The limitations on coalition politics in India: The case of electoral alliances in Uttar Pradesh

Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 1-21

  Wyatt, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELECTION; NATIONAL POLITICS; PARTY POLITICS; VOTING BEHAVIOR;

INDIA; UTTAR PRADESH;

EID: 0032749561     PISSN: 03063631     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14662049908447787     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. The BJP survived the first confidence motion with support from the National Conference and the Telegu Desam Party. Neither party was a member of the coalition. 'Gains and Bargains', Asian Age (London), 31 March 1998, 8.
2. I. Duncan, 'New Political Equations in North India - Mayawati, Mulayam, and Government Instability in Uttar Pradesh', Asian Survey, 37, 10 (1997), 988.
3. It could be argued that it is unreasonable to assume that the BJP would lose out from opposition unity. Following such an alliance, tactical voting might adjust in such a way as to mitigate the impact on the BJP. There are a number of reasons for working with the assumption that an electoral alliance would disadvantage the BJP. Firstly, an SP-BSP alliance did defeat the BJP in the 1993 state elections. Secondly, BSP voters tend to follow their party's wishes. Thus, in the 1996 assembly elections BSP voters voted for Congress alliance candidates in spite of their social background. Thirdly, Muslim voters, a core SP constituency, have shown a tendency to vote for the party most likely to defeat the BJP in their particular constituency. In summary, an anti-BJP alliance between the SP and the BSP might not have seen an automatic accumulation of the opposition vote but the BJP would not have gained significant benefit from tactical voting either for itself or alternative parties. 'Uttar Pradesh', India Today, 15 Nov. 1995, 27-9; 'Not a Vote on Ayodhya', Outlook, 2 Oct. 1996, 30.
4. It could be argued that it is unreasonable to assume that the BJP would lose out from opposition unity. Following such an alliance, tactical voting might adjust in such a way as to mitigate the impact on the BJP. There are a number of reasons for working with the assumption that an electoral alliance would disadvantage the BJP. Firstly, an SP-BSP alliance did defeat the BJP in the 1993 state elections. Secondly, BSP voters tend to follow their party's wishes. Thus, in the 1996 assembly elections BSP voters voted for Congress alliance candidates in spite of their social background. Thirdly, Muslim voters, a core SP constituency, have shown a tendency to vote for the party most likely to defeat the BJP in their particular constituency. In summary, an anti-BJP alliance between the SP and the BSP might not have seen an automatic accumulation of the opposition vote but the BJP would not have gained significant benefit from tactical voting either for itself or alternative parties. 'Uttar Pradesh', India Today, 15 Nov. 1995, 27-9; 'Not a Vote on Ayodhya', Outlook, 2 Oct. 1996, 30.
5. Zoya Hasan, Quest for Power: Oppositional Movements and Post-Congress Politics in Uttar Pradesh (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 5-6.
6. P.R. Brass, Factional Politics in an Indian State: The Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1965).
7. P.R. Brass, 'Coalition Politics in North India', American Political Science Review, 62, 4 (1968), 1185.
8. I. Duncan, 'Agricultural Innovation and Political Change in North India: The Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh', Journal of Peasant Studies, 24, 4 (1997), 265.
9. O.M. Lynch, The Politics of Untouchability; Social Mobility and Social Change in a City of India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 111-28.
10. A version of this ideology has been vigorously explained by Kancha Ilaiah. He speaks as a dalitbahujan activist who takes a wider view of the Indian situation rather than as someone bound by close party allegiance. K. Ilaiah, Why I am not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutava Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy (Calcutta: Samya, 1996).
11. Gail Omvedt, 'Kanshi Ram and the Bahujan Samaj Party', in K.L. Sharma (ed.). Caste and Class in India (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 1994), 163-7.
12. Government of India, Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Census of India: Paper 1 of 1993, Union Primary Census Abstract for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Delhi, 1993), 3.
13. V.B. Singh, 'Harijans and their Influence on the Elections in Uttar Pradesh', in S. Mitra and J. Chiriyankandath (eds.), Electoral Politics in India: A Changing Landscape (New Delhi: Segment, 1992), 249.
14. W. Andersen, 'Election 1989 in India: The Dawn of Coalition Politics?', Asian Survey, 30, 6 (1990), 532.
15. Duncan, 'New Political Equations', 984.
16. 'Mulayam in Minority, BSP Switches to BJP', Asian Age (London), 2 June 1995, 1.
17. 'Hanging Them All', India Today, 31 Oct. 1997, 28-31.
18. 'Jubilant Kalyan celebrates early Diwali', Asian Age (London), 22 Oct. 1997, 1.
19. W.H. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962), 32-76.
20. M.N. Franklin and T.T. Mackie, 'Reassessing the Importance of Size and Ideology in the Formation of Governing Coalitions in Parliamentary Democracies', American Journal of Political Science, 28, 4 (1984), 692.
21. L.C. Dodd, Coalitions in Parliamentary Governments (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 39-40.
22. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions, 88-9.
23. M. Laver and N. Schofield, Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 204-6.
24. This contrasts with other states such as the Punjab where the BJP formed an ideologically incompatible alliance with the Akali Dal (B) because party strategists knew that otherwise the BJP would be excluded from the winning coalition. G. Singh, 'The Punjab legislative assembly elections of February 1997: the BJP's regional road to power?', Journal of Contemporary South Asia, 6, 3 (1997), 273-83.
25. 'Narayanan refused to impose Article 356', Asian Age (London), 22 Oct. 1997, 1.
26. Seema Mustafa, 'Modern Secularism: Communalism with a New Spelling', Asian Age (London), 25 April 1996, 8.
27. 'Dal Snubs Samajwadi Offer in UP', Asian Age (London), 16 Jan. 1998, 2.
28. Dodd, Coalitions in Parliamentary Governments, 39.
29. Ibid., 39.
30. 'No BSP, RJD, Congress Pact in UP', Asian Age (London), 18 Dec. 1997, 2.
31. 'BSP Fields Three Candidates in Bihar', Asian Age (London), 28 Jan. 1998, 2.
32. 'Mayawati Rejects Laloo Front in UP', Asian Age (London), 8 Jan. 1998, 4.
33. 'Mayawati takes the plunge', Asian Age (London), 29 Jan. 1998, 4.
34. 'Jawan, Kisan, Mussalman: Mulayam Holds the Key', Asian Age (London), 7 Jan. 1998, 4.
35. Dodd, Coalitions in Parliamentary Governments, 57-62.
36. Francine Frankel, 'Introduction', in F. Frankel and M.S.A. Rao (eds.), Dominance and State Power in Modern India: Decline of a Social Order (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), 6-7.
37. P.R. Brass, 'The Politicization of the Peasantry in a North Indian State', in S. Kaviraj (ed.), Politics in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 210.
38. P.R. Brass, 'General Elections, 1996 in Uttar Pradesh: Divisive Struggles Influence Outcome', Economic and Political Weekly, 32, 38 (1997), 2417.
39. Sudha Pai and J. Singh, 'Politicisation of Dalits and Most Backward Castes: Study of Social Conflict and Political Preferences in Four Villages of Meerut District', Economic and Political Weekly, 32, 23 (1997), 1357.
40. C. Jaffrelot, 'The Bahujan Samaj Party in North India: No Longer Just a Dalit Party?', Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 18, 1 (1998), 7-8.
41. Zoya Hasan, 'Power and Mobilization: Patterns of Resilience and Change in Uttar Pradesh Polities', in Frankel and Rao (eds.), Dominance and State Power, 190-91.
42. Duncan, 'New Political Equations', 992.
43. Dodd, Coalitions in Parliamentary Governments, 59.
44. Michael Laver, 'Between Theoretical Elegance and Political Reality: Deductive Models and Cabinet Coalitions in Europe', in G. Pridham (ed.), Coalitional Behaviour in Theory and Practice: An Inductive Model for Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 33.
45. Landscape theory is an attempt to take a more dynamic view of alliance formation using a more formal theoretical approach. However, I have continued with the inductive approach because it is not clear that the actions of politicians in UP conform to the myopic assumption of alignment assessment made by landscape theorists. R. Axelrod and D. Scott Bennett, 'A Landscape Theory of Aggregation', British Journal of Political Science, 23, 2 (1993), 211-33.
46. G. Pridham, 'An Inductive Theoretical Framework for Coalition Behaviour: Political Parties in multi-dimensional perspective in Western Europe', in Pridham (ed.), Coalitional Behaviour, 4.
47. Laver, 'Between Theoretical Elegance and Political Reality', 33.
48. 'Instability is Good for BSP: Kanshi', Asian Age (London), 1 Jan. 1998, 5.
49. Interview with Mr Varun, President of the Delhi unit of the BSP, 25 Jan. 1997.
50. Laver, 'Between Theoretical Elegance and Political Reality', 35.
51. The nature of this problem has been modified since the passage of the 52nd amendment to the Constitution designed to deal with the problem of defection. Prior to this it was not unknown for individual or small groups of legislators to be induced to join another party and so break or shore up governing coalitions. The practice has not been stopped but since 1985 defections can only take place when a third of a legislative party split from the parent party. Thus engineering splits (and preventing them) has become something of a preoccupation among party leaders in states such as UP where relations among legislative parties are influenced by tendencies towards fragmentation and indiscipline. The politics of defection in legislatures would repay further examination in the context of coalition politics but cannot be followed up here because the concern of the article is with the earlier stage of electoral alliances. R.L. Hardgrave and S.A. Kochanek, India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993), 262-3.
52. Following Hardiman, I use the term 'factionalism' to refer to the conflicts between cliques inside the party rather than the more ambitious idea of a vertically integrated entity that binds village-level supporters to provincial politicians. D. Hardiman, 'The Indian Faction: A Political Theory Examined', in R. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies 1 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), 230.
53. J. Manor, 'India's Chief Ministers and the Problem of Governability', in P. Oldenburg (ed.), India Briefing: Staying the Course (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 50-51.
54. O. Mendelsohn and Marika Vicziany, The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 230.
55. 'Deep Cleavage between Kanshi, Mayawati', Asian Age (London), 9 Jan. 1998, 1.
56. 'Mayawati Snubs Mulayam's Offer for Pact', Asian Age (London), 28 April 1998, 4.
57. Following the success of the Congress Party in the assembly elections in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in November 1998 an opinion poll suggested that the Congress Party was set for a recovery in UP. Quite how the party could achieve this given the severe weakness of its organisation in the state and its dismal record in recent elections is an open question. 'Mood of the Nation - Making of a Wave!', 28 Dec. 1998, India Today, http://www.india-today.com/itoday/28121998/cover.html.
58. A notable exception being the case of Kerala. J. Chiriyankandath, '"Unity in Diversity"? Coalition Politics in India (with special reference to Kerala)', Democratization, 4, 4 (1997), 16-37.
59. J. Chiriyankandath, 'The 1996 Indian General Election', Royal Institute of International Affairs Briefing Paper No.31 (London), 1996.
60. Singh, 'The Punjab Legislative Assembly Elections', 282.
61. S. Kaviraj, 'The General Elections in India', Government and Opposition, 32, 1 (1997), 10.
62. 'Left Sees Sonia Bid in Nov.', Asian Age (London), 11 Sept. 1998, 1.
63. R. Kothari, Politics in India (New Delhi, 1970), 162-3.
64. 'Karunakaran Rules Out Joining UF', Asian Age (London), 3 March 1997, 1.
65. The current Indian President, K.R. Narayanan, who has the formal responsibility for such interventions, has refused to implement two recent requests for the dismissal of state governments. The first request was for the dismissal of the government of UP in October 1997 and the second was for the removal of the Bihar government in September 1998. While Narayanan would doubtless claim that his position was legally justified, his response was difficult to challenge by governments that lacked secure parliamentary majorities. The attempt to impose Presidents' Rule in Bihar during February 1999 was approved by the President but rescinded by the cabinet when it became clear it would be blocked by opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha.