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It is State-level politics that is stealing the show in the age of coalition politics. It is governance at the State level, and not how national political formations behave and show promises, that is fast becoming the mantra of success and sustenance. In other words, the voters are judging political parties through the prism of governance that they enjoy and have benefited from at the State level. It is a welcome development in the sense that there is a tendency to localize national issues and to nationalize local issues; in the former one would discover a tendency to relate to national issues on the basis of how they affect the electorate in a particular State, while in the latter one would see a process of translating local issues to a wider, nationalistic framework. If this means the voter has really matured, Indian democracy will have many reasons to cheer. In a newspaper article, acclaimed political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who heads the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, explains the metamorphosis thus: ‘‘Economic liberalization — but particularly the transformation of government revenues, and the fact that States now have huge money to play around with — created conditions where their governance performance matters. Now State governments can run on their record, and are being rewarded or punished appropriately. This argument suggests that the entrenchment of State-level issues, rather than being a sign of regionalization of Indian politics, is also a sign that the building blocks for parties will be governance at the State level. This does not mean identity issues will disappear... But they are being articulated within States, rather than across them.’’ Mehta argues, and we second it, that ‘‘national parties will not, in the short run, find it easy to expand their base, unless they adopt radically new organizational strategies’’. It is in fact a question of not just the national parties finding it difficult to expand their base in the absence of radically new organizational strategies. It is also a question of whether a regional party — for instance, the AGP in Asom — can challenge the ruling national party without evolving radically new organizational strategies and ideas.
Therefore, both the AGP and the BJP face a Herculean task in Asom to prove what they are saying they will prove in the forthcoming general elections. Following the above thesis, which has been tested successfully across the country, their success will be a function of their grassroots-level organizational structures, especially now that they have inked a seat-sharing deal. Yet, it is not difficult to put the Congress in Asom in the defensive despite its development clamour. After all, the impression in the mind of the indigenous people is that development works are being done solely for the swelling illegal Bangladeshi crowd to benefit from — with the Bangladeshis having already outnumbered the local populace in several areas of the State, and who are free to settle and proliferate in the State despite the abrogation of the IM(DT) Act, framed by the Congress and backed by it even as the Supreme Court was in the process of throwing away the perverse immigration law altogether. But how far — and effectively — have the two opposition parties communicated the reality to ordinary voters? THE SENTINEL
It is State-level politics that is stealing the show in the age of coalition politics. It is governance at the State level, and not how national political formations behave and show promises, that is fast becoming the mantra of success and sustenance. In other words, the voters are judging political parties through the prism of governance that they enjoy and have benefited from at the State level. It is a welcome development in the sense that there is a tendency to localize national issues and to nationalize local issues; in the former one would discover a tendency to relate to national issues on the basis of how they affect the electorate in a particular State, while in the latter one would see a process of translating local issues to a wider, nationalistic framework. If this means the voter has really matured, Indian democracy will have many reasons to cheer. In a newspaper article, acclaimed political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who heads the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, explains the metamorphosis thus: ‘‘Economic liberalization — but particularly the transformation of government revenues, and the fact that States now have huge money to play around with — created conditions where their governance performance matters. Now State governments can run on their record, and are being rewarded or punished appropriately. This argument suggests that the entrenchment of State-level issues, rather than being a sign of regionalization of Indian politics, is also a sign that the building blocks for parties will be governance at the State level. This does not mean identity issues will disappear... But they are being articulated within States, rather than across them.’’ Mehta argues, and we second it, that ‘‘national parties will not, in the short run, find it easy to expand their base, unless they adopt radically new organizational strategies’’. It is in fact a question of not just the national parties finding it difficult to expand their base in the absence of radically new organizational strategies. It is also a question of whether a regional party — for instance, the AGP in Asom — can challenge the ruling national party without evolving radically new organizational strategies and ideas.
Therefore, both the AGP and the BJP face a Herculean task in Asom to prove what they are saying they will prove in the forthcoming general elections. Following the above thesis, which has been tested successfully across the country, their success will be a function of their grassroots-level organizational structures, especially now that they have inked a seat-sharing deal. Yet, it is not difficult to put the Congress in Asom in the defensive despite its development clamour. After all, the impression in the mind of the indigenous people is that development works are being done solely for the swelling illegal Bangladeshi crowd to benefit from — with the Bangladeshis having already outnumbered the local populace in several areas of the State, and who are free to settle and proliferate in the State despite the abrogation of the IM(DT) Act, framed by the Congress and backed by it even as the Supreme Court was in the process of throwing away the perverse immigration law altogether. But how far — and effectively — have the two opposition parties communicated the reality to ordinary voters? THE SENTINEL
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