Five years is a long time in Indian politics. Still, as we try to look at potential scenarios for 2014 General Elections it makes sense to look back and try to understand what happened in the last general elections in 2009. Apart from being the most recent elections, It is also the only election after the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies in 2007. As a result of that exercise, constituency boundaries were redrawn for almost all the major states, and in all 499 of the 543 constituencies were newly delimited. In terms of the voting demographic by constituency, 2009 is the closest comparable that we have for analysis.
The election in 2009 was unique in a number of ways. It was perhaps the first election in the history of India where both the incumbent as well as the principal opposition has a "prime ministerial candidate" announced before the poll. If anything, this trend towards a "presidential style" contest has got stronger in 2014 and seems to be here to stay.
The Indian National Congress emerged as the single largest party with 205 seats, with the UPA tantalizingly close to a majority with 262 seats. UPA(II) was able to form the government easily with unconditional support of BSP, SP, JD(S) and a host of smaller parties. Manmohan Singh was elected as leader of the congress legislative party and sworn in as the Prime Minister for his second term. Significantly, he is only the second prime minister (after Jawahar Lal Nehru) to have been elected to a second term after completing the full first term (5 years). Even Indira Gandhi did not have that honor. He went on to complete 2 successive terms, another feat that none other than Nehru has achieved. He is also holds the dubious distinction of the longest serving prime minister to have have never been elected to the Lok Sabha.
In terms of states, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal were the game changers for the Congress. In AP the Congress repeated their performance in 2004 by winning 33 of the 42 constituencies, partly helped by a split between the TDP and the BJP. It was UP though where the Congress put up arguably its best performance. For this state which returns 80 MP's and from where Congress has returned with as low as 0 in the not so distant past, even 21 seats is no mean achievement. In the process it returned as the second largest party in the state and relegated the BJP to no 4 with only 10 seats. Just to understand the significance of this, if we compare between 1998 (BJP-57 and Congress-0) and 2009 (BJP 10, Congress-21), UP itself constituted a divergence of 68 seats between the two parties. It is small wonder that UP is the centerpiece of BJP's strategy for 2014, starting from nomination of Amit Shah to lead electioneering in the state, to Modi's nomination from Varanasi and the parties focus as reflected by the number of Modi rallies. Truly, the road to Delhi goes through UP.
The graphic below shows the geographic distribution of seats won by various parties across the country. The large swathes of blue across much of the country show that though driven by its performance in these three states, the Congress did well largely across the country. On the other hand, apart from Bihar and Karnataka, the BJP/NDA did not emerge as a walkaway winner in any of the major states. Unlike the congress the BJP fights the election from a much smaller base, it is virtually absent from much of southern and north eastern india and has had only a token presence in West Bengal. So it does rely on an above average performance in the North and west India and that did not happen in 2009. Its performance was not out of the ordinary even in states like MP and Gujarat, where the party had won handsomely in successive election. It is indeed telling that Karnataka, the new orange kid in the block, was the largest state in terms of seats for the BJP.
The pro-poor rights centric policies of UPA(I) are given a lot of credit for this performance of the Congress in 2009. This is probably true to a large extent for states like Andhra Pradesh, where the party was able to demonstrate results on the back of execution by congress led state government but it still does not explain the huge success that the Congress had in urban/semi urban areas. For example as one can see in the graphic above (use the magnify icon to zoom into areas) the Congress swept all the 7 seats in both Delhi and Mumbai whereas in Kolkata, its ally the Trinamool congress did likewise. This was coupled with strong performances with its allies in Chennai and Hyderabad. This is even more significant given that the primary opponent the BJP with its right wing economic leanings has had a strong base in urban areas for a while. From the looks of it, it is in urban India that the Congress struck a killer blow to BJP's aspirations in 2009.
This election was the first time since 1991 that a national party won more than 200 seats (even the Congress's strong show in 1991 was on the back of a strong 'sympathy wave' after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination). Some analysts saw in this a retreat of regionalism in Indian politics and signs of consolidation towards a two party system that most democracies that follow the 'first past the post' system tend to converge towards. However prima facie this does not seem to be true. If anything, as per the graphic below, just in terms of percentage of valid votes the regional parties are stronger than they have ever been. This is covered in great detail in a fantastic analysis of the 2009 results by Balveer Arora and Stéphanie Tawa here
Lastly, before we start making conclusions about 2014 based on 2009, it needs to be emphasized that in terms of context (social and political) and coalition dynamics these two elections could not be more different. The Congress led UPA alliance entered the election on the back of five reasonably successful years in office. Through flagship programs like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MNREGA), the farm loan waiver program, the Right To Infromation (RTI) act and OBC reservations the UPA had done its bit to appeal to various sections of society, and Manmohan Singh had asserted his authority by getting the Indo-US nuclear deal passed inspite of resistance from his communist allies and having to face a no confidence motion.The UPA had strong alliances in the electorally significant states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and a strong incumbent government in Andhra Pradesh. On the other hand the NDA was in tatters - important partners in electorally significant states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu had left, leaving the BJP all but inconsequential in these states and even some of the existing allies like the Shiv Sena had been weakened by splits (with MNS forming). On the leadership front the BJP seemed to be a party run by a bunch of bickering 'Rajya Sabha types' with little popular base. Advani himself was a pale shadow of his former self and seemed to have exhausted all IOU's earned over a long career to become the party's prime ministerial candidate.
Cut to 2014 and the context cannot be more different - The UPA comes into this election having endured 5 tumultuous years in office, completed only because of the reluctance of others to bring the government down. This term has been bogged by countless corruption scandals brought to the forefront of the national consciousness, first by a movement led by civil society and later by its offshoot the Aam Aadmi Party. It has lost ally after ally in the last few years and enters this election in very much the listless way as the BJP did in 2009. It does not have any significant allies in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and its prospects in Andhra Pradesh, its strongest state in 2009 seem dim, owing largely to its mishandling of the creation of Telengana. In contrast the BJP and the NDA seem to have got a lot of their mojo back -largely because of the dismal performance of the current government but also partly with Narendra Modi barging his way to become the PM candidate for the party. Whether Modi is the right person to govern India with its pluralistic traditions and diversity can be (and should be) debated - however there seems to be little doubt that his candidature has sparked a new life in the BJP's core cadre. With its growing strength, the party, even with Modi at the helm is no longer untouchable and seems to have cobbled up a reasonable set of alliances in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, it is ironic that the last, and most significant partner to come back the NDA pre poll, Chandrababu Naidu - had cited the Gujarat riots and the resultant unacceptability of the NDA among Muslims as the reason for his earlier exit and had blamed Modi squarely for the NDA's loss in 2004.
Lest we forget the social context has also changed significantly in the country in the last 5 years. The civil society led movement against corruption and the emergence of AAP as a real political alternative has added another variable. The emergence of social media as a tool for political communication also cannot be ignored. That twitter and Facebook have lowered the barriers to entry into the political system cannot be denied, I will stretch the argument to say that something like AAP may never have happened without social media. The effect has not been totally salubrious, with deeper engagement comes partisanship and the pitched battles being fought between left and right wing ultras on social media have led to much bitterness. However, all said and done, it has to be said that together, these changes have brought a large part of society which for various reasons had stayed away from the democratic process (the middle class among others) back into it. The large increase in the number of registered voters (~100M) and the high voter turnout till date are both testament to that.
Given how much situations have changed it is inevitable that the electoral arithmatic of 2014 will be very different from 2009, by how much and where the impact will be most dramatic are questions that need to be explored further.
The election in 2009 was unique in a number of ways. It was perhaps the first election in the history of India where both the incumbent as well as the principal opposition has a "prime ministerial candidate" announced before the poll. If anything, this trend towards a "presidential style" contest has got stronger in 2014 and seems to be here to stay.
The Indian National Congress emerged as the single largest party with 205 seats, with the UPA tantalizingly close to a majority with 262 seats. UPA(II) was able to form the government easily with unconditional support of BSP, SP, JD(S) and a host of smaller parties. Manmohan Singh was elected as leader of the congress legislative party and sworn in as the Prime Minister for his second term. Significantly, he is only the second prime minister (after Jawahar Lal Nehru) to have been elected to a second term after completing the full first term (5 years). Even Indira Gandhi did not have that honor. He went on to complete 2 successive terms, another feat that none other than Nehru has achieved. He is also holds the dubious distinction of the longest serving prime minister to have have never been elected to the Lok Sabha.
In terms of states, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal were the game changers for the Congress. In AP the Congress repeated their performance in 2004 by winning 33 of the 42 constituencies, partly helped by a split between the TDP and the BJP. It was UP though where the Congress put up arguably its best performance. For this state which returns 80 MP's and from where Congress has returned with as low as 0 in the not so distant past, even 21 seats is no mean achievement. In the process it returned as the second largest party in the state and relegated the BJP to no 4 with only 10 seats. Just to understand the significance of this, if we compare between 1998 (BJP-57 and Congress-0) and 2009 (BJP 10, Congress-21), UP itself constituted a divergence of 68 seats between the two parties. It is small wonder that UP is the centerpiece of BJP's strategy for 2014, starting from nomination of Amit Shah to lead electioneering in the state, to Modi's nomination from Varanasi and the parties focus as reflected by the number of Modi rallies. Truly, the road to Delhi goes through UP.
The graphic below shows the geographic distribution of seats won by various parties across the country. The large swathes of blue across much of the country show that though driven by its performance in these three states, the Congress did well largely across the country. On the other hand, apart from Bihar and Karnataka, the BJP/NDA did not emerge as a walkaway winner in any of the major states. Unlike the congress the BJP fights the election from a much smaller base, it is virtually absent from much of southern and north eastern india and has had only a token presence in West Bengal. So it does rely on an above average performance in the North and west India and that did not happen in 2009. Its performance was not out of the ordinary even in states like MP and Gujarat, where the party had won handsomely in successive election. It is indeed telling that Karnataka, the new orange kid in the block, was the largest state in terms of seats for the BJP.
The pro-poor rights centric policies of UPA(I) are given a lot of credit for this performance of the Congress in 2009. This is probably true to a large extent for states like Andhra Pradesh, where the party was able to demonstrate results on the back of execution by congress led state government but it still does not explain the huge success that the Congress had in urban/semi urban areas. For example as one can see in the graphic above (use the magnify icon to zoom into areas) the Congress swept all the 7 seats in both Delhi and Mumbai whereas in Kolkata, its ally the Trinamool congress did likewise. This was coupled with strong performances with its allies in Chennai and Hyderabad. This is even more significant given that the primary opponent the BJP with its right wing economic leanings has had a strong base in urban areas for a while. From the looks of it, it is in urban India that the Congress struck a killer blow to BJP's aspirations in 2009.
This election was the first time since 1991 that a national party won more than 200 seats (even the Congress's strong show in 1991 was on the back of a strong 'sympathy wave' after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination). Some analysts saw in this a retreat of regionalism in Indian politics and signs of consolidation towards a two party system that most democracies that follow the 'first past the post' system tend to converge towards. However prima facie this does not seem to be true. If anything, as per the graphic below, just in terms of percentage of valid votes the regional parties are stronger than they have ever been. This is covered in great detail in a fantastic analysis of the 2009 results by Balveer Arora and Stéphanie Tawa here
Lastly, before we start making conclusions about 2014 based on 2009, it needs to be emphasized that in terms of context (social and political) and coalition dynamics these two elections could not be more different. The Congress led UPA alliance entered the election on the back of five reasonably successful years in office. Through flagship programs like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MNREGA), the farm loan waiver program, the Right To Infromation (RTI) act and OBC reservations the UPA had done its bit to appeal to various sections of society, and Manmohan Singh had asserted his authority by getting the Indo-US nuclear deal passed inspite of resistance from his communist allies and having to face a no confidence motion.The UPA had strong alliances in the electorally significant states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and a strong incumbent government in Andhra Pradesh. On the other hand the NDA was in tatters - important partners in electorally significant states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu had left, leaving the BJP all but inconsequential in these states and even some of the existing allies like the Shiv Sena had been weakened by splits (with MNS forming). On the leadership front the BJP seemed to be a party run by a bunch of bickering 'Rajya Sabha types' with little popular base. Advani himself was a pale shadow of his former self and seemed to have exhausted all IOU's earned over a long career to become the party's prime ministerial candidate.
Cut to 2014 and the context cannot be more different - The UPA comes into this election having endured 5 tumultuous years in office, completed only because of the reluctance of others to bring the government down. This term has been bogged by countless corruption scandals brought to the forefront of the national consciousness, first by a movement led by civil society and later by its offshoot the Aam Aadmi Party. It has lost ally after ally in the last few years and enters this election in very much the listless way as the BJP did in 2009. It does not have any significant allies in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and its prospects in Andhra Pradesh, its strongest state in 2009 seem dim, owing largely to its mishandling of the creation of Telengana. In contrast the BJP and the NDA seem to have got a lot of their mojo back -largely because of the dismal performance of the current government but also partly with Narendra Modi barging his way to become the PM candidate for the party. Whether Modi is the right person to govern India with its pluralistic traditions and diversity can be (and should be) debated - however there seems to be little doubt that his candidature has sparked a new life in the BJP's core cadre. With its growing strength, the party, even with Modi at the helm is no longer untouchable and seems to have cobbled up a reasonable set of alliances in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, it is ironic that the last, and most significant partner to come back the NDA pre poll, Chandrababu Naidu - had cited the Gujarat riots and the resultant unacceptability of the NDA among Muslims as the reason for his earlier exit and had blamed Modi squarely for the NDA's loss in 2004.
Lest we forget the social context has also changed significantly in the country in the last 5 years. The civil society led movement against corruption and the emergence of AAP as a real political alternative has added another variable. The emergence of social media as a tool for political communication also cannot be ignored. That twitter and Facebook have lowered the barriers to entry into the political system cannot be denied, I will stretch the argument to say that something like AAP may never have happened without social media. The effect has not been totally salubrious, with deeper engagement comes partisanship and the pitched battles being fought between left and right wing ultras on social media have led to much bitterness. However, all said and done, it has to be said that together, these changes have brought a large part of society which for various reasons had stayed away from the democratic process (the middle class among others) back into it. The large increase in the number of registered voters (~100M) and the high voter turnout till date are both testament to that.
Given how much situations have changed it is inevitable that the electoral arithmatic of 2014 will be very different from 2009, by how much and where the impact will be most dramatic are questions that need to be explored further.
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