Events And Issues

New Delhi, 14 January 2008

Myth Of Incumbency

LESSONS OF GUJARAT ELECTIONS

By T.D. Jagadesan

The Gujarat elections have thrown up several lessons which the leaders of political parties can ignore only at their own peril. A few important among these deserve special mention.

The first is the repudiation of the incumbency theory. Whenever an election results in the defeat of the party in power, it has become a regular practice to name incumbency as the villain responsible for it. However, if we carefully analyse the various causes for the defeat of the parties in power, it will be seen that inefficiency in administration and corruption have been responsible for such reverses.

The incumbency argument has come to be advanced in the defence of those defeated only in recent years. Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister continuously 1946 to 1964 and led his party to victory in successive general elections. Instead of incumbency becoming a disadvantage, his record, both on the grounds of efficiency and cleanliness in administration, only strengthened his indispensability for his party and the nation.

The Congress Party was then not a monolithic organistaion with one supreme leader. Its leaders included several persons with grassroots level experience and sizeable following in their respective states. The Chief Ministers and heads of party organization in various States continued for long periods in their respective positions and led their party to victory, time and again without incumbency proving to be a handicap at any time.

K. Kamraj, for instance, was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1954 to 1965; B.C. Roy was Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1948 to 1962 and Gobind Ballabh Pant was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1946 to 1955 (when he moved to the Centre as the Union Home Minister). Modi in Gujarat is certainly not on par with a B.C. Roy or G.B. Pant or a Kamaraj as a national leader, but one can say that his record of efficiency and integrity was a major factor in his success in the elections as had been in the case of the aforementioned national leaders in their respective States.

Many ardent supporters and admirers of Modi have, in the exuberance of their loyalty to him, claimed that his victory in the elections was historic as it was achieved in spite of the incumbency. Yet the fact is that incumbency is never a handicap for a leader who provides clean and efficient administration. The Gujarat elections have clearly exploded the myth of incumbency theory.

The second lesson of the Gujarat elections is that development is the most potent argument for winning an election in a country like India, which is still struggling to cross the threshold of social and economic progress. A lot of information based on facts and figures was placed before the electorate by Modi in support of his claims that substantial gains had been made in development. They were no doubt challenged by counter arguments and statistics by the Opposition. Ultimately, however, the people are the best judges about development and no argument can convince them except their own experience.

A third lesson from the Gujarat elections is that people are inclined to repose their confidence in a leader who has proved to be capable of taking bold decisions in the interest of the State rather than in others who try to win votes by promising every good thing to everybody. Modi’s detractors in Gujarat seem to have calculated that certain bold measures he had taken like, for example, enforcing payment of arrears of electricity dues, would cost him the votes of the farmers, and even tried to make it an issue in the elections. But such bold action by Modi seems to have only enhanced his reputation for courage in taking unpopular decisions.

Again, his decision to deny tickets to as many as 47 sitting MLAs based largely on their poor performance had showed him up as a leader who would not make compromises with sloth or inefficiency. The fact that 33 of the 47 new faces won the elections, has confirmed the people’s perception about him as a leader who can take sound and bold decisions. The lesson from such actions is that people will repose their trust more in persons with courage to take quick and sound decisions than in leaders with a “please-all” policy.

The Gujarat elections have also served to deflate the exaggerated importance which has been attached to caste and sub-caste loyalties at the time of elections. This is not to say that caste is not a major factor in Indian elections. On the other hand, what the Gujarat elections have proved is that in a socially advanced State, caste and sub-caste loyalties will have only a limited influence in deciding the fortunes of the candidates.

Another important lesson is that people do not favour opportunistic party-hopping by their leaders and that the parties which welcome such persons to their fold are certain to suffer from such decisions rather than be benefited from them. The Congress indirectly contributed to the victory of the BJP in certain constituencies where it put up last-minute defectors from the BJP as Congress candidates. If these people were criminals and vicious communalists when they were with Modi, a quick change from saffron to khadi could not have washed away their guilt instantly.

The ordinary people saw this action as opportunistic endorsement of defections without any consideration for principles and ideology. This affected the credibility of not only these candidates but also of the Congress as a champion of secularism. The refusal of the people to lend their support to most of such defectors has proved that the people will no longer follow their leaders blindly. They cannot be taken for granted. --- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)