EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

Decidedly mixed results

No one explanatory framework could have held together the 2011 Assembly elections in four States and one Union Territory. The issues were different, as were the personalities, in West Bengal and Assam in the east of the country, and Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the Union Territory of Puducherry in the south. For West Bengal, this was a watershed election, marking the end of the 34-year-rule of the Left Front headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). A government led by Trinamool Congress, with the mercurial Mamata Banerjee as Chief Minister, will be of a very different persuasion from the ones headed by Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Having drawn on the support of sections and classes with conflicting interests, Ms Banerjee could steer the State in new, even if unpredictable, directions. In Tamil Nadu, the return to power of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, with the charismatic Ms Jayalalithaa at the helm, holds long-term import for the socio-economic development and governance of the State. As for Kerala, the 2011 contest will be best remembered for the performance of the loser, not for the victory of the Congress-led United Democratic Front. In a State known for bringing about a regime change every five years, the CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front, riding a late surge created by the campaign of the octogenarian Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, almost nullified the anti-incumbency sentiment to make this the closest election since 1965, when the contest produced a hung Assembly. Assam gave the Congress and Tarun Gogoi a hat-trick of wins, something of a rarity in recent years. In Puducherry, the Congress lost to its breakaway group, the N.R. Congress led by former Congress Chief Minister N. Rangaswamy, which had fought the election in the company of the AIADMK.

In Andhra Pradesh, another breakaway group of the Congress, the YSR Congress formed by Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, has jolted the ruling party by the enormous margins of its victory in the by-elections to the Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula Assembly constituencies. The rise of the YSR Congress threatens to destabilise the demoralised Congress regime in South India's largest State, as many YSR loyalists might see political advantage in switching sides early. The overall consequences of the April-May 2011 elections are hard to predict. While the Congress can take some comfort from its victories in Assam, West Bengal, and Kerala, it will have to deal with increased pressures and changing equations within the United Progressive Alliance. While managing relations with a strengthened TMC will be a challenge, its alliance with the DMK is likely to face an existential crisis sooner than later, given the comprehensiveness of the Tamil Nadu rout and the increasing heat of the 2-G corruption cases.

Just desserts in Tamil Nadu

Power corrupts. That may be broadly true but it does not follow in the least that corruption can be the basis and guarantor of power. That is the main message from the Tamil Nadu Assembly election of 2011. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam badly underestimated the political sagacity of the electorate and sought once again to buy up its loyalty. Defying predictions of a close contest, the voters turned out in unprecedented numbers in town and country and vented their accumulated anger against unrestrained corruption, against what was perceived as the inexorable movement towards one-family rule through the appropriation of the State's wealth, power, and resources by various members of the ruling family, against the failure of the government to manage a major power crisis and contain the price spiral, and against flagrant contempt for the rule of law. Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi seems to have laboured under the belief that his regime's welfare schemes and wide social safety net were enough to offset the negative perceptions about these issues. Its positive record in delivering welfare and health services and implementing infrastructure projects was besmirched by its incompetence in dealing with the State's electricity shortage. Incidents such as the tragic killing of three employees of a Tamil newspaper in Madurai as a result of a feud within the DMK leader's family, and the virtual immunity that accompanied the crime, contributed in no small measure to the perception that the rule of law was undermined by political interference and that power flowed from extra-constitutional sources.

But that is only one part of the story. The alliance with a faction-ridden and demoralised Congress, which fought above its weight and has been reduced to a single digit presence in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, proved to be a fatal weakness for the DMK. Voters realised during the campaign that the 2G spectrum allocation scam was a co-production, where the venality of the DMK actors — who had planned, executed, and benefitted from India's biggest corruption scandal – was enabled by the amoral attitude and actions of the Congress leadership of the central government. Alliance arithmetic has always been a factor in Tamil Nadu elections. Ms Jayalalithaa — a strong leader who returns to power for a third substantive term as Chief Minister backed by a four-fifths majority in the Legislative Assembly — got the alliance arithmetic absolutely right. But this election was essentially not about arithmetic. It was a powerful rejection of a regime that, unable to distinguish right from wrong, went down in an akratic haze.