What Next for India After 2016 Assembly Elections

The Congress is in deep, deep trouble. The only major state it rules is Karnataka and is shrinking fast. At present 35.5% of the population of India lives in states controlled by the BJP. In contrast, only 7% of the population lives in Congress-ruled states.

Politics is about ups and downs. But the crisis of the Congress is not that it is down. The worry is that it doesn't seem to be able to find the way up. After 10 years of Congress rule at the Centre and in so much of India, a few people imagined that the Congress would decline so fast. It has only 45 MPs in the Lok Sabha and has lost nine successive state elections.
The BJP can now afford to scoff at what was once a formidable opponent.

"From our own strength we have majority in the Lok Sabha. Along with our allies we have our government in 15 states of the country. Geographically our state government covers about 45% of India's population and contradistinctive with the lowest ever point for the Congress. It lost state after state and is reduced 45 seats in Parliament. I am told that the population its state governments cover now is about 7-8% of India. So having taken a very obstructionist view in the last two years, having taken several fringe position in the last two years, the Congress now finds itself in state after state pushed to the margins.

"The argument is that together out of the 794 assembly segments that were there in the four states, the two national parties won 214 in 2014 and one only 164 on May 19. So there's a decline of national parties. And more specifically from a BJP's perspective, it was very very important for the party to have expanded its footprint to in the larger states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Actually if you look at these state, the BJP won 24 Assembly segments in West Bengal in the 2014 elections but they won three; in Kerala they four in 2014 but won only one in 2016. In Tamil Nadu, BJP won seven in 2014 but they won nothing on May 19. So in a context of expanding footprint in the larger states that has not really played out. Hence, purely in the context of 2019 elections, it is not clear to me that this a good news for both the national parties -- BJP and Congress. Perhaps, it's worse for BJP than the Congress," says Praveen Chakravathi, fellow in political economy.

Secondly, corruption only a big issue for the media. But there is little evidence that it matters that much to the majority of voters.

Mamata Banerjee won with the biggest landslide. Throughout her term, her party has been haunted by the spectre of corruption, from the Saradha scam to the recent Narada sting operation which showed her ministers accepting money on camera.

"Well, I think the corruption scandals were, you know, found more room in the media in Delhi and in Calcutta or in the urban class. In rural Bengal, I don't think the scams or those corruption charges or even the flyover coming down had any impact. The rural Bengal was happy with the kind of doles that she was giving out for example, bicycles to girl students. She had cash transferred after the Saradha scam to the victims and several other social sector schemes which she implemented. The roads were better in Bengal, several other deliverables that Mamata promised were given," says Kishalay.

On the other hand Jayalalithaa was actually convicted by the High Court, had to resign as chief minister and spent several days in jail. Technically, she is still a convict only out on bail.
"Therefore, when she was in jail, it was madness here with people attempting suicide and saying why would you keep such a leader in jail. It was actually a sign of her strength on the ground, her charisma and everything. But after she came back, there has not been very much performance on the ground and there has been talk of corruption but the disenchantment in the electorate, if there is any, comes from lack of performance