The decisive mandates for a single political party in the two consecutive State elections in Uttar Pradesh is a clear indication of a change in the voters' mindset, and thereby, the rise of a new politics at the State, as also at the national level.
Even though political analysts may quickly conclude that the UP 2012 results were a stunning blow to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), it makes really no marked difference to the big story of democratic upsurge in the State. And, this story is — a shift in the centre of gravity towards a larger socialist plank of welfare and empowerment for backward classes, dalits and minorities (or ‘backwards plus').
The people have reposed their faith in the larger backward class leadership, and have rejected both national parties, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). An election that was presumed as a four-cornered contest simply proved to be a bipolar fight between two parties — Samajwadi Party (SP) and BSP — which claim the core voter base of the ‘backwards plus'.
The SP and BSP, contesting directly with each other in 203 legislative seats, have ultimately got control of more than 300 (i.e. 75 per cent), a performance exceeding expectations. Both the national parties — in the Congress and the BJP — are fringe players, and will remain so for a long time to come.
The most important lesson to be learnt, however, is for the Congress party, which, despite being in power at the Centre, has come up with a disappointing performance, to put it mildly.
POLITICAL FORTUNES
The political fortunes of the Congress do not lie in half-hearted attempts of inclusion. Its political gimmick of using the Muslim OBC quota and Batla House encounter during the election campaign has been disastrous.
This isn't to undermine the importance of issues that it raised. But despite having been in power at the Centre for seven years, it has done nothing substantial on the ground to express its serious concern on these issues. The Congress has neither brought in any special policy for the disadvantaged sections of society, nor been able to fulfil its promises.
At the Centre, the party has failed to create any policy and programme that it could showcase before the UP electorate. Seats reserved for SC/ST and OBC in all the departments are lying vacant; reservations in private sector are a thing of the past; Sachar committee report remains mere rhetoric; land acquisition and food security policy are still pending, and the Lok Pal was a political embarrassment. Even in the case of education policies, which have a larger mass impact, there has been nothing substantial on offer.
UP voters may not have considered the implication of the 2G scandal; but the absence of vision among the individual leaders, and of collective responsibility at the Centre, has induced a policy paralysis, as a result of which even a well-intentioned Rahul Gandhi couldn't garner votes.
Rather than fretting over the last 22 years of non-Congress rule and dismissing it as ‘untrustworthy', what the Congress needed was to recognise that democratically-elected governments are legitimate mandates of the people.
The Congress campaign failed to do any good for the party electorally. The losses in Amethi and in Jewar for the Congress are clear examples of its upping the ante without any plan. Probably, a reorganised UP into four parts might have helped Congress to pull off one state, at least in coalition; but the leaders in Congress couldn't even grab that opportunity.
LEADERSHIP
The loss of BSP should be seen with a precaution. Its performance in the last five years remained far better on every scale than that of SP or any other government in UP in the last several decades. It has left many benchmarks for SP to uphold , if it wants to retain its base until the general election in 2014. Apart from proving the party's commitment towards its manifesto by running welfare programmes, schools and clinics, SP also needs to take on criminalisation of politics, even within its own party — as the BSP has demonstrated in the last five years.
BSP starts in every election with a disadvantage of being a dalit party, and it is only the political acumen of Mayawati that enabled BSP to consistently win over 25 per cent of the votes in all elections since 1996. The vote of BSP even this time remains nearly 27 per cent, a negative swing of 3 per cent from 2007.
In fact, BSP's performance is better than SP's losing performance in 2007.
In other words, the anti-incumbency against BSP in 2012 isn't as great as it was against SP in 2007. SP's gain as an alternative to BSP shows the beginning of a cyclic characteristic that every two-party dominant State politics seems to follow. This also proves that the organisational network of both the parties is well-greased, and therefore, when they ask people to vote for them, their decades of hard work pay off.
UP voters, with the years, have grown more and more vigilant as to what political parties offer, and have shown maturity in choosing their electoral options. No political party, without a cognisable policy and programme for the ‘backwards plus' can simply fetch votes in UP any more.
Even the electronic media analysts must realise that the fate of parties cannot be decided by the hype it creates around leadership, however strong it may be. Only organisational network at the ground level can bring mandates so decisive.
SP and BSP, with a political base of backwards, dalits and minorities, have the people's confidence.
Uttar Pradesh is moving towards a two-party system, with Congress and BJP becoming irrelevant.
(The author teaches Political Science at Ram Lal Anand College, University of Delhi.)