Congress in doldrums, regional leaders shine
From a national perspective, the results of the recent Assembly elections have three clear messages: The Congress has continued to maintain its downward spiral; the Bharatiya Janata Party has surged ahead; and regional satraps have remained a force to reckon with. Taken together in the context of the 2019 lok Sabha election, the writing on the wall is clear for the two national parties. For the Congress, it is that the party must do something drastic at its seniormost national leadership level to revive its fortunes. For the BJP, it is that alliances matter and moving on from gaining a toehold to a foothold to a full-blown entry requires both organisational skills and like-minded partners. Its success in Assam is a good example; the tie-up with the Asom Gana Parishad (written off by many experts) and the Bodoland People's Front (underestimated by some observers), along with the strong campaign the party launched against a Congress regime heavily burdened by anti-incumbency, ensured the BJP-led coalition's resounding maiden victory in the north-eastern State. The consistent spread of its organisational base in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal has also fetched the BJP dividends. On the other hand, nothing seems to be going right for the Congress ever since it was drubbed in the 2014 lok Sabha poll. It faced double humiliation in West Bengal, for instance. First, it had to settle down to being a junior partner, ceding primacy to the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led left Front. Then, after this loss of face, it lost the election to Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. And, if it was ground to dust in West Bengal despite tying up with the left Front, it was shown the door in Kerala by the left. As for Assam, the party should have seen the debacle coming after its pathetic performance in the 2014 lok Sabha election and the growing dissent within the State Congress ranks, leading to the departure of an influential leader, Himanta Biswa Sarma — who joined the BJP and played a key role in the party's win. Anti-incumbency against the Tarun Gogoi regime in Guwahati alone cannot explain away the comprehensive defeat.
Both the BJP and the Congress need to realise that powerful regional leaders are going nowhere in a hurry and that the two parties have to deal with them as either allies or adversaries or something in between. Mamata Banerjee's triumph is especially noteworthy given that her party faced a slew of scams and allegations of a deteriorating law and order situation in West Bengal. Her remarkable connect with the people only partly explains the win. Perhaps more than this, must have been the lingering impact in the minds of the electorate of the fearful decades of left rule in the State. It's a legacy that will take time to be forgotten. In the south, Tamil Nadu too has demonstrated the hold of regional players. J Jayalalithaa beat the anti-incumbency trend and a spirited opposition, both from the DMK (and its partner, the Congress) as well as from the Vijayakanth-led front which, the results have shown, had been over-hyped for its political heft.
As the dust settles down and the euphoria of the results gives way to the hard task of governance, the challenges for the victors are many. While the BJP-led coalition has to script a new beginning in Assam and take contentious issues such as illegal immigration head-on, in Kerala the left Democratic Front has to resolve its internal tussles (the VS Achuthanandan versus Pinarayi Vijayan camp battle) and provide clean governance. Meanwhile, both Mamata Banerjee and Jayalalithaa, the only two leaders to have retained power in this round of elections, have to honour the renewed trust voters' have reposed in them and undo the wrongs they may have committed in the recent past.