The Hindu : Never mind the pollsters, the race is still open

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Monday, Mar 15, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Never mind the pollsters, the race is still open

Starting today, we begin a series of analytical articles by well-known political scientist Yogendra Yadav on the coming Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections. In his maiden piece, Yadav takes a bird's eye view of the electoral prospects of the two major political fronts across the country.

IF THE media were to decide elections, the general elections to the 14th Lok Sabha would be a pointless exercise. The verdict is already out: the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is sure to return to power. Almost all sections of the media have said this from the day the NDA decided to advance the polls. Two serious nationwide surveys have supported this forecast, though in varying degrees. Add to this the umpteen number of newspaper articles, views of poll pundits and the astrologers. The hawa, as they say, favours the ruling coalition.

I am not convinced of this established wisdom. I am not convinced that it is a one-sided race all the way, that the NDA's majority is a foregone conclusion and that the Congress is about to slip down to its worst-ever performance. I am not sure that the electoral race can be called at this stage, and that even if one were to call it at this stage the results would be quite what the media think to be the case. This is, of course, not to say that there is no substance in the conventional wisdom. Nor do I dismiss the two nationwide surveys published by India Today and Outlook (I do not include in this category some other purely urban opinion polls that are hard to take seriously). It is just that years of watching elections has convinced me of the value of political commonsense and has taught me to disregard hype.

Before I set out my reasons for not subscribing to the prevailing wisdom about an NDA victory, let me first note what I believe to be valuable in this wisdom. First, it is true that the ruling coalition does not confront an electorate in a mood of total rejection of the sort we saw in the national elections of 1977, 1980, 1989 or 1996. The absence of a strong `anti-incumbency' mood at the end of a nearly full term of the government is no mean achievement.

The second element of truth in the prevailing wisdom is related to the first. It is true that at the core of this achievement for the NDA is the image of the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in the eyes of the public. All the opinion polls so far have shown that his image has remained remarkably unaffected by the various scams and scandals that have taken place in the last five years. He is in any case substantially ahead of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, the only other name in the race.

And finally, there is no doubt that the organisational capacity of the BJP election machinery is way ahead of the Congress. This was clearly in evidence in the way Congress lost the Assembly elections in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The Congress may have recovered somewhat, but there are signs of the same in the Lok Sabha elections as well: the BJP is a well-oiled machine, while in the Congress the left hand does not know what the right is doing.

The question therefore is, what conclusions can one draw from these facts. It would be fair to conclude from these facts that the ruling NDA is not headed for an electoral debacle or a wipe-out of the kind many ruling parties have faced in the past. One could also conclude that the BJP-led alliance is better placed to exploit the electoral opportunities that present themselves than its rival.

But, to my mind, all this is not enough to conclude that the NDA is headed for a repeat of its performance and is sure to come back to power. For this to be true, one has to produce evidence that there is not only no anti-incumbency mood against the NDA, but also that there is a positive sentiment, something of a `feel good' factor across the country. One has to demonstrate that the preference for Vajpayee will prevail over other considerations in the voting decision. One needs to show that the BJP is already so close to the magic number that its organisational advantage is enough to make the difference. I have not yet seen evidence that convinces me on these counts. Therefore I remain an agnostic, as far as the final outcome is concerned, and wait for more reliable evidence.

A fundamental flaw in thinking about what is going to happen in this election is that we tend to see things through old frames while the political realities have changed on the ground. Gone are the days of nationwide swings in favour of one party leading to waves or sweeps in elections. Ever since 1996, the Lok Sabha elections are no longer a single nationwide race — for all practical purposes the general election now is 28 electoral races being held simultaneously; the national-level verdict is nothing but the sum total of all the State-level verdicts. A State is the effective unit of political choice even in Lok Sabha elections.

Therefore, the most useful way to think about electoral prospects is to look at each State separately and assess the type of party competition, nature of social alliances and the current electoral scenario. That is what I propose to do in this series of articles. The question therefore is not whether the NDA has an advantage at the national level. That it undoubtedly has. The real question is whether the BJP and its various allies can convert this advantage into seats in each State. That remains an open question. Before we turn to each State in this series, let us begin with an overview. It may be useful to think of the coming electoral battle in terms of three battlegrounds and group all the States accordingly into one of the three types of contests.

The `Western Front,' from Punjab downwards right up to Kerala including the whole of old Madhya Pradesh, represents the zone of opportunity for the NDA. This is where it is likely to put up a good show and record gains in terms of votes and seats.

The `Eastern Front' includes all the States on the eastern coast from Tamil Nadu to West Bengal and extends to Bihar and Jharkhand on the one hand and the North-East on the other. The NDA had hit a peak here in the last election and faces an uphill task of cutting its losses to a minimum in this zone.

And finally, there is the `Northern Front' comprising Uttar Pradesh and a group of small States in the northwest. This zone is smaller than the other two but this is where the real uncertainty lies and where the real battle will be fought.

The principal nature of the political contest in the Western Front is that of the Congress versus the BJP. The NDA had bagged 108 of the 202 seats in this region in 1999 with the BJP alone getting 88. The Congress on the other hand won 70 seats with its allies adding another four. The BJP has allies only in Punjab and Maharashtra, while the Congress has allies only in Maharashtra and Kerala.

The BJP enjoys an advantage in this direct face-off with the Congress. The Congress regimes in Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala are well past their honeymoon period, while the BJP has the advantage of freshly elected regimes in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and to some extent in Gujarat. However, the NDA cannot expect to gain a large number of seats here compared to its performance in 1999. Except Punjab, Karnataka and Kerala, the NDA did very well in this entire belt. While the NDA votes may improve in Maharashtra, the Congress-NCP alliance may reduce the NDA's tally. In Kerala, the BJP is still far short of converting any gains of votes into seats. All in all, the NDA cannot expect to add more than 20 seats to its existing tally of 108 in this zone.

On the Eastern Front, the NDA will be engaged in a defensive battle. Here the contest involves principally the allies of the BJP and other regional political parties. Barring Jharkhand, none of the States will witness a direct BJP-Congress contest. Here the NDA had peaked in the previous Lok Sabha elections winning 136 of a total of 223 seats, of which 89 went to the BJP's allies.

The NDA, particularly the BJP's allies, has a lot to lose here. It nearly swept Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand last time and will need to do exceptionally well to retain those seats. The nature of the anti-NDA coalition in Tamil Nadu and the state of the BJP's allies in Bihar and West Bengal will make it difficult for the NDA to repeat its performance in these States. The only place where the NDA can hope to retain and improve its position is Assam and other northeastern States, but then all of them account for only 25 seats. The NDA would be lucky if it contains its losses to about 40 seats. In a worst-case scenario, the losses for the NDA could go up to 60 seats or more.

That leaves the Northern Front, which itself can be divided into Uttar Pradesh and a group of small States in the northwest. The second group, comprising Jammu and Kashmi, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Haryana and Delhi, accounts for 32 seats of which the Congress won only one last time. The BJP swept this region, winning 21 seats with its allies picking another six.

This time it will be very difficult for the BJP to repeat this performance, especially after the split with the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana. In Uttar Pradesh, which should be seen as a region in itself, the situation is still unclear since the alliances are yet to be firmed up. In any case, the BJP does not have big gains to look forward to here and should be content if it can retain the 25 seats it has now. If the Congress-BSP alliance does not take place, the SP can hope to add to its tally at the expense of the rest. If the BSP and the Congress do come together, the combine could inflict considerable damages on both the SP and the BJP. The NDA cannot possibly improve upon its tally in the northern zone; its losses may vary from none to a loss of up to 20 seats.

The final overall outcome will depend upon how the electoral battle on all the three fronts plays itself out. This is not the place or the stage to speculate on what the final outcome will be. But if the scenario presented above makes any sense, at least three types of outcomes are possible. The first scenario is that of the NDA coming back with a majority, perhaps a reduced majority. The second is that of the NDA falling short of majority by a small number, say up to 20. In that case the anti-NDA parties would still be considerably behind the NDA and the latter could draw upon some unattached parties such as the SP to form the Government.

But if the NDA does poorly in any two of the three battlegrounds, especially if the Congress-BSP alliance comes about, a third possibility is also open. The combined strength of the Congress, its allies and the Left could cross the majority mark. All the three scenarios lie within a very small range and can come about with a mere 50 seats changing hands. But the political consequences of the three scenarios are radically different. It is still an open race.

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