has rejected the Commission’s advice not to nominate Mr Varun Gandhi as the party’s candidate in the Lok Sabha elections. While the Commission has no powers to disqualify Varun, its “advice” should have received the respect that it deserved. By rejecting the advice summarily, the BJP has shown its utter disregard for norms, belittled the august body and let it be known where it stands on the vital issues involving Varun’s speech.

The BJP allegation that the proximity of the Chief Election Commissioner-designate Navin Chawla to the Congress and the strained relations between Sonia Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi led to the Commission’s strong action against Varun, is indicative of the party’s questionable gameplan to make political capital out of the Varun Gandhi affair. Predictably, its crusade against Chawla will get sharper by the day and could take the shape of placing the electoral process in doubt if it fails to come to power at the Centre.

This is timely advice, especially when both the UPA and the NDA are seeing desertions from their ranks and the so-called Third Front has become a parking lot for a host of ambitious political players who are determined to extract more than their pound of flesh from the national parties when the results come in. Given the grave implications that all this has for the democratic process, and given the slights and insults that their coalition partners have heaped on them in recent times, the country’s two main parties will have to work in tandem and bring in legal and systemic changes if they wish to restore the credibility of the political system.