The spectacular victory of the incumbent Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in the recently concluded general election for the 15th Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament, has taken even the most enthusiastic supporters of the Congress party by surprise. With four major coalitions of some 20 national and regional political parties (apart from 3,152 independents) having fielded an estimated 8,000 candidates for 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the general expectation was a fractured electoral verdict which would have necessitated an unstable coalition government, heavy post-election bargaining for ministerial portfolios, and policy formulation and implementation compromises in New Delhi. In short, a replay of the cabined, cribbed and confined governance, which characterised the UPA’s five-year term (2004-09), was on the cards.
But quite obviously 14 general elections later, the citizenry — if not the nation’s learning-proof political class — has learned the lesson that if general standards of living must improve and the nation as a whole is to progress, the confrontational, divisive politics of religion and caste need to be rejected in favour of non-discriminatory, inclusive programmes and policies designed for the greater good of the greatest number. The comprehensive rout of political parties such as the BJP, with its strident Hindutva and implicitly anti-Muslim agenda, and the hitherto high-riding caste-based parties (Mayawati’s BSP, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi party, Laloo Prasad Yadav’s RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP), is indicative of resurgent Indian nationalism and repudiation of divide-and-rule politics being practised by communal and caste-based political formations.
Likewise the drubbing of the communist parties, which has resulted in their strength in the 15th Lok Sabha being reduced to 21 as against 59 in 2004-2009, is an indicator of public exasperation and disgust with the ideologically divisive agenda of India’s hitherto powerful left parties. Quite clearly, people across the country want the Centre and state governments to get on with the job of governance and economic development without obsolete communal, caste or ideological distractions.
Yet while the return of the Congress-led UPA government to power in Delhi is a triumph for inclusive, values-driven politics, it is pertinent to note that the Congress has not really won the election as much as the Left, communal and caste-based parties have lost it. The fact that the Congress has not been given a clear majority in the Lok Sabha shows that at best, it is regarded as the lesser evil rather than the preferred choice of the electorate. Which is hardly surprising, because the greater share of the blame for the host of glaring socio-economic injustices and mass deprivation of food, clothing, housing, education, healthcare and law, order and justice, which characterise contemporary India as a pathetic laggard in the global development race, must be laid at the door of this 124-year-old political party which has ruled in New Delhi, with only a few interregnums, for over 40 years. Now its clear mandate is to empower and enable the population by jettisoning the excess baggage of the failed socialist economic development model it imposed upon the nation 62 years ago. This may be the Congress party’s last chance to redeem itself.