The growing prominence of the election strategist in our political context raises some questions. Is it an inevitable trend, the “professionalisation” of the business of politics in “mature” democracies? Or does the rise of the strategist have something to do with the rise of the politician unsure of his own ground? Is the increasingly feverish reliance of political parties on the election strategist related to their reluctance to undertake political mobilisations in between polls? Does the voter stand to gain or lose from this phenomenon?

It is certainly changing the way we talk about our politics. Nowhere is this framed more sharply — or in more jarring ways — than in the political chatter about “social coalitions”.

In the just concluded assembly polls in Karnataka, the Congress, we were told, was putting together an alliance of the lower backward castes, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims. The BJP’s coalition was said to place the Lingayats at the centre. Traditionally, as political scientist James Manor has described in his work, parties and governments in Karnataka at least since 1972 have tended towards collective leadership in rainbow coalitions. In 1972, Chief Minister Devraj Urs broke the dominance of the Lingayats and Vokkaligas in state politics since Independence by mobilising other disadvantaged groups. This is also the reason why Karnataka experienced little conflict during the Mandal tumult in 1990. So why did the talk of social coalitions jar this time?

Perhaps it had to do with the sense that this time in Karnataka, both the Congress and BJP were much more precise about the math of the social coalition, but far more fuzzy about the rest. This time, “social coalition” was an invocation palpably more bloodless than before. Going by the reportage, much less was asked, and even less was told, about the issues specific to the Lingayats, Vokkaligas, OBCs, SCs, STs in Karnataka, or the ones they faced in common.

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