Much air time, bandwidth and newsprint will be used in the days to come to unearth the reasons behind the results. The usual culprits - corruption, governance record, infrastructure, caste equations, factionalism, incumbency (both pro and anti), among others - will be rounded up and charged with contributing to the deed. Circumstantial evidence (much in vogue these days) would, however, require considering other hypotheses.
Big-ticket corruption issues, such as the 2G spectrum and the coal mine allocation scams, are peripheral to most people. Paying speed money or using influence to obtain ration cards, official records, driving licences and such like is commonplace. They are factored into the technology of living. The average Aam Aadmi Party voter would not consider extending the balcony by paying a "consideration" a corrupt act. Citizens accept that roads will not be as smooth as Hema Malini's cheeks and will be clogged despite official claims, power supply will fluctuate & even stop at times and water supply & sanitation will not be up to expectations. Most claims or promises of improvements lack conviction. All parties do their caste calculus meticulously. Rival candidates often belong to the same caste and community. We may talk of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Jat vote bank in Rajasthan and the Muslim bloc for the Congress almost everywhere but they balance out in the aggregate.
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That leaves the economy as the major determinant of electoral fortunes. Our continuing economic mismanagement has been widely commented upon, including by this columnist. But the overall economy is too broad a brush to paint the battle of the ballot. The gyrations of the current account deficit or the rupee do not overly bother the average person, who does not have dollar dreams or aspires for imported goodies. An increasing budgetary deficit does not a villain bother Indians who consider fuel and other subsidies as their entitlement. Sluggish economic growth is a little understood statistic. Jobs, especially well-paying ones, have not suddenly become scarce; they always were.
Everyone from a self-employed artisan to an upwardly mobile executive is overwhelmed by alarming inflation. All opinion polls show the respondents' prime concern to be the relentless rise in the prices of necessities. The consumer price index has galloped at double-digit rates for some time. Food inflation now averages around 18 per cent annually, in turn dominated by vegetables, fruit, milk, meat, fish, poultry and eggs.
As I had observed in these pages (November 17), official explanations of a rapid rise in demand, seasonal factors and inefficient supply chain simply do not wash. People believe, with more than reasonable justification, the government has abandoned consumers, leaving them to the mercy of collusive traders and farm leader cartels. Kapil Sibal's claim that even the poor now eat two vegetables daily, making these dearer, does not help matters. Nor does the fact that marketing bodies in Nashik district in Maharashtra, the nerve centre of the vegetable trade, are controlled by the agriculture minister Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress. These add injury to the insult.
Not much persuasion is required to convince that the government and the Congress are the main culprits. The trio of my fictional women would be amply reflected in the recent Gallup poll findings of increasing anxiety among Indians. That anxiety and the resultant anger find a vent in the voting machines. The famous BJP victories are in fact the rout of the Congress. And, that is not confined to the Hindi heartland. Voters will stick to their ABC (anybody but Congress) logic wherever elections are held within the foreseeable future. This is also a cautionary tale for the BJP. It might be loath in its present euphoria to realise that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander as well. Since it is serious about winning in 2014, it must devise strategies to protect the voters' pocketbooks. Are you listening, Mr Modi?
The author taught at IIM, Ahmedabad, and helped set up the Institute of Rural Management, Anand