Logic of post-poll tieups

By M H Ahssan

We often rail against political parties for unprincipled alliances. No doubt many of our politicians are unprincipled, but sometimes we need to question widely-held assumptions. If every politician behaves in the same way, maybe there is something we are missing.

Let us examine three propositions and check whether politicians are always the rogues we believe them to be. The three propositions we need to examine are: 1) The growing irrelevance of national parties even in national-level elections; 2) The increasing preference for post-poll alliances rather than pre-poll commitments; and 3) The irrelevance of ideology in the coalition era.

The first proposition is obvious, given the way smaller, regional, and caste-based parties are driving hard bargains with the Congress and the BJP, the principal nodes of the UPA and NDA. The CPI(M) -- key advocate of the third node -- is not finding it any easier to do deals with non-Congress, non-BJP parties (examples: UP, Kerala, Orissa).

Why don't the regional parties want to align with the larger national parties even for the Lok Sabha polls? I have two complementary explanations to offer. It is only when there is an overwhelming national threat (Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984, or Kargil in 1999) that national parties suddenly find relevance at the state-level. At other times, state-level issues predominate. The related point is this: when there is no national issue at hand, state-level parties have no use for a national party's crutch.

General election 2009: It follows that the only way for national parties to reinvent themselves is by being an aggregation of state-level parties. The BJP, for example, is successful wherever its state-level leaders have developed identities of their own (Modi in Gujarat, Shivraj Chauhan in MP, Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh, etc). In other states, they are doing best where they are not in alliance with any regional party (Karnataka, for example). Since regional parties will only want to align with strong national parties, it makes sense for them to assert themselves with national parties that have lost their regional roots. If they don't, the alliance will lose.

Which brings us to the next proposition: why is everybody also less keen on pre-poll alliances? The answer: after several years of pre-poll togetherness, alliance partners no longer know their strengths. And unless they know that, how can they be sure what the partner brings to the table? Take the Sena-BJP alliance in Maharashtra, which has some ideological synergies. Forged at the height of the Hindutva wave in the early 1990s, neither party knows the real strength of the other. One presumes the Sena is the stronger regional power, thanks to its Marathi Manoos roots. No one will know for sure unless both Sena and BJP fight separately.

The short point is that even regional pre-poll alliances need to be tested occasionally in the harsh environs of an electoral battle. This is how Kanshi Ram and Mayawati established the BSP as a potent force in several states, especially UP. The BSP put up candidates everywhere to test electoral strength. Once the numbers were established, even her rivals knew how many votes Mayawati could muster and sought alignments.

Lastly, is ideology becoming irrelevant? The answer is yes and no. Ideology is not irrelevant if one notices how many parties are shunning the BJP. The Left is also trying to evolve a Third Front as an ideological alternative to the UPA and NDA. But the answer is also no. Ideology comes second to power. The Left joined the BJP in propping up VP Singh in the late 1980s. The regional parties had no qualms joining the BJP when its stars were in the ascendant.

Three conclusions emerge. One, national parties have to periodically fight alone to re-establish their credentials in states. Only then will regional parties respect them. Two, national parties must have strong regional satraps leading them. Here, the BJP has a better chance than the Congress of becoming a long-term party of governance since it provides space for ambitious regional leaders to emerge. In dynastic Congress, this is impossible.

Over the longer term, we are actually headed towards a system of proportional representation by default. This is the logic that brought the BSP to power, based on a core Dalit vote. This logic will force caste- and religion-based parties (the various Muslim parties, the BJP, and Shiv Sena) to fight everywhere to establish their voting percentages before they can band together with rivals or allies.

The future of India is really Kerala -- where caste and religious parties claim seats on the basis of their proportional strengths in the population. Maybe, India needs to have a more honest system of proportional representation where parties get seats based on popular votes polled.

Forming post-poll alliances -- where the logic is "display your strength first, and we can talk alliance later" -- is proportional representation through the backdoor.