 | Our 2001 election cover | Indian politics gets curiouser by the day. When you seem to be winning you may actually be losing. The recent elections, in normal circumstances, would not have been of earthshaking political significance in terms of the status of the Central Government. State elections are fought on local issues, dominated by local leaders, regional parties and the anti-incumbency factor. What makes these elections politically significant is the fact that the results are not good news for the Congress. It is scrambling to form a government in Assam and has not fared as well as it hoped in the other states. The Congress-led UDF has been routed in Kerala, will have to share power for the first time in Assam and will barely manage to form a government in Pondicherry. The victory of the Left in West Bengal and Kerala, and of Karunanidhi, an UPA ally in Tamil Nadu, could spell trouble for the effectiveness of the Manmohan Singh Government. The timing is important. Having come close to completing two years in office, the honeymoon for the Congress is over. The Prime Minister seems trapped between his own vision for the country, the political imperatives of the Congress party, and the growing pressure from coalition partners. The Left, along with the DMK, is almost certain to leverage its electoral success to exert greater influence in policies at the Centre. The Left will oppose a fuel price hike and will also raise the ante as far as its opposition to economic liberalisation-in particular to FDI in retail-is concerned, and the Centre will clearly have to rethink its policies. Another fatality could be the privatisation of airports and future public sector disinvestment. The biggest challenge will be the Left's opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal and the cosy relationship that has developed between Washington and New Delhi. In politics, however, nothing is ever certain. For all you know, the Common Minimum Programme, which the Left often accuses the Centre of violating, could be neutralised by the common maximum understanding that destabilising the Centre also means losing chance to share power in government and giving its bete noire, the BJP, an opportunity to make a comeback. There is also the undeniable fact that the landslide in West Bengal has come with a reform-minded chief minister in the saddle. Our cover story looks at the possible scenarios that may emerge post Election 2006 regarding the implications for the UPA Government, plus a state-wise analysis of the results and what they mean for leaders like Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi and, perhaps more important, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Despite Sonia Gandhi's assertion that the results are a victory for the "UPA alliance", it looks like a long hot political summer dominated by power cuts at the Centre and that has nothing to do with the rising mercury or the falling electricity supply. Index
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