With announcement of results to the three States which went to polls, except for Manipur, there will be new governments in Punjab and Uttarakhand. The immediate political fallout of the Assembly Elections results is the hold of the Congress in North India continues to fade with two important States it was ruling conceding defeat—in Punjab to the Shriromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP combine and in Uttarakhand to the BJP. With Assembly election for the ‘politically crucial’ State of Uttar Pradesh soon to take place in April/May, the loss of Punjab and Uttarakhand will give the psychological edge to the BJP to make further inroads into whatever little there is left of the Congress in the region.
And even if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may say that the results are not a referendum on the Centre, not even he can deny that the outcome of the election will be a political setback for the UPA led government. Here, the Congress will be the first to realize that its overall performance in the Hindi belt will have to improve tremendously if the party has any hopes of doing well at the national level. Therefore it is clear that while the election results from the two States may not be a referendum on the Centre as pointed out the Prime Minister, nevertheless, it is a good enough indicator that the Congress is well behind the BJP led NDA alliance when it comes to battling it out for the heart and soul of the Hindi heartland. Congress party managers will have to closely study the reasons for its defeat and see where it has fallen in terms of people’s expectation.
While most parties when they face defeat blame it on the so called ‘anti-incumbency’ factor, a deeper analysis of the electoral process will prove that this is not so much the case as it has been made out to be. If at all anti-incumbency is a factor, then Manipur would also have gone against the ruling Congress. But this has not been the case and at the end it is the people’s will, which determines the fortunes of political parties. And that is why we say in democracy, it is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. As such there is nothing much to derive out of the anti-incumbency formula, which in fact only serves to whitewash the failure in governance. It is therefore clear that elections are fought and won/lost on issues. If at all, the anti-incumbency factor may come into play when a government has been in power for a comparative longer period of time.
Whether it is Punjab, Uttarkhand or Manipur it has been issues more than anything else which has determined the election outcome. And when we speak of issues, most notably they are related to bread and butter concerns (for instance price rise, farmers debt), failure of governance, corruption, weak (arrogant) leadership and non-implementation of poll promises. In all three States, parties or individuals won because they raised issues that were close to the people. And for this the voters must be given due credit for making an informed choice, which is what elections should be all about. In the long run winning or losing election is of lesser importance. The democratic process to express freely one’s political right needs to be further encouraged if we are to witness positive changes.
