• 1 Workshop ‘Elections 2009’ held at the India International Centre, New Delhi with the support of the (...)

1Most of the papers presented in this special issue of SAMAJ are the outcome of a workshop organised by the Centre de Sciences Humaines in New Delhi in July 2009. By then the results of the 2009 general elections had been largely commented upon already. The workshop was therefore not meant to discuss electoral results per se, but rather to have specialists discuss papers that considered elections as an analyzer of political dynamics that most authors usually studied in more ordinary times.1 As Butler, Lahiri and Roy (1995: 5) put it, ‘every election is a potential turning point in history and deserves a full study as a contemporary event, an opportunity to observe politicians and party organizations at full stretch, to examine the influence of press and broadcasting, to assess the involvement of ordinary citizens’.

• 2 But the same perusal also underlines the risk of hasty conclusions: for instance Electoral Studies (...)

2Indeed reading election studies over time shows how elections serve as landmarks in the analysis of India’s political system.2 Each major electoral consultation offers an opportunity to produce interpretations which also contribute to the evolution of the polity. Thus the Fourth election (1967) marked the end of Congress dominance in the states; the Eighth election (1977) marked the beginning of the end of Congress dominance at the Centre; the Tenth (1996) and more decisively the Twelfth elections (1998) signaled the opening of the era of coalitions. Elections, as events, crystallize ongoing processes and highlight some major shifts even while they obliterate others.

• 3 In the introduction to the 2004 National Election Study (NES) of Lokniti, Yogendra Yadav admitted, (...)
• 4 Thus, is voting driven by anti-incumbency or by caste loyalty rational or irrational? American hist (...)

4One possible approach is to view elections from the way in which election results, once declared, are interpreted by the political actors themselves. The search for meaning in the analysis of electoral results and trends relies heavily on the interpretation of the intentions of voters, both before and after the elections. Those who seek to understand these intentions are, first and foremost, the candidates themselves, both the winners and the losers. For the winners, staying ahead requires an accurate assessment of where their strengths lie, while for those who failed to make it, it is important to have clues on constituencies that can be won over. There are in addition interpretations based on surveys, both pre- and post-poll.3 With all their analytical sophistication, the interpretation of results remains problematic in terms of attributing rationality or irrationality to it.4

• 5 It is not that political actors themselves always find it easy to interpret the results which conce (...)

6The party which loses power also proceeds to introspect on the reasons for its defeat in order to work out ways of coming back to power. This introspection is generally based on inputs from states where they did well and those where they fared poorly, in order to evolve a winning strategy for the next round. Finally, for the single-state and multi-state parties which find themselves in the pool of coalition partners and allies, they have to often decide whether they situate themselves in the government or with the opposition camp till the next round of consultations, whether state or national.5 These calculations are complex, for they must interpret the result in their own state and work out strategies for leveraging central ties without endangering their own primary objective i.e. the capture of power in the state.

• 6 In the interpretation of mandates by political parties, a crucial element of course is the degree o (...)

7Thus one approach to contextualizing the Lok Sabha elections is to view them within the framework of inter-party relations in a multi-level federal polity, and to assess their impact on public policy processes in the intervening periods. It is evident that the assessments and interpretations of electoral mandates by parties, particularly those in power, have a direct bearing on public policy choices. This is equally applicable to opposition parties and the policies they combat. More often than not, it is a delicate balancing act of extracting political mileage from visibly popular welfare policies while performing, at the same time, the role of the opposition, i.e. to oppose.6

• 7 On 27 December 1970, Indira Gandhi prematurely dissolved the Lok Sabha elected in 1967 and won hand (...)

8Government-opposition relations are crucial to understanding political processes in parliamentary democracies. In a federal polity, this relationship runs concurrently at two levels, with calendars that criss-cross ever since national and state elections were delinked in 1971-72.7 Federal coalitions consist of concentric circles and the calculations that enter into their construction are heavily influenced by the electoral calendar and compulsions of the partners and allies in each of the circles.

• 8 Thus, the Group of Ministers mechanism was devised to meet needs generated by coalitional power-sha (...)

9In decoding the mandate that flows from the 2009 consultation, we need to contextualize the results at two levels of the federal polity, the national and the state, and attempt to define the nature of the link between the two. One way of doing this is to first situate the 15^th Lok Sabha elections in terms of the defining trends of the last two decades, since the convincing defeat of the Congress in 1989. Clues to the links between the levels of the dual federal polity can emerge by exploring the ways in which elections at the state level have been linked to or delinked from the Lok Sabha electoral mandates. The responses of federal coalitions, which have their own internal logic, to the continuing challenge of the electoral consultations calendar are equally instructive. Finally, empirical data on decision making in federal coalitions reveals that the systemic innovations first introduced by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government (1999-2004) and further developed by the first Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government (2004-09) ensure that constituency concerns of coalition members are adequately addressed and thus play an important role in maintaining governmental stability.8

• 9 We prefer the term ‘federalization’ to the more frequently used ‘fragmentation’, because the latter (...)
• 10 Prominent among the identity-based parties which still survive, with their off-shoots and avatars, (...)
• 11 In this category we would include the Janata Dals (JDU, JDS, BJD, RJD), the Rashtriya Lok Dal, Sama (...)
• 12 We use the term multi-state parties to designate parties recognized as ‘national’ by the Election C (...)

11One of the durable trends of the period under study is the steady increase in the number of single-state and multi-state parties as a result of the federalization of the party system.9 One can analytically distinguish between the first generation state parties which were born in the pre-independence era or under the Congress dominance phase, from the state parties that came into being in the subsequent phase. While the most prominent ones were primarily based on territorial identity politics, those based on ideological specificities were no less significant (Tirimagni-Hurtig & Arora 1972).10 The second generation of state parties resulted from the gradual splintering and eventual collapse of the Congress during its 1969-1977 hyper-centralization phase and the subsequent implosion of the short-lived Janata alternative.11 These single-state and multi-state parties constitute the building blocks of federal coalitions since the 1996 elections witnessed a sharp decline in the Congress seat share and the BJP was totally unprepared for occupying the political space so vacated. As the following tables show, the popularity of single-state and multi-state parties remains undiminished.12

• 13 Yogendra Yadav in The Hindu, 20 May 2004. This assessment was subsequently corrected after more det (...)
• 14 Cf Palshikar (2009).

12Two immediate observations impose themselves from even a cursory reading of these tables: (a) the ratio of seats won by the all-India parties in relation to the state parties is similar in 2009 to the 1998 level; and (b) the drop in their combined vote share is a continuing trend, the lowest among all five elections. This is, on the face of it, not ‘a radical shift in the social basis of political power’ that the 2004 electoral outcome appeared to be at first glance.13 This said, the working of the First Passed the Post (FPTP) electoral system is such that, with all these limitations, the votes did translate into a comfortable win for the Congress, and gave it the option of being able to pick and choose its coalition partners.14

• 15 The BJP attempted introspection in Shimla in August 2009 on the basis of reports on the states by c (...)
• 16 Speech by President Pratibha Patil at the opening session of the 15^th Lok Sabha, 4 June 2009 (Press (...)

13While there is no authoritative indication of the BJP reading of its dismal performance, the Congress has put forward its own interpretation of why it won.15 It sees the renewal of its mandate as a vindication of the policy architecture of inclusion it built up during its first term in office. ‘It is a mandate for inclusive growth, equitable development and a secular and plural India.’16 It also views the mandate as a desire for peace and stability, and places internal security as the first priority of the new government.

• 17 The state governments of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Sikkim were also voted back to power in April-M (...)

14If one has to explain the resurgence of the Congress in what appeared to be at one stage a ‘post-Congress polity’, one also has to explain what happened to the other pillar of conventional wisdom: the anti-incumbency vote. The hypothesis that deserves to be further tested is that it held good during periods of poor economic growth and was a reflection of the desperation of the electorate, willing to try any other option available to see if it delivered any better living conditions. The recent trend of renewal of election mandates is interpreted by the winning parties as an endorsement of their effective delivery of welfare policies.17 Effective economic policy in the electoral context is primarily seen as the ability of governments to keep prices in check and to ensure basic necessities. Political mileage for other achievements such as the provision of jobs and welfare benefits is keenly contested between central and state governments. As Table 3 shows, thirty single-state parties and nine independents managed to find a place in the Lok Sabha.

• 18 The PRP was recognized as a state party by the Election Commission of India after the declaration o (...)

15Going further, it is to be noted that there were only 17 single-state and multi-state parties which crossed the 0.5% threshold of significance in terms of the number of seats obtained, i.e. 3 seats. Some state parties obtained a significant share of votes—enough to influence electoral outcomes but insufficient to obtain seats for them. Notable among them were the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS), Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) and the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP).18

• 19 The comparison with national assembly elections in member states and elections to the European parl (...)

16The link between state and national elections is at the core of discussions on interpreting mandates. Yogendra Yadav suggests that the principal choices are made in the state assembly elections and the national consultation is increasingly ‘derivative’ (Yadav & Palshikar 2009: 55).19 The relevance of state goals to the participation of parties in federal coalitions is undoubtedly a major element of this analysis. For example, a surprisingly large proportion of parties which joined the NDA in 2009 were in the role of the opposition at the state level, and were clearly interested in leveraging their participation to capture power in the state elections. The policy orientations and choices of federal coalitions are thus influenced by the goals of coalition members, whose horizons are in turn determined by the electoral cycles in their respective states.

• 20 The bi-nodal system of party competition at the national level corresponds perhaps closest to the ‘ (...)

17The shift towards a bi-nodal system and the logic of federal coalitions has clear analytical implications. How is a bi-nodal system different from a bi-polar one? The distinction is, we argue, that bipolarity implies the existence of two antipodal forces, diametrically opposite, at either end of the spectrum. What we observe however is the existence of two and occasionally three principal nodes around which state parties tend to cluster in varying formations. While there are some constants around each node, there is also significant movement of parties to intermediate positions and in some cases between nodes.20 As a recent study observes, ‘the Indian party system has made a definite transition from the days of one-party dominance to a multi-party system in which the multiplicity exists more at the national than at the state level and is increasingly bound in a bi-nodal alliance system’ (Lokniti 2008: 85).

• 21 Under the UPA-II government, the practice has resumed. For example, the GoM on food security has al (...)

19In order to analyze the linkage between state goals and federal imperatives, the ways in which federal coalitions have attempted to reconcile different priorities in their decision-making processes is instructive. As earlier noted, the Group of Ministers (GoM) and the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) mechanisms constitute an interesting device for understanding the relationship between the two levels of electoral consultations. The UPA-I government used this device extensively and effectively to ensure participation of coalition partners in key policy decisions.21

• 22 On the significance of the expanding welfare role of the Indian state, see Nayar 2009.

20Thus, from the public policy viewpoint, the electoral calendar of state assemblies (shown in Table 5) is clearly of particular relevance. The mandates are linked even if the elections are de-linked. The consolidation of power at the national level passes through the decimation of challengers and opponents at the state level. Hence the interpretation of the 2009 mandate by the Congress as one for effective delivery of welfare benefits to the poor attempts to cut across traditional vote bank boundaries.22

• 23 In the case of the UPA II, the Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh elections constitute (...)
• 24 The Land Acquisition Amendment Bill and the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill are crucial elemen (...)

21The significance of this calendar is related to the concentric circles of federal coalitions. The first circle comprises the coalition maker, the second consists of key coalition partners, the third of minor coalition partners and the fourth of parties, whether pre or post election allies, who have volunteered their support, conditionally or unconditionally, but are not part of the coalition. The electoral compulsions of the first circle have direct policy implications in terms of the prioritization of agenda items in a dual-horizon perspective. The first horizon is that of the state election, whereas the second is the objective of maintaining the majority for the full term of the mandate.23 Thus the electoral horizons of the second circle of key partners enter into the picture. For example, two major pieces of economic reform legislation which cleared the 14^th Lok Sabha but lapsed with its dissolution since the Rajya Sabha failed to approve them. They have been reintroduced in the 15^th Lok Sabha, but are unlikely to be processed very rapidly till the West Bengal electoral horizon clears.24