The coalition face of Indian
elections By Indrajit Basu
KOLKATA - The most distinguishing feature of
India's 2004 general elections that sets it apart from
all other previous elections is perhaps the fact that
all of the major political parties have accepted that
the days of fighting as a singular party are gone. The
April/May elections, therefore, which will choose the
14th Lok Sabha - or parliament - since India adopted its
constitution and became a republic in 1951, are turning
out to be more of a battle of alliances than anything
else.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
for instance, already has 15 political partners which
make up the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the
party is yet seeking more alliances with minor regional
parties in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and
Assam. Meanwhile, the opposition Congress party has six
political partners at present and is so keen for more
that it had, until now, refrained from declaring its
leader Sonia Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate
should it win the elections.
The BJP was forced
to adopt the coalition concept after the 1996 elections
when present Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee failed
to prove his party's majority in parliament and had to
give up the claim to form the government, despite making
a desperate 13-day attempt. But even after the BJP
ultimately scrambled back to win a majority in the next
election by forming the NDA, which sort of reinforced
the fact that no single party could command a majority
in parliament any more, Congress continued to believe
that it could stretch its glory as the most powerful
singular political party; a status that it had enjoyed
for years following India's independence in 1947 from
the British rule.
However, this time around,
Congress seems to have finally jettisoned its dearly
held belief that it could defeat the BJP-led alliance on
its own. This is evident from the game plan that
features topmost in its election strategy, which is "to
dislodge the NDA at all cost even if the party's
interest have to take a back seat in coalition politics
in various states".
Nonetheless, the concept of
coalition politics is not new in India. It was
considered one of the best strategies to take on the
Congress party that managed to govern the country for
most of the past 50 years. Famous political leaders from
diverse political factions like Chakravarty
Rajagopalchari, Ram Manohar Lohia, Vajpayee, and
professor Humayun Kabir believed way back in the
mid-1960s that forming coalition alliances was the only
way to unseat "the Congress rule".
But despite
various opposition parties' dire need to form
coalitions, all initial ventures were rank failures. For
instance, the coalition governments in the Indian states
of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar that were
formed in the past had few objectives and little unity
or leadership; most of the partners were too busy
back-biting each other, which eventually led to their
downfall.
A similar trend was seen at the
federal level in 1979 when India was ruled by the Janata
Party, and, in 1997-98 during the Deve Gowda and I K
Gujaral "rule". According to political expert Swapan
Dasgupta, "There were so many claimants to the
leadership's post that eventually, managing a coalition
turned out to be impossible."
The coalition
concept's first encounter with success came when the
Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M) demonstrated
later in the states of West Bengal and Kerala that a
coalition can work if just one party in the coalition is
allowed to play the dominant role. But perhaps the
primary reason that has made the coalition concept
acceptable and sustainable in India, say experts, is a
BJP-formulated ideology which says "governance has
nothing to do with coalition partners' philosophies".
"It is this awareness that has increased the
effectiveness of coalition," says Dasgupta. "Today, for
instance, the CPI-M [the main component of the Left
Front government in West Bengal] is increasingly
distancing itself from its Marxist ideologies and BJP
has pushed Hindutva [a nationalist ideology] aside."
Which is why perhaps, adds Dasgupta, both the CPI-M and
the BJP are way ahead of their partners and competitors
in terms of control over their administrations.
The coalition concept is now inevitable, say
experts. According to them, coalitions in Indian
politics are unavoidable because social, economic and
political order in the country has changed beyond
recognition in the past 50 years. Coalitions will remain
because the Indian polity does not hesitate any more to
exercise its franchise. Coalitions will thrive because
India now knows that extracting good governance is
important for the self-interest of all sections of its
society.
Yet another crucial difference between
the 2004 elections and the previous ones is technology:
from short message services (SMS) to hi-tech gadgets
like MP3 players and voice recording machines, this
election is indeed being fought in the digital age where
the BJP obviously, as well as many in the opposition,
are using information technology (IT) in innumerable
ways. As a contrast, although India as a country was
already extremely IT-savvy in the previous election of
1999, the use of technology by political parties was
limited to just three TV channels that were used to
unleash their propaganda.
But today in the back
offices of both BJP and Congress, numerous powerful
computers can be heard whirring throughout the day,
analyzing elaborate data to target messages to specific
groups based on caste, age, income and profession, as
well as their voting pattern in previous elections.
Even West Bengal's Left Front government, a
state government that had vehemently opposed the
introduction of computers in basic areas such as banking
and English in primary state-funded schools, has been
touched by the change, turning computer-savvy when it
comes to election campaigning. The Left Front has
designed a campaign that makes liberal use of tools like
computers and televisions and has prepared
videocassettes and clippings that will be telecast by
cable television networks as paid advertisements. Mobile
video vans too have been hired, which will go to remote
areas of the state, set up huge screens and conduct
video shows. "Ten to 15 years from now, there will be no
takers for people shouting slogans on the streets
seeking votes or holding public meetings. They will sit
back at home and look at the television screen to
understand what the candidate has to say," said
Debaprosad Ghosh, campaign-in-charge of the Left Front.
And, for the first time ever, election 2004 will
be almost completely based on electronic voting machines
(EVM). It is believed that even the Unites States still
does not use EVMs as widely as India will in the
upcoming election.
Other innovative strategies,
too, are in use. SMS is what both Congress and BJP are
reportedly planning to use for reminding the electorate
on the day of voting. Several million SMS messages are
being planned. And already, anyone can listen to
recorded messages of Vajpayee at a widely publicized
phone number.
The Congress has set up a website
that acts like a war room to coordinate the
electioneering and even a website to denounce the
campaign of the ruling party. The BJP website, too, is
getting spruced up considerably for election-2004.
If this weren't enough, some of the brightest
industry professionals like investment bankers, IT
consultants, consulting company partners and
academicians from top universities in the US and Europe
have reportedly taken leave from their organizations -
all to help out their favorite party's poll machinery.
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