The verdict is in, but the mandate is still hazy. If the verdict is loud and clear, the weak and hesitant voice of the mandate does not lend itself to simple headlines. It is easier to say what this mandate is not. And it is important to say so, for there is a real risk that the peoples' mandate could be misread or hijacked.
Clearly, this decision by Indian voters during the 15th Lok Sabha elections cannot be explained by the standard old formulae that we have gotten used to hearing. This is not simply an aggregation of state-level verdicts; there is a clear national trend here. In almost every state, the Congress party has finished at the upper end of whatever reasonable range of performance it was capable. Everyone is talking about its performance in Uttar Pradesh, but no less important is the fact that the Congress has crossed the 10 percent threshold in Bihar; and has done much better than expected in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, where its party organisation is in shambles; or in Maharashtra, where the party's government leaves much to be desired. A verdict like this cannot be explained merely by local-level factors such as selection of candidates and party factionalism. Or else, Congress would not have performed so well in Rajasthan and Haryana.
Unlike 2004, this is not an election that was lost by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Therefore, much of the analysis of what went wrong with the BJP's campaign might be somewhat beside the point. This election has been won by the Congress, and that is what needs to be focused upon. A combination of factors appears to have caused this mild, almost invisible undercurrent in favour of the Congress. A positive image of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi definitely helped the party. Many of the major pro-people initiatives of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government – such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the farm-loan waiver, the Right to Information legislation, the Forest Act, etc – may not have reached all the people, but they did create a positive climate for the party. It helped that the Congress underplayed its cards, and did not get into 'Shining India' kind of fallacy. Compared to its opponents, the Congress appeared more responsible, future-oriented and pro-people.
A national trend does not mean a trend in favour of national parties. The combined seat share of the Congress and the BJP has increased from 283 in the 2004 elections to 321 this time around, roughly the same tally as the two parties had in 1998. But there is no sharp increase in their vote share. In 2004, the Congress and the BJP together had 48.7 percent of the national vote share. According to the provisional figures available as Himal goes to press, the combined share of the big two parties is about the same, at 48.9 percent. It is not true that the era of national political parties has returned, despite what might appear to be.