Sat, Jul 30, 2011 | Updated 01.

58PM IST

30 JUL, 2011, 07.10AM IST,

Complexity of Indian electoral mood

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Psephologists in India and elsewhere claim to make predictions about 'how people vote', but they suffer from the same setbacks as meteorologists whose 'forecasts' are considered most unreliable. Indian psephologists, unlike their counterparts in the west, have to find 'shifts' in the mood and preferences of the electorates in a society which is in flux. Hence, the changing context including unpredictable and unforeseeable political episodes or events have to be kept in mind while making any political calculations about the thinking of the voter. A few facts may be mentioned to substantiate the argument that the 'memory of preceding experiences' including events or happenings on the eve of elections have determined and decided the end-result of elections. First, the April/May 2011 elections to the West Bengal assembly were contested on the basis of electoral polarisation between Mamata Banerjee and the CPI(M)-led Left Front government. The voters of Bengal had forgotten the contribution of Left Front governments from 1977 onwards and they were impacted by serious acts of omission and commission of theLeft Front government from 2007 to 2009. Mamata worked very hard for mobilising the disgruntled and angry voters in her favour. The moral of the story is that voters' confidence has to be won by sustained political mobilisation because voters' choice cannot be 'against' and 'in favour' of a party or a leader unless he can 'identify' with one party or the other. The voters' support has to be 'won over' and it is a great struggle because multiple parties with diverse social constituencies of their own compete against one another. Second, Mamata was perceived by the voter, especially the poor, Dalit, landless and women, as their benefactor. A pro-poor programme or pronouncements or bribes for the voters are not enough to win elections and 'loyalty' of the voter. Every political party has its assured 'constituencies of voters'. Despite that, the communal-fascistBJP could not get more than 20% of votes for the Lok Sabha from so-called Hindus as its project of constructing a monolith Hindu identity has been rejected by a majority of citizens. Mayawati invented a strategy by winning over the support of 'high castes' whom she had earlier castigated, even abused, for being exploiters of the Dalits.Mulayam Singh Yadav of theSamajwadi Party or Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Bihar orRam Vilas Paswan, a claimant to the leadership of Dalits, are just some of the political players in a multi-party democracy of these states. All these three leaders are in the political wilderness because non-Yadav voters who are in a sizeable majority in these two states of north India have rejected them because of their 'betrayal' of voters' trust. It is not only at the central level, in major states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, a coalition of parties is expected to form governments and this is the reason that the mood of voters and shifts in loyalties cannot be easily predicted because the voter's loyalty is also divided among multiple, competing parties. This 'volatility' of the voter is an essential factor to be kept in mind especially in the transitional stage of Indian society.Congress was considered invincible in electoral battles of UP and it had become a fact that the 'road to power at the Centre passed through Lucknow'. The Congress had a powerful social base of coalition of castes and communities. But this social bloc is in shambles and new claimants like Mulayam, Mayawati andAjit Singh have succeeded in eroding the Congress social base. Hence, the role of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi assumes great importance because they are making every effort to resurrect the party organisation and win back the support of voters. The Sonia-Rahul leadership failed to win over voters in Bihar as people were satisfied with the Nitish Kumar government's performance. A lesson from Bihar's failure is that without sustained political mobilisation, the opposition cannot change the mood of voters away from the ruling party at a particular time. Hence, Rahul has made UP his main target of mobilisation against the Mayawati government. First, Rahul openly identified himself with the Dalit cause to give a message that Mayawati was not the only option available to Dalits. He has also taken up the emotive issue of the land acquisition policy of Mayawati's government and has provided a healing touch to the angry farmers of western Uttar Pradesh. The mood of voters in UP is changing in favour of Congress because anger around secular social causes can hurt the vote banks of casteist sectarians like theBahujan Samaj Party or Mulayam's Samajwadi Party. Thus, such social dialectics of electoral politics dictate that predictions aren't quite easy.

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