The 2009 elections to the 15th Lok Sabha have dramatically transformed the national political scene, restoring the pre-eminence of the Congress and delivering a decisive verdict for a stable government at the Centre. It is a watershed event inasmuch as the outcome can be taken to represent a ringing endorsement of policies aimed at promoting inclusive development.

The Congress has certainly earned support from its rural employment and pro-farmer programmes and the voter expectations are that it would take the country forward in meeting the aspirations for a better life for hundreds of millions who otherwise get marginalised in the focus on faster growth. It means raising of rural incomes and generation of mass employment opportunities have to be at the top of the economic agenda. .

Both Sonia Gandhi, who has led the Congress for a decade now with distinction and Manmohan Singh, elected as its leader by the Congress Parliamentary Party on 20 May, noted that the people had spoken with ‘great clarity’ on their expectations of more responsive and efficient governance. They said it is now the responsibility of the new government to respond to those aspirations with efficiency and that they would expect every minister to work to a deadline.

The new line-up

The new Congress-led UPA, having a simple majority with a strength of 284 members, received offers of the unconditional support from Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and RJD in their letters to the President. This would raise the support base to 322 members. In the elections, the Congress had leap-frogged to take its own total to 206, the highest in two decades, leaving its over-confident national rival, BJP, miles behind. It was too disappointing for the party’s prime ministerial candidate, L K Advani, who announced a decision to retire but was persuaded by his colleagues to remain Leader of Opposition.

In the dramatically altered national scene, humbled regional players who fought against the Congress bitterly, made a beeline to extend ‘unconditional’ support to the Congress-led UPA, whatever their motivations be. With BJP’s 116 seats, the National Democratic Alliance closed its tally at 157 to sit in opposition. The major partners of the Congress in the reborn UPA are the Trinamool Congress (19) led by Mamata Banerjee, who vanquished the Left in West Bengal, DMK (18) and NCP (8).
By and large, the 400 million voters were not swayed by narrow caste and parochial agendas and extended support to regional parties only wherever the state governments had a record of development-oriented performance (Bihar and Orissa). Mercifully, the people dispelled the fears of a hung parliament and unstable coalitions which held the prospect until the declaration of results.

Third front collapse...

The Left-sponsored Third Front, which was promoted to provide a stable non-BJP, non-Congress alternative, collapsed in quick time. Its leading constituents, TDP of Chandrababu Naidu, who formed a ‘grand alliance’ to take over power in Andhra Pradesh and shape a new government at the Centre, and Jayalalithaa’s AIDMK in Tamil Nadu fared badly. CPI(M) confessed that these election-eve alliances were not viewed as ‘credible and viable alternative’ at the national level.

In Andhra Pradesh, the Congress, on the basis of its performance, secured a renewed mandate for the state government headed by Dr.Y S Rajasekhara Reddy while winning 33 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats. Similarly, Naveen Patnaik of Biju Janata Dal, who broke away from BJP-led alliance, was voted back to office in Orissa overwhelmingly, and BJD also took 14 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats.

The biggest setback for the Left was right in the Communist heartlands of West Bengal and Kerala. The Congress-led UDF in Kerala walked away with 15 of the 20 seats while Trinamool Congress in West Bengal tied up with Congress to register a ‘historic’ defeat for the Left government in the Lok Sabha poll. Banerjee, a long-time crusader against the Communist government, wants early assembly elections there; she won a handsome19 seats while the Congress retained its six seats. The Left parties were reduced to 15 from the 35 they held in 2004.

The overall strength of Left parties, which exerted tremendous pressures on the Manmohan Singh on a variety of issues and withdrew its outside support in mid-2008, was reduced from 61 to 23.

Congress revival in UP

The Congress sweep was made possible with solid gains in many states. Notable additions to its 2004 tally were in AP (33), Rajasthan (16), Kerala (15), U P (12), M P (6), Punjab (6) and Orissa (4). The Congress did better than its ally NCP of Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra with an extra 4 seats and there is already talk of the party going alone in the Assembly elections later this year. The unexpected triumph of the DMK-Congress alliance in Tamil Nadu, though in no way comparable to its record of 2004 and the Trinamool storm in the red bastion of West Bengal helped to boost UPA numbers.

A jubilant Sonia Gandhi, who crafted the strategy of her party asserting its own image at the national level, said the people of India had reposed their faith in the Congress. The most striking change achieved was in Uttar Pradesh where Rahul Gandhi’s hectic campaigning helped to revive the party’s fortunes to an extent that the regional parties – the ruling BSP of Mayawati and the SP of Mulayam Singh Yadav – have already become uneasy. Rahul Gandhi sees the poll outcome as a rejection by the people of the ‘politics of caste and religion.’ Re-capturing UP for the Congress was Rahul Gandhi’s goal. His hectic campaigning this time helped the party to win 21 seats (it secured 9 in 2004) but he knows there is much work ahead of him in the state. Though one seat less than SP’s 22, the Congress did better than Mayawati’s BSP (20) and the BJP (10). Apparently Mayawati’s ‘social engineering’ (extending her reach beyond Dalits to all castes) which catapulted her to power in UP, is no longer clicking. None of the 500 candidates she had put up all over the country won though building up some voting strength and Mayawati’s declared ambition to become PM vanished in thin air.

DMK vs AIADMK

The elections have a lesson for the regional parties to grow out of their parochial agendas and function with a sense of national perspective. Even if the country is not about to shift toward a two-party system on the western model, in several states the regional players have been mauled. PMK of vociferous M Ramadoss in Tamil Nadu came a cropper. Regional allies of BJP also suffered ground loss barring JD(U) which gained spectacularly in Bihar, thanks to focus on development by chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Although most observers had written off the DMK-Congress alliance, the sweet revenge that AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa had pined for with a well-organised campaigning and massive turn-outs eluded her. The party finished with 9 seats out of 23 her party contested. Her allies, PMK, MDMK and the Left parties, scored three. Vaiko, vociferous supporter of LTTE and Tamil ‘eelam’ in Sri Lanka, lost to a Congress candidate in Virudhunagar Of the 39 seats, DMK took 18, the Congress 8 and VCK 1.