´India shining´ and ´feel good factor´ are the slogans of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), as they prepare for the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian parliament) elections in April-May 2004. 'India shining' had been coined following the recent upswing in the economy which registered 8.5 growth rates in last quarter of 2003. BJP´s success in three out of the four state assembly elections (Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh) too drummed up this 'feel good factor'. The party says that it is going to the people on issues like development, a stable coalition government and the leadership of Prime Minister AB Vajpayee. The question, however, is whether these poll planks would be able to generate a pro-incumbency wave in favour of the BJP-led NDA.
The main opposition party, the Congress, has stepped up its attack on the BJP´s publicity blitz by launching the 'India Cheated' campaign. The party accuses the BJP of trying to 'cover up its glaring failures' and believes that BJP's 'feel good balloon' would be punctured at the Lok Sabha polls. To re-enforce their case, the Congress is highlighting the first time negative employment growth that the country has seen during the NDA years with unemployment crossing the ten million mark. The Congress also debunks claims of high GDP growth rates, maintaining that during the NDA's five-year rule, the growth rate was just five percent, and it was only in the last quarter of 2003 that it read 8.5 percent. The Congress is confident that the BJP reached its peak in 1999 and that the anti-incumbency factor is strong this time around to unseat them from power.
Looking at India's electoral history, it is seen that overarching political planks have generated waves in favour of one or other political party for two decades since the 1970s. In 1971, the Congress gained a land slide victory on 'liberation of Bangladesh' as its poll plank. It was the 'anti-Emergency' wave that decimated the Congress in the 1977 elections. This was followed by the 'Bring Indira back' slogan which swept the polls for the Congress in the 1979 national elections. In 1984, it was the assassination of Indira Gandhi that generated a sympathy wave for the Congress. The beginnings of coalition politics too rested on the issue of 'Bofors', with the National Front coming to power in 1989 under VP Singh's prime ministership with its campaign against the Congress. The 1992 elections rode on BJP´s 'rath yatra' campaign on Ayodhya for sometime but swung last minute in favour of the Congress in the aftermath of Rajiv Gandhi´s assassination.
The election scene has drastically changed since the 1996 Lok Sabha polls. Even though it was firing on all cylinders, the BJP could not gain absolute majority in the House and collapsed within 13 days of coming to power. A ragtag Third Front government chugged on for two subsequent years. The general elections in 1998 again gave BJP a truncated majority and this time it was able to run a government for 13 months with help of its coalition partners. However, Jayalalitha's exit from the BJP-led coalition forced another general election in 1999 which again threw the same verdict. This time around the BJP toned down its political agenda and evolved a 'common minimum programme' for the coalition and has managed thereafter to run its full course in power.