 "West Bengal Assembly, Mamata Banerjee")
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party pulled off a stunning electoral victory in Assam, winning 60 of the 126 seats in the state, and posted significant gains in five states where polls were held over the past two months.
However, Mamata Banerjee’s equally convincing return to power in West Bengal and Jayalalithaa’s historic victory in Tamil Nadu suggests regional party leaders will dominate the politics of the opposition, given the near-decimation of the Congress party in these elections. The Congress’s consolation prize was a chance to form a government in Puducherry, but it lost power in Kerala and Assam. Assam will give the BJP another state government under its belt, and for the first time ever, the saffron party will be seen in the Kerala Assembly.
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Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, which was arrayed against a united Left-Congress alliance, won 211 seats in the 294-member Assembly. TMC’s performance proved that despite allegations of scams, maladministration and crumbling urban infrastructure, people had more faith in her leadership than in a united opposition. In Assam, the three-term incumbency of the Congress was broken after one of its main strategists, Himanta Biswa Sarma, crossed over to the BJP, suggesting that if the Congress had acted in time and replaced Tarun Gogoi with a younger CM, the party may have had a chance. Voters below the age of 40 years constituted about 64 per cent of Assam’s total electorate in this election. BJP won 60 seats in the state.
In Kerala, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) unseated the Congress by winning 86 out of 140 seats. The first statement made by Pinarayi Vijayan, one of the most important CPI(M) leaders, was that the new government will review the policy of prohibition in Kerala.
The impact of this round of elections on central politics will be felt in a few weeks. A more confident BJP will try to push the goods and services tax (GST) Bill in the Monsoon Session of the Rajya Sabha in July, where it does not have a majority. But the results are such it will find the opposition more determined than before. While the Congress will continue to stick to its demands, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has a more adamant and stronger opposition than the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which will scream ‘sell-out’ if AIADMK and the Centre work out a deal on the Bill.
As a result, the Centre will have to be flexible and accommodating on issues of federalism. Central initiatives relating to land titling, restructuring of state electricity boards’ debts and water sharing, over which state governments have provenance, will now have to be handled with kid gloves.
The impact of the poll results will also be felt in the politics around the elections of the President and Vice-President due in 2017. Elections to six Rajya Sabha seats will be held on June 11 to fill vacancies created because of the retirement of MPs from Tamil Nadu. Three MPs from AIADMK, two from DMK and one from Congress are retiring on June 29. AIADMK currently has 12 MPs in the Rajya Sabha, DMK four, CPI and Congress one each.
Since Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by MLAs, the strength of the parties in the Upper House will be decided by the corresponding strength of parties in the newly elected Assembly. The results of the elections will have implications for the leadership of the opposition. Banerjee has already said she is happy to work towards uniting the opposition.
