This is an excellent article from Dawn.
http://www.dawn.com/2004/04/24/op.htm#1
New interest in Indian polls
By Afzaal Mahmood
Never in the past fifty years have the people of Pakistan shown such a keen and widespread interest in India’s general election as in the present one that began on April 20 and will conclude in four stages on May 10. The election results will be announced on May 13.
Nearly all opinion polls and analysts suggest that the ruling Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) will emerge again as the single largest party in the 545-seat lower house (Lok Sabha) and form, as before, a coalition government with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
The sheer scale of the Indian poll, described as the greatest show on earth, is mind-boggling: 670 million voters, many thousand candidates and 700,000 polling stations with 1,075,000 electronic machines which promise the remarkable feat of counting all the votes in a matter of hours.
To enable security forces and poll officials to reach their destinations, voting will be divided in four rounds. The whole process will be supervised by a fiercely independent and all-powerful Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections, an institution of which India can be justifiably proud.
Voter turnout in Indian elections has always been high. Of the 670 million voters, more that 400 million of them are expected to turn out at the polling booths to cast their vote.
The average voting percentage in India’s 13 general elections during the period 1952-1999 is a little under 60 which compares favourably with voter participation in most developed countries.
In India, the lowest voting percentage of 55.29 was registered in 1971 and the highest, 63.56, in 1984. The Indian voting percentage looks all the more impressive if we keep in mind that seven to eight per cent of those shown on the electoral rolls cannot cast their vote for a variety of practical reasons. For instance, some of them do not happen to be where they are shown to be resident.
**The BJP is fighting the elections on three slogans: “feeling good” (economic development), “great leader” (Mr Vajpayee has achieved a stature that no other Indian leader can match) and the peace process with Pakistan. **
Also, the party is playing down “Hindu” issues like the Ayodhya temple, and fielding more Muslim candidates than ever before. In addition to that the BJP is trying to exploit the prejudice against the foreign birth of Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi, widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The BJP’s decision to flaunt, in the election campaign, the peace process with Pakistan as one of its achievements indicates an important turnaround in Indian politics. Since 1965, Pakistan-bashing has been the mainstay of India’s electoral politics and the BJP has been in the forefront of such rhetoric.
Even in the last general election held in 1999, the party fully exploited the anti-Pakistan feeling in the post-Kargil period in India. But the current election is being fought on an entirely different platform which only shows that peace with Pakistan has now become a vote-winner in India.
Sonia Gandhi’s Congress, the main rival of BJP, which ruled India for most of its first half century of independence, finds itself today in a tight spot. It used to rely on the support of upper-caste Hindus, Muslims and dalits (untouchables).
Many upper-caste Hindus now vote for the BJP. Muslims have been disillusioned over the years by the “secular” policies of the Congress. The Babri mosque was demolished when a Congress government was in power at the centre. In some important states like Uttar Pradesh, the dalits vote for their own party (Bahujan Samaj Party).
The Congress has, however, overcome in this election its traditional repugnance to “pre-poll alliances” and the new electoral strategy may come to its rescue. It has entered into electoral alliances with local and regional parties in different states, agreeing to share seats with them and thus putting up a united front against the BJP and NDA alliance.
The other hope of the Congress lies in the “ripple effect” from the enthusiasm that has greeted Sonia Gandhi’s son Rahul and daughter Priyanka. Both have been drawing large crowds.
The reason for their popularity is ancestry: their father was Rajiv Gandhi, grandmother Indira Gandhi and great-grand father Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister and a national hero.
It remains to be seen if the pre-poll alliances and family charisma will help Sonia Gandhi’s party win more seats in the Lok Sabha than it did in the last election. But the real test of the Congress’s popularity will be in the 103 Lok Sabha constituencies, spread over six states, where it is directly pitted against the BJP, without any regional party offering a distraction.
In the last election, the Congress won only 112 out of 545 seats. Most opinion polls suggest that the maximum number of seats it can win is around 135.
The increasing alienation of Muslim voters from the Congress has contributed to the party’s decline. Muslims, who constitute about 14 per cent of the population, play a crucial role in many constituencies, especially in UP and Bihar. With its 170 million people, UP, India’s largest state, holds 80 out of 545 Lok Sabha seats.
The Congress won only nine seats in UP in the last election and its prospects in the current one do not appear to be any better because it has failed to woo the Muslim or the dalit voter.
The main causes for concern, as far as the Indian Muslims are concerned, are three: security, employment and identity. It is “security” in its most basic sense that they have been concerned with - security of Muslim life, limb and property.
**After Jawaharlal Nehru, the Congress governments have failed to alleviate any of the above noted concerns. It is an irony that the BJP-led government under Mr Vajpayee at the centre has been more successful, as a whole, in maintaining communal harmony than the “secular” Congress governments.
Of course, there have been some blemishes like the Gujarat pogrom, and the anti-Muslim riots in Ahmedabad after the Kargil conflict. But, by and large, Indian Muslims have felt more secure under the BJP rule than under a Congress government.
It is true that under Mr Vajpayee’s leadership the BJP has undergone a quiet transformation in a remarkably short time. His party is now being increasingly associated with modernity, moderation and concern for minorities.
Strong economic growth of the past few years has also convinced many Muslims to put the past behind them and support the BJP in this election. Also, Mr Vajpayee’s efforts to make peace with Pakistan has made Indian Muslims feel less insecure. **
Almost all analysts are agreed that no single party will be able to win an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha and the next government will also be a coalition government. The current trends indicate that the BJP may improve on its showing in the last election in 1999 when it won 182 out of 545 seats in the Lok Sabha.
So in all probability, Mr Vajpayee will again form a coalition government at the centre with the help of NDA. Pakistan will be happy if Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee gets another mandate to become India’s prime minister because that will enable him to take the Islamabad peace process to its logical conclusion: the resolution of contentious issues - which have kept the two neighbours at loggerheads - through sincere and earnest efforts.
It will be a difficult and delicate process. But of all the Indian leaders, it is Mr Vajpayee alone who, with his vision and stature as well as light touch, can turn the page on the Indo-Pakistan conflict.
The write is a former ambassador.