: How would you describe the electoral contest in Karnataka? Whether it is a two-way or a three-way fight would depend on which of the two exit pollsters you trust. But generally you would call it a fight between two national parties, with one regional spoiler. But what if we called it, instead, a fight between one national party, and a strong regional one, with a second hoping to have just enough leverage to become kingmaker, if not the king? I say this, because for weeks now we have been hearing our pundits and pollsters describe the BJP’s campaign in Karnataka as a “regional” campaign, led by a local chieftain, Yeddyurappa, on local issues, even at the cost of the BJP’s “national (read saffron)” agenda. So the second national party in the equation has actually become a regional party with a local leader, and is benefiting from that “localisation”.
Confusing? So are most changes in old patterns of set-piece politics. But our national politics has been changing now for two decades, starting with the defeat of the Congress in 1989, then an incumbent with the largest ever majority in India’s history. Some change has been noticed, acknowledged and accepted. For example, the rise of caste leaders, regional chieftains and anti-incumbency. Together, these factors are believed to have contributed to the terminal decline of India’s only national party capable of winning a majority on its own. But national parties seem to be missing another change that has come about as a consequence of this.
With the decline in the might of pan-national parties and vote banks, even a national election has now become just a net result of many state elections. The process began in 1989 when V.P. Singh emerged as a kind of regional leader of Uttar Pradesh and used that leverage to lead a coalition government. Over the following two decades, with no great national leader emerging, this trend only strengthened. Vajpayee, the last of the long-marchers, was the one, but limited, exception to this. His appeal did cut across geography, ethnicity and language, but not so strongly that he could fill the old Nehru-Gandhi space. But he did help the NDA buck this trend, in parts. With his wider acceptability, he was able to swing that small but crucial number of fence-sitters in various political geographies towards his coalition partners. His absence from active politics has now removed all resistance to...
