‘Votes, seats of national parties have declined’ Page 1 of 1

Publication: Times Of India Mumbai; Date:2009 Apr 01; Section:Editorial; Page Number:
14
Q& A

‘Votes, seats of national parties have declined’

Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, emeritus professors at the University of Chicago, have been studying India since the 1950s. A three-volume
collection of their essays on Indian democracy has recently been published. They spoke to Ronojoy Sen on the coming general election:

Is the rise of several regional outfits a recipe for instability?

The decline in support for national parties is certainly problematic. It is at the least a
portent of a new party system. India began with the Congress as a dominant party. The
Congress could win 60 per cent or more of the seats in Parliament with 40 per cent or more
of the vote because the opposition vote against it was divided. Beginning with the hung
Parliament in 1989, India’s party system changed from a dominantparty system with
governments based on party majorities in Parliament to a regionalised multiparty system
with coalition governments at the Centre.
This year’s general election may move the country towards a third party system. The
character of a new party system is hard to discern.
By forming coalition governments, are national parties losing out on their support
base?
The general election in 2004 may have been the last in which national party coalitions
such as the NDA and the UPA, based on a pre-election common minimum programme, could
form a government. The Centre may not hold.
In 2004, the Congress won 26.7 per cent of the vote and the BJP 22.2 per cent. Both
parties’ vote share declined slightly from the previous election. It remains to be seen
whether the Congress and the BJP can compete effectively with regional parties. The
proportion of the vote controlled by parties classified as national by the Election Commission
was 76 per cent in 1991, declining to 63 per cent in 2004; seats controlled by them went
down from 78 per cent to 67 per cent.
You have been observing Indian elections since the 1950s. What have been some
of the major changes in the election process over the years?
We have noticed four changes. First, a decline in the politics of charisma and darshan and
a rise in the politics of vote banks and benefits. Second, the emergence of two Indias, the
one-third of the voting public that views television and whose vote is shaped by
personalities and persuasion, and the two-thirds of the voting public whose vote is shaped
by identity politics.
Third, an effort to break the hold of vote bank and regional determination of voter choice
by appealing to an aam aadmi, a hypothetical all-India, average or median voter. Fourth,
the appearance of an incipient women’s vote based on a growing consciousness that there
are women’s values and interests independent of family and community.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/APA26300/PrintArt.asp?SkinFolder=pastissues2 03/05/2009