From Business World of 30 April, written just before the general election results came out.
Why politics surprises
It is not long before the results of the general elections
– and the state elections in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa – will become
known. In the meanwhile, so many opinion polls and exit polls have been
reported in screaming headlines. This is hardly the time to start speculating
on what governments the next fortnight is going to bring. But it will bring
surprises; surprises are part and parcel of the way we form convictions about
elections.
Humans, especially of the journalistic species, are more
strongly affected by more recent events. Till last October, the conventional
wisdom was that the Congress had reached its lowest point in the 1999 general
elections, and that its fortunes had been improving for the better ever since.
It had won most state elections. It was ruling 15 states and was a partner in
power in one. It had transformed itself into a party of good governance; Sonia
Gandhi held conferences every six months where Congress chief ministers
reported on the progress they had made. The NDA rode the unruly horse of
central government with more enthusiasm and skill, and came close to being
unseated every once in a while. But the lure of power kept it glued to the
stirrup.
Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the Congress lost Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, and public expectations changed. The BJP was
seen as a party in resurgence; with a little help from the monsoons and the
economic cycle, it would sweep the polls. The BJP certainly thought so; that is
why it advanced the general elections. But that is what much of the press also
thought; and if it had any lingering doubts, the lavish India shining ad
campaign helped it to make up its mind.
These expectations should have been moderated by opinion
polls. Any single opinion poll is extremely unreliable. One does not have to
wait till the election results come in to conclude this; the very fact that the
results of the polls differ so immensely is enough to come to that conclusion.
Most opinion polls also give a margin of error; and even those that do not are
prone to error. The upper range of most of them gave NDA a majority; the lower
range mostly did not. But somehow, the opinion makers were more attracted to
the upper range than the lower one. Hence the consternation when exit polls
began to cast doubt on an NDA majority; the most graphic indication of it was
the fall in the stock market indices. NDA is good for business; the Congress
could be very bad for it if, for instance, it brought in reservations in
private employment. But properly read, the opinion polls were not predicting an
NDA majority; they were predicting a close result.
Such a conclusion also fits in well with the trends in
Indian politics. The 1970s were the years when opposition to the Congress
really emerged. Indira Gandhi put all opposition leaders in jail. She made
being in opposition quite unpleasant, so it became imperative for opposition
parties to leave the opposition. They combined and formed the Janata
government; but it did not last long. The Congress came to power, and held it
for ten years. But bereft of a chance at the center, the opposition parties
tried their hand at getting hold of states, and succeeded in quite a few of
them.
In the 1990s, the BJP revived the opposition alliance and
brought it to power. This gave small parties another fillip: they could wangle
a few places in the NDA’s mammoth cabinet with the few seats they won in
Parliament. But the benefits of being small and regional, both at the state and
the central level, are exhausted; electors are bound to ask themselves why they
should not vote for the Congress or the BJP, the only parties with a 50% chance
of coming to power. So in the recent elections, the number of seats going to
third parties has declined.
If this trend continues, the general election should see a
fall in the number of seats that do not go to the Congress or the BJP. That
does not necessarily mean trouble for NDA, for the smaller parties’ loss may
become the BJP’s gain. But their loss would be of greater import to the BJP,
which has mastered the art of forming coalition governments.
The gap between a majority and the seats the Congress
needs to win, even after its new alliances, is so great that it has mesmerized
the press. In the process, it has lost sight of the NDA’s uncertainties.
Vajpayee is a master welder; he will probably cobble together another majority.
But before he does so, we may see some upsets, excitement and horse trading.
Uttar Pradesh may teach Delhi some lessons.
