DELHI, OPINION ASIA — The outcome of the just-concluded 2009 national poll in India reflect continuity because the verdict was clearly in favor of an incumbent coalition government that presages political stability. Equally, the results are indicative of change because voters rejected regional parties, opting instead for the local allies of the two pan-Indian parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The emerging trend is the consolidation of two conglomerations of parties, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with the Congress at the heart of the former and the BJP anchoring the latter. It can now be emphatically said that no future government will be formed without these two pan-Indian parties, which may not muster a majority in Parliament on their own but will nonetheless hold the key to government formation. With 206 seats in a house of 543 seats, the major partner, the Congress is comfortably placed to independently steer the future of India until the next elections.
Both the BJP and left parties failed to sustain their support base. The BJP endeavored to pursue a national agenda that appeared to be socially divisive, drawing on the age-old socioeconomic cleavages. The fate of the left was sealed to a large extent because of its insistence on an anachronistic ideology that was clearly at variance with the spirit of the contemporary era.