Mainstream WeeklyMay 25, 2026
Now that the dust and din of Assembly election results are settled and new governments have become functional, it is time to reflect on tbe state of Indian Politics.
Firstly, let me start with the emergence, nay steady consoliation, of the BJP’s hold over Indian Politics. Unmistakably,the Party is trying to establish its one party dominance (OPD) system over the Indian political horizon, though I must hasten to add that it is truly not yet so, as four South Indian states are still outside its reach of power. In that sense BJP’s ‘OPD system’ is different from that of the Congress in its hay days as its hold was almost over the entire country. But, it must also be factored in that the BJP will spend all its energies and time towards achieving its goal of ‘Opposition-mukt Bharat’, which by itself it is antithetical to Parliamentary Democracy. Whether such a thing happens or not or whether the Opposition Parties and the INDIA bloc would allow it to happen is anybody’s guess. Objectively stated, the OPD system was detrimental to our Parliamentary Democracy under the ‘Congress system’, as the late Prof. Rajni Kothari wrote. If the BJP achieves it in the coming years , it would surely be a blow to the institutional fabric of our Parliamentary set-up. More so, as the BJP is systematically reducing the Indian Federalism to a highly centralised set up. Additionally, if the One Nation One Election objective of the BJP materialises, it would sound the deathnel of our electoral democracy. All the more reason why the ONOE project should be halted.
Secondly, it is time to address the issue of anti-incumbency factor in the aftermath of the results in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Arguments for and against the operation of anti-incumbency have surfaced again, both before the announcement of results and after. Those who support it point to the loss of power by Mamata Banerjee, Stalin and Vijayan (in Kerala) affirming that the voters were dissatisfied with their leaders and regimes and hence replaced them. Simplistic yet probably acceptable arguments. But then, how does one explain how the Left rule by Jyoti Basu and Navin Patnaik in West Bengal and Odhish respectively for five terms and even that of Ramaswamy in Puducherry. Is it that they pursued people-centric welfare policies , was it their leader’s charisma or simply the absence of a creditable alternative that the voters were not convinced about, which led to their decision to vote them back to power in those States. These are issues which defy a satisfactory clear-cut answer. So much so, explanations of anti-incumbency and pro-incumbency continue to float around, defying a last word on the issue.
Thirdly, it is necessary as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, to grapple with the issue of a two-years old Party, TVK, led by superstar Vijay performing exceedingly well at the hustlings though of course the State electorate denied them a clear and decisive majority. How does one explain Vijay’s grand entry into Tamil Nadu Politics ? Of course there are a few explanations like, a) Voters in TN in the past were mesmerised by film stars like MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalitha and this time round by Vijay and voted him to power. (b) dissatisfaction with DMK’s rule, rampant corruption etc. (c) may be the desire to just replace tbe DMK-AIADMK duopoly over the State. The one crucial question, however, is would the Vijay-led TVK regime run its full course satisfying the aspirations of the electorate for good governance with adequate welfare policies as well as maintain the picture as a developed State in the Indian Union. Time alone will provide answers to these questions. However, the peoples’ honeymoon with the government likely to extend to an year perhaps.
Fourthly, it would be interesting to see whether the BJP government in West Bengal would herald the beginnings of the so-called ‘poriborthan’ while at the same time preserving Bengal’s cultural and linguistic identities or resort to an aggressive pursuit of a Hindutva-led majoritarian government righting roughshod over the minorities. The developing situation is not encouraging though. Likewise, in Kerala too, it remains to be seen whether the Congress- led UDF government under the leadership of the rather young CM Satheesan would deliver pro-people corruption-free governance to ensure it’s continuity beyond one term.
Fiftfly, the defeat of DMK in Tamil Nadu and the TMC in West Bengal and the rout of the AAP earlier in Delhi Assembly elections last year and JD ( U) JD (S) the TDP and Shinde Sena being part of the NDA a truly worrisome phenomenon. No doubt, the role of regional Parties in Indian Politics has declined. Will they become meaningful players at the state level again in the wake of BJP’s spread across the regions of India remains to be seen.
Finally and more importantly, we should bestow some thoughts on the state of the Opposition in the coming years. A crucial question that should engage our attention is what will be the impact of the Punjab and UP elections on the electoral map of India. Will the Congress Party continue to claim its leadership of the INDIA bloc having won Kerala decisively and becoming a partner of the government in Tamil Nadu or will it agree for a collective leadership of the grouping? Will Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge be able to involve Mamata Banerjee , though she lost power in Bengal, and project her as a prominent leaders of the INDIA bloc? The Congress Party is well advised to follow the latter strategy to keep the bloc United. Also, the Party’s central leadership has the additional responsibility of keeping its flock together, specially a few of its regional leaders from crossing over to the BJP which will offer all kinds of incentives to win them over to it’s side.
As regards the UP elections, the bloc should allow Akhilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party (SP) to pursue autonomy in matters of drawing up its strategies for the assembly election, while allowing Akhilesh to be an important leader of the bloc from the Hindi belt. In principle, while the INDIA bloc should generally allow the Parties within it to pursue need-based strategies for state elections and the same should not be seen as the bloc’s decline/weakness. IViewd from a larger perspective, it is imperative that the INDIA bloc stays united to face the BJP juggernaut in the Lok Sabha elections of 2029 with an effective and imaginative counter-narrativerooted in constitutional values, people’s aspirations and rights of the States. It would be politically prudent to soon rope in Vijay and the TVK into the INDIA bloc alongside efforts to retain the DMK inside. All this calls for working together, placing the nation above the self and synthesising the regional objectives with national goals so cardinal to not only project the bloc as a viable Opposition in peoples’ perception, but equally as a credible alternative at present to the BJP-led NDA which is actually faring badly on the domestic front ( even on the foreign policy front too) viewed from any metric. All in all, the Opposition has enough on its plate to play a constructive role ( not place itself in a defeatist mode) in Indian Politics in the foreseeable future.
(Author: Prof. P. S. Jayaramu is former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Bangalore University and former Senior Fellow, ICSSR, New Delhi)