A SEASON FOR ONE NATION, MANY ELECTIONS

The power of incumbency and local factors highlighted by the year-end elections should make us rethink the plan to hold simultaneous polls. There's a lesson for political dynasties too

- SANDEEP SHASTRI

THE Indian voter has again asserted that the "local" is central in electoral politics. One of the biggest lessons from the year-end polls and bypolls was about incumbency—a party or candidate loses an election more than someone else wins it. This was true across the board: ruling regimes held their own turfs.

In Maharashtra, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi and its three principal constituents lost, as did the BJP in Jharkhand in its attempts to make forays into the tribal heartland. The byelections, too, saw a concerted effort by those in the opposition to embarrass the ruling parties, but failed to strike a chord that would be heard around the country.

In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party surrendered the momentum it had gained in the Lok Sabha polls to the BJP. The ruling coalition held its own in Bihar, too. Similarly, in the six seats in West Bengal, the BJP was not able to offer a reasonable challenge to the Trinamool Congress in spite of the many embarrassments for the ruling party since the Lok Sabha polls.

The sweep by the ruling Congress in the Karnataka byelections is another clear example of the opposition, the BJP-JDS alliance, not being able to hold the government to account. In deciding so, the state threw up some bigger questions for the future.