STATE ELECTIONS IN INDIA

STATES OF FLUX IN INDIA

Sudha Ramachandran

Asia Times, May 17, 2011

BANGALORE - India's voters have once again proved that they will not be taken for granted. Of the four states and one union territory that went to the polls to elect state assemblies, in all but one - Assam - voters have dumped the ruling party/coalition.

Analysts had predicted that the result in Tamil Nadu would be close, that even if the ruling Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (DMK) lost, it would only be by a few seats. Pollsters predicted that Tamil voters were so addicted to freebies being extended to them by the DMK that they would ignore allegations of corruption (several DMK members of parliament are under investigation in the US$39 billion 2-G spectrum scam). They were proved wrong.

Sure, voters lapped up the liquor bottles and the wads of currency notes that came their way during the campaign. But on polling day, they punished the DMK, inflicting on the party its worst electoral defeat since 1991, when it got just two seats.

If in Tamil Nadu it was corruption that triggered defeat, in West Bengal it was the ruling Left Front's arrogance and alienation from the common man. There, voters to put an end to 34 years of communist rule and voted in the Trinamool Congress, local ally of the national ruling Congress party. The left's defeat was expected. It had lost touch with the masses and the Bengalis wanted change. The Left Front's aligning with big capital against the rural poor sealed their fate.

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