The Hindu : National / Elections 2004 : Calculus of social demographics and political outcomes

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Thursday, Apr 29, 2004

National

National - Elections 2004

Calculus of social demographics and political outcomes

The neighbouring hill States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal share more than just a boundary and physical terrain. They share a similar political context and social demography as well. While the Congress is the ruling party in both the States, it is the BJP that holds nearly all the seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha. With exit polls showing that the NDA needs to retain every single seat that it holds in the last two phases, the BJP is engaged in a defensive battle here.

The Congress can take comfort from statistics. Assembly elections were held in both States after the Lok Sabha elections, and in both cases the BJP was dislodged by the Congress. Going purely by vote shares, the victories were far from impressive. In the first Vidhan Sabha elections held in Uttaranchal in 2002, the Congress won by the skin of its teeth. It managed to win 36 seats in the Assembly of 70. In terms of vote share, the Congress managed only 26.9 per cent, just 1.4 points ahead of the BJP. The Congress in Uttaranchal thus has the dubious distinction of winning a majority of seats in an election on the basis of merely one-quarter of the total votes cast, a distinction not matched by many ruling parties in India's electoral history. This first election saw other political forces including the various fragments of the Uttarakhand movement secure a significant proportion of votes. If the voting pattern of the Assembly election is repeated this time, the Congress will secure three out of the five Lok Sabha seats in the State, one each going to the BJP and the BSP. But its perch is far from secure. A mild swing of 2 percentage points away from the Congress would reduce its tally to two and a negative swing of 4 points will reduce it to nil. The Congress has a tough fight on its hands in Uttaranchal.

What makes it worse for the ruling Congress is that it has tended to do poorly in all the Lok Sabha elections held in this region in the 1990s. The BJP always dominated these five seats that formed a part of Uttar Pradesh then. It lost two seats to the then Congress (Tiwari), the break-away faction led by the current Congress Chief Minister Narain Dutt Tiwari, in 1996 and one seat to the Congress in 1999. Barring these, the BJP won all the seats in all the four elections to the Lok Sabha. But it is quite possible that this history is no longer relevant after the formation of the new State and the realisation of the demand for a separate Uttarankhand that dominated the politics in the 1990s. It is a new political turf now, with very little of the Uttar Pradesh shadow looming on the new State in its first Lok Sabha elections. The last Assembly election had shown that while parties like the Samajwadi Party have very little role to play, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal and the BSP were significant players in electoral politics. It is to be seen if they continue to be as relevant in the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress has fielded mostly new faces and this ticket distribution has led to a lot of resentment in the party. The recent disturbances in Hardwar can only add to the Congress' discomfiture in the State. This is likely to give the BJP an advantage in the State.

In comparative terms, the Congress is placed better in Himachal Pradesh. Its victory in the 2002 Assembly elections, following the Gujarat verdict and expectations of a BJP sweep in other States, was more comfortable here compared to the Congress victory in Uttaranchal. The party won 41 per cent votes and established a margin of more than 5 percentage points over the BJP. The Himachal Vikas Congress of Sukh Ram was a third player then. Mr. Sukh Ram did not win many seats, but he did prove that notwithstanding his tainted image outside, he could hold on to a small area in Mandi region of the State and was a nuisance that could not be wished away. The Congress engineered his `homecoming' on the eve of this election and thus stands electorally, though not morally, stronger. If the votes of Mr. Sukh Ram's party in the Assembly elections are merged with those of the Congress, it stands as the favourite in all the four parliamentary constituencies of the State. A swing of two percentage points can take away one seat, but unlike Uttaranchal the party is not vulnerable in other seats. Himachal is one of the few States in the country where the Congress has not suffered deep erosion. Another factor going for it is that the electors in the State have tended to vote the ruling party in the State in Lok Sabha elections as well. That is what enabled the Congress to pick all the four seats in the State at the peak of the anti-Congress wave in 1996. Now that it is back in power, the Congress would try to link developmental incentives at the State level to voting in the Lok Sabha. The Congress Chief Minister, Virabhadra Singh, has a lot at stake in this election, including the candidature of his wife from the Mandi constituency, earlier represented by Mr. Sukh Ram. All in all, it is advantage for the Congress in the State.

Besides the electoral context, the two States also share a similar social chemistry of politics. Both the States are different from the rest of north India in that the OBCs do not constitute a major vote bloc. The upper castes, manly the Brahmins and Rajputs, constitute a numerical majority in both the States. That would have given the BJP a natural advantage in the north Indian setting. But it is one of the laws of politics that big groups do not remain monoliths. The Congress has retained some of its upper caste votes in these States and has combined that with strong support from the rest of the population to create its social coalition. The BJP does enjoy an advantage among the upper caste voters, but this is not as decisive as in other States. In both these States, the Congress tends to do well among the poor, while the BJP is well placed among the well to do. These social patterns do not change very rapidly but different political outcomes are possible based on these patterns.

Ever since the exit polls for the first two rounds, the BJP is looking to defend every single seat that it holds, for it knows that every single seat counts now. In this context, these nine seats have acquired a new significance and the BJP may be hard put to retain all the eight seats that it won in these two States last time.