Devangshu Datta: The Indian voter

BEATING THE STREET

In retrospect, the 2004 General Election was completely tactical in nature. There was no overwhelming issue driving voters; it all boiled down to four-cornered and three-cornered fights in specific constituencies.

In that game, alliances are the key and the Congress proved superior to the NDA in the forging of its alliances. Given the disconnect between exit poll predictions and results, the psephologists will have to go through major soul-searching.

What seems weirdest is the fact that both major coalitions lost a marginal amount of voteshare and ended up getting around 35-36 per cent of votes (the INC actually got a little less). Yet one, the INC, gained 65 seats while the other, the NDA, lost 89. The left made substantial gains across Kerala and WB without a serious gain in voteshare.

Essentially the elections tell us very little about pan-Indian aspirations. We know that voters in Karnataka and AP want better utilisation of water resources; we know that Tamilians have gotten tired of Amma and a substantial proportion of Gujaratis are no longer buying into ModiSpeak.

But what does the Indian voter want? Answer: There is no such animal as an Indian voter. Voters are driven by local issues. Some of those local issues "" such as unemployment, poor utilisation of water-resources, inflation, power-shortages, corruption and crime and lack of basic schooling may be common across regions. But more than ever before, the federal nature of India became apparent in the 2004 general elections.

Looking forward, the market will be hoping for delivery on certain things from the new government: political stability, a continuation of reforms and infrastructure development. It will also be praying that the Left stays out of government.

The Congress does possess reform-friendly individuals such as Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh. It also has a complete absence of ideology, which could translate into a pragmatic continuation of the positive programmes that were initiated by the NDA.

The Left possesses ideological biases that could stall several of those initiatives. It may well put a spanner in the works with reference to labour reforms and disinvestment.

As to stability, the new coalition is probably inherently more stable than the NDA, which lasted five years without too many hiccups.

The DMK, the Left and the RJD have proved to be generally less capricious allies than many members of the previous coalition. This coalition is just about unstable enough to keep everyone in it on their toes.

The new government is taking charge under fairly benign circumstances. The economy is in a growth cycle, the monsoons are expected to be reasonable. The major fly in the ointment could be the inevitable rise in crude prices due to the Iraq situation. In order to maintain reasonable long-term growth, India desperately needs stable energy supply.

The first task of the new government will be working out contingency measures to deal with that. Does it take office and instantly hike retail prices? Does it provide incentives for fast-track exploration and production measures? Does it persuade consumers to switch from oil to gas over the long-term? Does it let the PSUs off the leash? What it chooses to do in the energy will set the agenda for everything else and send unmistakeable signals to everyone.