Destination Delhi: Fuel Station Bangalore?

Upbeat after its victory in Karnataka, the BJP has set its sights on Delhi. More often that not, the party has tried to conjure a wave out of a state election victory expecting it to build into some sort of a national continuum. Most election verdicts though are discrete functions of personalities in contest, regional alliances and some, purely local issues. The BJP that rode to power in 1998 and 1999 had a vastly different value proposition from the BJP that is seeking power in 2008. Two factors differentiated the BJP then from the Congress.

The BJP was then a largely untested force with Atal Behari Vajpayee bearing the halo of a martyr, standing tall. The BJP was the only national party seen as a business worthy ally and numerous states were ruled by those opposed to the BJP, thus setting the local anti-incumbency factor in favour of the NDA. None of these USPs are now unique to the BJP/NDA.

With a maturing electorate and increasing fragmentation, regional alliances and local issues are now deterministic factors. The 2004 elections proved better than any other that regional alliances and local incumbency sentiments can be the undoing of a national party, however popular its leader may be. States with a number of regional players are giving decisive mandates and hold the potential to make or mar the chances of the national alliance that they are with. Tamil Nadu (TN) has turned out to be as much a kingmaker as UP. Sample this: since 1991 only the alliance that has swept TN has made it to power at the Center.

The BJP's coming to power must be viewed in this context. In the late 1990s, the party had successfully complemented its ‘northern trump card' UP with its ‘southern' Tamil Nadu, on both the occasions that it made to power. The three largest states north of the Vindhyas that have the largest share of Lok Sabha seats are UP, Maharashtra and Bihar - together these states have 168 seats.

In the 1998 election, when the BJP and its allies first came to power, they pocketed 83 of these 168 seats. In 1999, the allies won 85 of these 168 seats. However, in 2004, the NDA was down to 46 seats. South of the Vindhyas, the BJP and its allies won 30 out of 39 seats in TN in 1998. This number stood at 26 in 1999. It was zero in 2004.

Pushed to the periphery in UP, divided in Maharashtra with a decimated ally and an uncertain alliance in TN make it a challenge for the BJP to get to the goal post with the same political arithmetic that saw it reach there in 1998 and 1999. The BJP and allies might shore up their tally in Bihar but that might not be sufficient to offset the loss of base in other states.

Unlike 1998 and 1999, the Congress now holds a strong value proposition for its allies - having proven its ability to run a coalition and accommodating allies. The party is on the verge of expanding its alliance in UP and seems to have options in Tamil Nadu. Post 2004, the BJP has never been able to proposition its allies as successfully as it did post 1996. The Trinamul Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have distanced themselves from the BJP, while Jayalalithaa has not given a firm indication of tying up with the BJP.

Given these complex variables, the verdict in Karnataka could have as little to do with the result of a general election as the verdict in key northern states in 2003 had to do with the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

Challenges before the BJP: It's no more the party of 1998/99 with a liberalist like Vajpayee as its and a convincing stride of ascendancy to get allies to flock to the party. Second, a frittering Congress in the late '90s provided a good context to the BJP -- the TINA factor. That is not the case now.

Now, the Congress can hold some of its allies as well as add new ones. The BJP's challenge is to ensure that the contest becomes wave-driven with the nature of the contest being presidential. If the election were to be more to be influenced by local alliances and cycles of anti-incumbency, the BJP would certainly have a tough time. A cursory look at how the local level incumbency would affect the prospects of the two alliances reveals that the Congress is better placed than the BJP.

The states (mostly ruled by the NDA) where the Congress and its allies could be the principal beneficiary of an anti-incumbency vote add up to a robust 222 Lok Sabha seats. As for the NDA emerging as the principal beneficiary of an anti-incumbency vote, these states add up to a mere 81 seats. While this does not imply a direct benefit to the rival parties, it is an indicator of comfort for the two principal alliances.

States where regional players remain undecided about their allies such as UP, TN, AP, Assam and Bengal have been left out of this calculation. The BJP would need to work hard to put together its alliance in these states to bring itself to a level-laying field. Given the party's limitation on the alliance front, the party can make a difference only if it converts the election into a macro level one with one or two central issues, such as price rise, the agrarian crisis and a perceived threat from terrorists. The party's failure in the 2004 elections was that it perceived it had created a macro level wave when it actually had not. The outcome of the elections was decided by aggregates of alliances at lower levels and incumbency at the state level.

Scope for the third front: The game for alliances still seems fairly open. In TN, AP, UP and West Bengal, accounting for a total of 203 seats, alliances are yet to be finalised, and each one of them has strong regional players. In Bengal there is a resurgent Mamata Banerjee; a stronger Jayalalithaa and an emergent Vijaykanth in Tamil Nadu; in AP the TDP is on a comeback trail and Chiranjeevi could tilt the scales. To make a larger national impact, these states are crucial to the BJP. And therein lies the catch.

Here are the regional parties that exploit the inability of the Congress and the BJP to form governments. Most fronts of various denominations (United, Federal, Third etc.) are chaired by parties from these states. In 1998 and 1999, with the TINA factor favouring the BJP completely, these parties allied themselves with one of the national groupings. When the UF was in power in 1996, these states provided a handsome 105 of the 170 odd seats to the post electoral conglomeration. Now, with the situation fluid, these parties would want to try their luck again, because such arrangements yield a disproportionately larger share in power for a relatively smaller number of seats won.

Compulsions of protecting their local base from rivals could push stronger players like Mulayam Singh Yadav and M Karunanidhi into a national grouping, thus reducing the clout of a potential third front. In that sense, it is still a race between the formations led by the Congress and the BJP.

Challenges before the Congress: The Congress does have a well-defined alliance. It has incumbent governments in lesser number of states and has its much-celebrated schemes like NREGA and Bharat Nirman. How effectively the party presents itself on managing inflation and making visible the benefits of its farm loan waiver will determine whether the BJP will steal the perception management initiative from the Congress or not.

The Congress is yet to work out an appropriate antidote to the BSP. The BSP, with its class and caste-centric appeal has deftly pocketed traditional voters of the Congress. Their late leader Kanshi Ram said as much in 1989 -- it was the BSP that caused the downfall of the Congress by eating into its Dalit vote in 72 constituencies and not VP Singh. Today, UP is being echoed in Gujarat, Karnataka and Himachal. The party is not just a rival to the Congress, but is the real long-term threat.

If there is no wave like situation which can wipe away smaller swings, the BSP can demonstrate again its nuisance value in pockets of MP, Rajasthan, Himachal, Haryana , Punjab and even as far as Orissa. Even states where the party polls less than five per cent of the vote, it will do so by mostly disturbing the Congress vote. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the BSP polled a mere three per cent, but its concentrated support in the eastern parts cost the Congress-led alliance a dozen LS seats.

A strong vote against the mismanagement of inflation coupled with a consolidating BSP might undo any other advantage that the Congress has. The BJP-led alliance would not be as impacted as the Congress-led alliance.

Most parties like the BJP and the BSP have turned election preparations into a scientific process and have perfected it to an art. The Congress is yet to come up with its own distinctive and scientific style of crafting victories. In several elections in the past two years, the Congress has lost by virtue of being disorganised; unable to communicate it's offering to the masses and assimilate ground level feedback into its overall strategy.

Failing to match the mobilisation techniques of the opposition has cost the party many an election despite having a spread that is fairly uniform and across the spectrum; a rarity for most other national or regional formations. A blend of scientific strategy, organisational agility and dexterity in building alliances will determine the outcome of a general election. The game has just begun.