India: Fallout Of UP Elections.

As I have written over and over, winner of UP elections is going to have a major impact of the 2014 general elections. Of course if the winner were either Congress or BJP then the analysis would be easy. However, with SP as a huge winner, the analysis is a bit different. 2014 is too close for any kind of anti incumbency sentiments to build up. SP will win at least 50 seats. With 65 MPs, the communists essentially controlled the government and repeatedly brought it to its knees. They did it for an ideology perverted as it maybe. Imagine what a party like SP will do with 50 MPs?

If they join the government, then they will ask for plum assignments. Mulayam Singh used to be the Defence Minister. This time he will ask for more high profile portfolios. The implications are clear – a repeat of UPA 1&2. I remember a rally in Lucknow where the SP had taken out a rally, shutting down Lucknow to support Iran against UN sanctions. With 50 plus MPs, the SP will be making our foreign policy to ensure appeasement of Muslim voters. Mulayam Singh was also a major proponent of paying Pakistan free money to bail them out of their financial problems. He will definitely be one for increased talks and accommodation of the Paki demands. Can you imagine what kind of stance would the SP take if the SIMI was found to be guilty of a terror attacks? Aside from costing the aam aadmi money, this setup is going to make our security system weaker. The nation will pay one-way or the other.

If they support it from the outside then they will use the central government as an ATM just like Chandrababu Naidu did to the Vajpayee government. Essentially, the rest of the country is going to pay for UP’ites decision of election SP. Moreover, with that kind of strength, they all will have a “get out of jail” card. After all, Mayawati has managed any kind of investigation into the Taj Corridor case because of her MPs in Loksabha.

Of course, there is a third possibility. Mulayam Yadav has long been a proponent of a third front because that is the only way he will become the PM. He tried very hard when the communists had a large number of seats. That reprehensible Harikishen Singh Surjeet, was his point man. Luckily, all those efforts came to a naught. But this time he will be armed with a much larger number of MPs. If he soon does not get a favorable deal from the UPA2, he may start reaching out to other regional parties for early general elections. Mamta and Jayalalitha may be very accommodating towards that because they would want to exploit their current strong position in those elections before they become victims of anti-incumbency. While we all want early general elections, the third party is going to make the national polity even weaker. Those coalition governments will be even weaker because there will be no cohesive force other than greed. Instead of an ideal strong two party nation we will enter an era of perpetually weak central coalition governments. Instead of bringing the renegade and selfish regional parties under control, we will be creating a Frankenstein.

Of course I may be getting way ahead of myself but what scares me is that the two national parties are very weak and vulnerable right now. Congress is weak because of corruption, sycophancy and dynastic politics. BJP is weak because of abject poor leadership and constant in fighting. This makes the specter of the third party a lot closer to reality.

Thanks to the voters of the regional parties in TN, WB etc and now UP, we are going to be mired in a situation where a party with less than 30 % of total votes can continue to rule without fear. Think about it. The current UPA has less that 30% votes. This means that 70% people do not want them in power. But because of divided votes, the inept UPA government can continue to rule and redefine democracy i.e. majority does not rule, splitting the opposition does.

The picture is from: http://www.ipatrix.com/2908/indian-elections-color-palette/