Mamata triumphs on Congress on a roll,

The results of last Saturday’s byelections to 31 Assembly seats in seven states and the lone Lok Sabha seat of Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh confirms the broad mood of the electorate that became evident in the general election in May. The voter chose to privilege the Congress over the BJP nationally, delivered a blow to the Left, especially the CPI(M), and shattered the élan of the Samajwadi Party, UP’s regional and casteist outfit that has made a strenuous effort since the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 to hog the limelight nationally by projecting itself as a “secular” party. If the CPI(M) was suffering from a want of people’s affection, it is natural to expect that the gainers would be the Congress in Kerala and the Trinamul Congress, West Bengal’s combative anti-Marxist regional formation. The political space that Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party occupies is more complex to understand. In UP, where it is the ruling party, the Mayawati-led formation had suffered — as had the SP and BJP — in the Lok Sabha poll on account of the spectacular rise of the Congress. But it had not been humiliated. However, the party failed to make any impact whatsoever in the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, although it was expected to (confirming its below par showing in the Lok Sabha poll in Delhi, where the party had a following). This led to the view that the BSP continued to suffer from the hangover of the Lok Sabha experience. Is that assessment in need of revision, considering that the BSP has done as spectacularly in UP this time around as the Trinamul Congress has done in West Bengal? It may be tempting to yield to such an analysis in the light of the results, but this would be at odds with the political climate in which the election was held. It needs to be noted that the BSP won most of the seats at the cost of the SP, whose decline is the real story of the recent byelections in UP. Thus, BSP wins may be taken to be victories by default, and not a basic measure of the party’s current popularity. There are also questions raised on strongarm tactics being used by UP’s ruling party. On the basis of the byelection results, the politics of the future appears clear enough. First, the Congress-Trinamul Congress association is unlikely to be brought under pressure by the leadership of the two parties, whatever the local irritants from time to time. Like the SP, the CPI(M) is a falling star and linking up with it even at the local level is likely to cost the Congress. The other pointer to the future is the forthcoming confrontation in UP between the Congress and the BSP, with SP’s backward caste and family-based political agenda having been consigned to the margins by the electorate. The Congress has gained much in popular perception in recent months on account of its development-oriented non-caste, non-communal programme. But it is early to say that it has stolen a march over the dalit-based party. That is a hypothesis in need of proof or refutation. The recent rise of the Congress has occasioned discussion on whether the country is once again headed for single-party domination as was the case in the era up to Indira Gandhi. On present evidence, this appears too sweeping a generalisation. There is a plurality of political impulses in virtually every state of the country. These are constantly being given expression in diverse ways, regardless of a party’s strength in Parliament or a state Assembly. There can be no better bulwark against one-party rule.