There is a temptation for Delhi-based analysts, particularly those unfamiliar with the four non-Hindi speaking States that go to the polls from Monday, to search anxiously for the national issues that may influence voting behaviour. There is, for example, a hunt to find out the extent to which the events in Jawaharlal Nehru University will influence the outcome. Will, it is asked, the beef controversy, be a factorIJ And, will the nationalism debate resonate in Dhubri and DindigulIJ
It is lucky that no analyst as yet found a connection between India’s narrow defeat in the T-20 World Cup semi-final, or somehow linked MS Dhoni’s brave failure to the performance of the Narendra Modi Government. But they could just as well have.
The foremost problem of viewing the Assembly elections solely through the prism of national politics is that you can get it horribly wrong. It is not that there is no effect, but it is peripheral. As far as it is possible to judge, local issues are paramount in this round of Assembly elections. The electorate in West Bengal will vote on the track record of Mamata Banerjee in the past five years. likewise in Tamil Nadu, Assam and Kerala, the key issue will be the performance of the incumbent Governments.
There will also be a measure of tactical voting. Will the formidable challenge mounted by the BJP-AGP and its Bodo allies persuade Muslim voters in Assam to tilt more towards the Congress than Badruddin Ajmal’s United Minorities Front of AssamIJ Will any such discernible shift to the Congress prompt the caste Assamese Hindu voters to rally more conclusively in favour of the BJP and the AGP, notwithstanding Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s last minute discovery of Assamese sub-nationalismIJ
In Kerala, it is the absence of tactical voting that could determine the outcome. Regardless of how many seats it manages to secure, if a sizable section of the Ezhava community transfers its allegiance to the BJP, will that steal a victory from the left Democratic FrontIJ After all, compared to the
Congress-led United Democratic Front that banks disproportionately on Christian and Muslim votes, the CPI(M) is more dependant on Hindu votes. Recall that it was the CPI(M) that gained the most in the 1987 Assembly election from its attacks on Muslim fundamentalism after the Shah Bano judgment.
In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa may well have secured an electoral advantage in DMDK leader Vijaykanth not allying with the DMK-led alliance. In Tamil Nadu, where political loyalties are less negotiable than in other States, the notion of tactical voting is less pronounced.
The overwhelming localism of the Assembly elections is quite apparent. In West Bengal, the Congress and the CPI(M) have stitched together an alliance that, while meant to be unofficial initially, is gradually assuming a formal shape. If the lok Sabha results of 2014 are mechanically added, it would seem that Mamata has only a whisker of an advantage over her Congress-left opponents. Indeed, at least one opinion poll has suggested that the Trinamool Congress’ lead is just about one per cent of the popular vote. It is even being suggested that after the damaging consequences of the Narada sting and the Burrabazar flyover collapse, this lead may have evaporated altogether.
There is, however, a problem in applying past arithmetic to the present uncritically. Ground reports suggest that the CPI(M) fighting for its very survival in its erstwhile stronghold has mobilised its supporters to campaign energetically for the Congress. However, there is no evidence of meaningful reciprocity, except in north Bengal. The Congress, for all practical purposes, is a letterhead in Kolkata and the rest of south Bengal. Will its remaining traditional voters be inclined to switch to a party like the CPI(M), opposition to which defined the Congress’ existence so far.
And, how will erstwhile BJP voters, disappointed by the party’s lack of progress after the municipal polls last year, behaveIJ
The high point of localism is, of course, the strange Congress-CPI(M) cohabitation in West Bengal. Neither party seems particularly disoriented over trying to explain why in Kerala this alliance isn’t applicable. If the voters seem reasonably disinterested, it would suggest that the conduct of parties is judged in regional, not national terms.
The BJP in particular appears to have learnt this well after its total failure in Bihar to make an Assembly election the test of Prime Minister Modi’s popularity. In Assam, the only State where it is a serious contender for power, the party has abandoned the recent practice of not naming a chief ministerial candidate ahead of the polls. In anointing Sarbananda Sonowal, who began his political career in the anti-foreigner movement led by the All Assam Students’ Union, as its face in Assam, the BJP has been able to ward off the Congress charge that it is driven by non-Assamese impulses. Or even that it is controlled from Delhi, if not Nagpur.
This localism does not, however, imply that the Assembly elections will have no impact. The BJP desperately needs to win Assam if it is to demonstrate its viability as a national party. In terms of perception, a win in Assam is important for the party’s morale. likewise, it will be calamitous for the Congress to lose in both Assam and Kerala. A bad set of Assembly results, read with other setbacks in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, may well make it difficult to project itself as the natural opposition to the BJP. And, finally, left is fighting to retain its national relevance and it desperately needs to recover ground in West Bengal and somehow win Kerala. A big failure may well reduce it to being a force on the campus of JNU alone.