Valuable Lessons from the Elections
The crucial Assembly Elections held in five States across the country is finally over with results declared. All who have won will be celebrating no doubt and those who lost could well be contemplating what went wrong. The big story obviously is the manner in which the Samajwadi Party (SP) was able to not just win and come back to power but also how it was able to garner absolute majority. That the SP was expected to emerge as the single largest party was a foregone conclusion even without the prediction of Exit Polls. But the comfortable margin with which it demolished all other political parties is something that was clearly unexpected. For instance even the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by outgoing Chief Minister Mayawati was placed a very distant second with only 80 seats. Also many people would have expected the Congress to do much better, given the way its leader Rahul Gandhi had campaigned across the State of Uttar Pradesh. Sadly after all the campaigning and hard work, Rahul could not even muster 50 seats for his party. It is obvious that the Congress despite all the heroics of Rahul Gandhi did not have the party base and leaders to win. Then the other notable story of the election was the manner in which the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine returned to power, the first time in more than 40 years that a party got a second consecutive term. And in Manipur, it was the Congress which overcame anti-incumbency to sweep the polls. Similar to UP, it was always expected that the Congress led by Ibobi Singh would be the single largest party. That in the end they could muster absolute majority was surprising. In Goa the Congress lost and will make way for BJP rule. It was a close fight in Uttarakhand with the Congress just ahead with one seat.
As per the Morung Express’s own reading of the elections and the results thereof, we can learn a few valuable lessons. Firstly it becomes obvious that any political party, which is serious enough to win an election, must have a solid organizational base and strong leadership. The reason why an SP or a BSP can win big elections in a State like UP is because they have these two strong points to back them. We are seeing a clear trend between the SP and BSP winning landslide elections in UP. In 2007 it was the Mayawati led BSP which won with a majority and this time it is the Mulayam Singh Yadav’s SP. So the fact that in the last two elections in UP, there has been clear cut winners, this is indication that the national parties like the Congress and the BJP have not been able to penetrate the space occupied by the regional party like SP and BSP. As in the case of both the Congress and BJP, the lesson is that one cannot just come on a flying visit to UP and conduct series of campaign or rally during election time and expect to win votes. Thousands of people may turn up for a rally where someone like a Rahul Gandhi or a LK Advani is going to address. But does huge turn out convert into votes? If we go by the logic of crowd turnout, perhaps the Congress should have won more seats. Parties like the Congress and BJP must reflect on the disconnect between faraway Delhi and the States. As rightly admitted by Rahul Gandhi himself, the Congress must improve its organization at the base where it can connect with the people. Closely related to this is having a strong leadership and someone who voters can look for leadership. Parties like the SP and BSP by projecting their Chief Ministerial candidates give a choice to voters and this in most cases gets converted into valuable votes for the party. This should be a wakeup call for the Nagaland Congress as well—to find a leader who can lead from the front and others can rally around him. At least in Manipur or even in Assam (during the last election there), the Indian National Congress went with clear choices—Ibobi Singh and Tarun Gogoi respectively. Both have won hat rick of victories. So you see a strong single leadership is crucial in winning elections atleast in India’s political scenario where the masses like to ‘follow the leader’.
