Now that the dust is settling down on post-poll government-formation at the Centre, revisiting Elections-2004 may be in order. If anything, it could hold a candle to the future of Indian polity, and the roles that the nation's political parties may have to be prepared for, if they need to keep the voter on their side.
In a way, Elections-2004 is an eloquent testimony to the voter's right to choice. In another way, it is yet another demonstration of the Indian voter's impatience for results. It could be crude to suggest that the Indian voter has become 'increasingly selfish' with each passing elections, but that is also the message that Elections-2004 has reiterated. He will reward only those who have served his agenda for himself, and not their perceived agenda for the nation. The Assembly polls in various States over the past decade had variously conveyed this message, at different times.
Interpreted, this could tempt political parties, ruling either at the Centre or in the States, need to plan only for the next election, not for the next generation. Meaningful projects like the 'Golden Quadrilateral' or the river-link scheme, takes years to conceive and decades to implement, at times, but the benefits are not to be reaped within the of the current Lok Sabha or the Assembly, for the voter to evaluate an incumbent Government against this yardstick.
This does not mean that you can relate to the present generation, and forget the future generations. It implies that the ruling class cannot forget the task on hand, while promising the moon on a distant day. Conversely, a twin-approach, addressing the immediate needs of the voter and the long-term goals of the nation would serve the purpose. Elections in the 'reforms era', when not influenced by emotional issue, have proved that one to the exclusion of the other would not suffice.
To argue that the electoral collapse of the Vajpayee dispensation was not foreseen shows the hollowness, not only of the polity but also of the poll pundits. The 'anti-incumbency factor' at play through the past decade, even in States where the achievements of the incumbent Governments could be better quantified, going beyond the sloganeering of the 'feel-good' and 'India Shining' campaigns of the BJP-NDA this time round.
There was a disconnect, and this one was caused by the Vajpayee Government overlooking the immediate concerns of a population affected by years of drought, and the increasing ranks of the educated youth, to boot. The cumulative impact of lost jobs and incomes, in agriculture and industry, did not register, maybe because the ruling class believed in what they saw sitting in 'distant Delhi', and what they saw was packaged for a 'targetted' television viewership. What they did not see, they could not believe in. Or, what they did not want to believe in, they did not want to see
Going by the experience of the Congress in 1996 and the BJP-NDA in 2004, the temptation now will be for political parties to plan for the short-term, ignoring the long-term national agenda. Given that every Lok Sabha poll after 1991 has been devoid of an emotional agenda after a point - interpreted as the 'ideological plank' - they could now want a return to the past. The reference is not just to one political party or alliance. He who has lost an election seeks to go back to the roots, for resurgence, but the history of older political parties with deeper ideological moorings in contemporary India has often been proved wrong.
Reforms, not only of the economic variety but also of the ideological kind, cannot be reversed. There is need in both to introduce a 'human face'. But then the 'human faces' that have won elections have also lost them, not just for one party or combine, alone. All this goes only to prove only one thing: better trust the 'human face' of the voter, instead.
* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.
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