:: P.C. Alexander

Cong LS dreams built on 33 seats

By P.C. Alexander

THE RESULTS of the five Assembly elections announced on December 8 have come as a surprise to most, including the two main contestants, the Congress and the BJP. But more surprising has been some of the conclusions being drawn from the elections and the assessments of their likely repercussions on the general elections to be held in four-five months. Some Congress leaders and sections of the media appear to be so overwhelmed by the success of the party in Delhi and Rajasthan that they have quickly convinced themselves that these results mark a turn-around in the fortunes of the Congress and that the Party is on the road to a massive victory in the elections to the Lok Sabha.

The Congress had not won any significant state Assembly elections after it came to power in 2004 and, perhaps, its good performance in Mizoram, Delhi and Rajasthan has encouraged it to entertain high hopes about the coming general elections also. Some state-level leaders of the Congress have gone to the extent of declaring that the Congress would sweep the polls in 2009 and that it alone can provide a stable government at the Centre. Even giving ample allowance for the over enthusiasm created by the unexpected favourable results in the Assembly elections, one is inclined to say that these Congress leaders do not appear to have learnt any useful lessons from the BJP’s mistakes in 2004. At least, there was some justification in the calculations by the BJP leaders in 2004 that they would score an impressive victory in the general elections of 2004, as the Congress had been trounced very badly in most of the states in the Hindi belt. However, nothing of that kind happened on December 8, 2008. On the other hand, the BJP retained power in two out of three states and secured 78 seats against the Congress’ 96, still five short of the required majority.

In order to understand the difference between the performance of the Congress in the state elections in 2003 and that of the BJP in 2008 it is necessary to keep in view a clear perspective about the strength of these five states in the Lok Sabha: They account for a total of 73 seats only (Madhya Pradesh 29, Rajasthan 25, Chhattisgarh 11, Delhi 7 and Mizoram 1) out of 545. The three states where the Congress’ performance was impressive together have only 33 of the 73 seats. This perspective appears to be totally lost on certain Congress leaders and their supporters when they make claims about sweeping the polls in 2009.

Let us examine some of the lessons which have been thrown up by the elections to the five Assemblies. One is that they have demolished the myth about the importance of the anti-incumbency factor which had been generally accepted as an essential feature of Indian elections. The results in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have clearly proved that if there is good governance, incumbency will become a plus factor rather than a disadvantage. If the incumbent government was thrown out by the voters in Mizoram, it was not because of incumbency but because of incompetence.

One may ask why the Vasundhara Raje government was rejected by the voters even though it was generally acknowledged to have been an efficient administration focused on development. This brings up another valuable lesson and that is the need for observing credible and democratic norms in the selection of candidates by political parties. There were 60 rebel candidates of the BJP in Rajasthan and as many as 27 won the seats they contested. This clearly shows that the complaints about arbitrariness, personal prejudice or favourtism in the selection of candidates in Rajasthan had a good deal of justification. One of the essential principles of election in a parliamentary system of democracy is that the party units in the constituency concerned should be consulted and their views given due weight unless there are compelling reasons for not doing so. Obviously, the selection of candidates was faulty and contributed to the loss of several seats for the BJP. This is a lesson not only for the BJP but for all political parties in our country as only few among them go by the opinion of the party units in the constituency while selecting candidates for election.

Healthy democratic norms and good standards of impartiality and objectivity are necessary not only in the selection of candidates for election to the legislatures but also in the projection of a candidate for the office of chief minister before the elections. It is doubtful if these were strictly followed when V.K. Malhotra was projected as the prospective chief minister of Delhi by the BJP. In Chhattisgarh, former chief minister Ajit Jogi was the undeclared nominee for the post of chief minister while in Madhya Pradesh the Congress did not project any name as there were over half-a-dozen eager aspirants. It is a well-known fact that both, the BJP candidate for Delhi and the Congress candidate for Chhattisgarh, were no match to the incumbent chief ministers in these states. A good lesson to be drawn from this is that much greater care and importance has to be given by the political parties in projecting a person as the party’s chief minister nominee.

There have been some reports in the media that the BJP had tried to politicise the issue of international terrorism after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on November 26 and that this had created strong resentment among the voters and contributed to the defeat of the BJP in Delhi and Rajasthan. This accusation can be answered only by the leaders of the BJP who were in charge of the election campaign in these states. However, it has to be understood by all concerned that pointing out the inadequacies, if any, on the part of the government in dealing with international terrorism or violence indulged in by domestic forces like the Naxalites or Maoists during an election campaign, cannot be interpreted as politicisation for election purposes. On the other hand, it is the duty of all citizens to take a firm stand against all forces who are a threat to the nation’s territorial integrity and sovereignty whatever may be their origins.

P.C. Alexander was former governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra