Editorial

Need to Return to Basics

The recently held Assembly elections have placed in a sharp focus the perils of an unstable political situation and travails of political parties afflicted by fractured mandate. Interestingly, the same Assembly polls have also shown how the situation can be remedied. Two divergent trends have been thrown up by the elections. In Bihar and Jharkhand multiple parties have generated a split vote making it very difficult to form a government by any one or even a coalition of parties. However, a healthy political scene in Haryana has given a clear-cut verdict of voters making it easy to form a government by the winning party that received a definite mandate. Consequently, in Haryana a duly chosen government has begun working taking up developmental projects and moving the state further ahead on the road to progress. With President's Rule in place in Bihar, it is anybody's guess when it will have a democratically elected government. After ten days of political turmoil a new government has come into being in Jharkhand. But instability continuous to haunt this new state. All this causes a setback to economic development in these two states which have the dubious distinction of being extremely backward despite their enormous mineral wealth. An analysis of the seats won by the multiple parties in Bihar clearly indicates what the voters had in mind while exercising their franchise across the state.

In Bihar, the NDA of which the BJP is the dominant party contested all the seats. The UPA partners did not enter the fray as a group, but between them they too fought for all the seats. The results show that NDA obtained 92 seats, falling short by as many as 30 seats to form a government. In other words, the voters had rejected the NDA, which contested as a group. The UPA members who fought separately got a total of 121 seats excluding independents who won 30 seats. In the normal course the UPA partners who include Congress, RJD, LJP, etc, should have formed a government. But this did not happen mainly because the UPA partners, despite the tremendous similarity in their individual policies and programmes, function as separate identities in Bihar though they work together under UPA at the Centre. In the bargain, CPI (M-L) made inroads in Bihar, winning seven seats while the Samajwadi Party of UP which too entered the fray snatched 2.69% votes. LJP of Ram Vilas Paswan which is generally viewed as a party for the downtrodden won 29 seats out of which as many as 17 belong to upper castes and none of the its Muslim candidates got elected.

Needless vote-splitting has been happening for a long time in most states where political formation has been on individual or caste basis like in UP and Bihar rather on ideological basis. Consequently, divisionist forces like the BJP gained ground easily. The same cannot be said of the states where political parties functioned on ideological basis. In these states electoral verdict has been clear cut. In Southern states, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana where ideology, policies and programmes constituted the basis, are making strong strides economically. Obviously, this confusing and frustrating political scenario cannot be allowed to continue. There is an urgent need for rebuilding political forces based on ideological plank. Unless this is taken seriously and sincerely, the political map of not only Bihar, but also of Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh will continue to be dismal, eventually rendering these states to be a drag on India on the march.