Shadow on Delhi

The election results in Uttar Pradesh, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress between them could not win even 20 per cent of the seats in the assembly, have inevitably cast their shadow on Delhi. The immediate implications are for the election of the next President; a contest is now certain and Mayawati with her new cache of electoral college votes has become a key swing player. Also nipped in the bud, because of the Samajwadi Party's poor showing, is all talk of a third front emerging and replacing the UPA government in New Delhi.

The more significant questions relate to what might happen in and after the next general elections, due two years from now. Neither of the two national parties seems to be making any headway in terms of spreading their zones of influence, getting their organisations into shape and finding the issues on which to strike a common chord with voters. Whatever reasons one may ascribe to this (poor leadership, mismanagement of the election campaign, etc), the space vacated in the middle is being grabbed by the one-man (or -woman) parties that have either a state or a caste as their primary political base.

The obvious question is whether this will make India more of a federation rather than a centralised political entity, and whether that will work better in reflecting the multiple identities that make up India's polity. Following from that, how important is the need for a "strong Centre", given the historical experience? A third question is whether future coalitions at the Centre (both the NDA and UPA) will be weaker entities and prone to crumbling, because they cease to be groupings with one dominant party at the core of the coalition. And a fourth question is whether repetitions of the various Janata experiments of the past (the "third front" idea) are to be desired or avoided. Then there are questions about Mayawati herself. Has she really turned a new leaf, and committed herself to the rule of law, a focus on development goals and an effective and fast-moving government? Her and her party's role in Delhi will be dictated in part by the answers to that question.