This
is clearly an important moment in Indian politics. The dust has still
not settled in the five states where elections to the state assemblies
were held, but their impact is already reverberating across the country.
Not just the elections in the states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam,
Kerala and Puducherry, but even by-election results (as in Kadapa in
Andhra Pradesh) may turn out to have national significance for the course
of both politics and economic policies at central and state levels.
The two states where Left Front governments were in power have captured
the bulk of media attention. And within that, the focus has been on
West Bengal, not only because of the importance of Left politics in
that state for the Left movement in the country as a whole, but because
the Left Front government there had managed to win elections for a record
seven consecutive elections. In Kerala, where incumbent governments
have been ejected by voters every five years for nearly four decades,
the vote was extremely close and the incumbent Left Democratic Front
very nearly made it back to power. Indeed the victory of the opposition
may well be seen as Pyrrhic because of the likely instability of the
future UDF coalition government.
Across the board, it is the Left's loss of state power in West Bengal
which is being widely seen as the most devastating and full of portent
for the future. Interestingly, this view seems to be shared by both
opponents and proponents of organized left parties in the country: that
this huge loss shows that the people have decisively rejected the Left
Front government, and that the major left parties in the country (such
as the CPIM and the CPI) will find it impossible to recover from this
massive defeat. In some quarters this is being celebrated; within the
Left, there is a sense of desolation and anxiety; in other quarters,
more dispassionate observers are concerned about the lack of the moderating
power of the Left in preventing a national rightward lurch particularly
in economic policies.
Mainstream media responses have contributed to this by talking about
''the death of the Left'' and similar stereotypical responses. But how
much of this is actually justified by the voting patterns that have
been revealed in the latest elections? There is no question that the
Left Front government has been handed a resounding defeat, with most
Ministers losing their seats and the seat share of the parties involved
in the coalition falling to one-third of the former strength in the
Assembly. Chart 1 shows the number of Assembly seats held or implicitly
garnered by the Left Front in successive elections since its historic
seventh victory in 2006. It is clear that there has been a very significant,
even dramatic, decline.
But
note that the number of seats gained in 2006 represented an extraordinary
achievement: 80 per cent of Assembly seats (well over the two-thirds
majority) claimed by a government that had already been in power in
the state for three decades. This is an achievement unparalleled in
independent India, and probably anywhere in the world. It is rare to
find a democratically elected government that retains power for a second
or third term. When this happens anywhere else in India, the mainstream
media are quick to declare it as a victory for good governance, though
they have always been much more grudging of Left victories. That the
Left Front government in 2006 was able to retain power to garner a record
seventh term and even add to its tally of Assembly seats compared to
2001 indicates that it had an appeal among the electorate that was both
unprecedented and remarkable.
Some would argue that the sharp decline in the number of seats thereafter
suggests that the government then squandered this advantage. Certainly
the causes for the decline can and will be analysed threadbare inside
and outside the various parties that formed the Left Front government.
Many factors must have played roles, of which the poor handling of the
policy of land acquisition for industrialisation is the one that is
most commonly cited. The proactive coming together of all sorts of disparate
and otherwise conflicting political elements at both centre and State
level, with the sole aim of dislodging the Left from its bastion, was
also definitely important.
But the combination of complacency and exhaustion that can be created
by 34 years of uninterrupted rule should not be underplayed either.
This combination was evident to many external observers. Of course it
was then rudely shocked by the experience of the 2009 general elections.
But it may be that the subsequent attempts at political revival among
Left supporters were too belated and inadequate to cope with what is
only a very natural human desire among the people for political change,
even if the nature of that change is unpredictable or problematic.
But does this mean that the people of the state have decisively rejected
the politics of the Left? A detailed look at voting shares provides
a more nuanced understanding. Chart 2 indicates that even in this latest
Assembly election, when the verdict of the electorate appears to be
so decisive against the incumbent government, the Left parties still
managed to garner more than 41 per cent of the votes. This is still
no mean achievement for a government that has been in power for nearly
35 years.
To put this into perspective, it should be noted that most state governments
in India are holding on to power on the basis of much smaller vote shares,
generally well below 40 per cent. This includes the Congress government
in Andhra Pradesh (whose position appears much more tenuous after the
Kadapa by-election) and the Congress-NCP coalition government in Maharashtra.
This also includes the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, which is the
mainstream media's current favourite and is being portrayed as a model
for Mamata Bannerji to follow. It is only because politics in West Bengal
(as in Kerala) is much more polarised between two contending groups
that the first past the post system does not generate parties that can
come to power with relatively small shares of the vote.
It
may be more surprising that in terms of the actual number of votes polled,
the Left Front has significantly improved upon its performance in the
2009 general elections, and has even come close to the number of votes
it managed to get in its record-breaking seventh victory in 2006. Chart
3 shows that in this Assembly election, the Left Front managed to attract
nearly 1.1 million additional voters compared to 2009. Not only was
the Left Front vote in 2011 very close to that in 2006, this increase
was almost equal to the extent by which the Left Front had fallen short
of the votes of the TMC-Congress combine in 2009.
This helps to explain the optimism that was evident among Left party
cadres just before the results were declared. This may partly reflect
the disconnect between the parties and the people, as a result of which
they did not anticipate the electoral debacle. It can also be partly
understood when it is recognised that in fact many more people actually
did come out to vote for Left parties than had done so in 2009.
The disconnect partly comes from the fact that the party cadre apparently
did not anticipate that many more people would turn out to vote for
the opposition. Overall there was a significant increase in the number
of votes cast overall between 2009 and 2011, of nearly 4.8 million votes
according to the Election Commission's preliminary estimates. This was
in part because of a 3.7 million increase in size of the electorate,
i.e. new young voters, and in part because voter turnout increased sharply.
The difference in this election is really that the opposition combine
of Trinamool and Congress parties managed to swing a much larger share
of these new voters to vote for change in government.
Chart
4 shows that of the additional votes cast, the Left Front managed to
get less than a quarter, and that nearly three-quarters accrued to the
Opposition combine. It is also worth noting that more than half the
new voters were women. Firstly, the number of women on electoral rolls
increased somewhat more than men; and secondly, more of them voted than
before. While the male voting percentage increased from 82.3 per cent
to 84.4 per cent, the female turnout went up from 80.3 per cent to 84.5
per cent, exceeding male turnout in a state where traditionally voter
turnout amongst women voters has been much less than among men. This
is obviously a major aspect that the Left needs to introspect on.
Whatever one may think of the result, there can be no denying that this
shows that Indian electoral democracy is among the most vibrant in the
world.
Obviously none of this changes the basic reality of this particular
state assembly election - that it has involved a major defeat for the
Left that may have far-reaching implications. But it can by no means
be taken as showing that there is massive dimunition in Left support
among the people of West Bengal. Certainly it is not just premature
but downright wrong to write off the Left as a major political force.
This result too is likely to have a significant bearing on how politics
evolves in the state in future.
*
This article was originally published in The Businessline, 17 May, 2011.