Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha Election, 2019 started on 23rd May 2019 by the Election Commission of India. After the final counting of polls the results were: BJP led NDA government stood ahead with 349 seats, while the Congress could manage to get 82 seats.
The Mahagathbadhan fared poorly with only 15 seats and 96 seats went to others political parties.
These figures indicated BJP’s historic victory without any vote spilt or vote waste. Clearly they could manage to influence the mind of the Indian masses. BJP’s clear victory seemed the most viable possibility, the strongest reason being the lack of a strong opposition in the political discourse of the country today.
Amidst this vacuum the Mahagathbandhan was considered to be a ray of hope which gave a sense that they could challenge the Modi wave. Although the figures of the election results have shown a completely contradictory picture from what was predicated.
Overall 15 Lok Sabha seats that too from their home state Uttar Pradesh (UP) which means that the coalition failed to make their mark in others states of India except UP. From this it is understood that they were not well received by the masses just before the elections.
The Mahagathbandhan was a coalition of three national parties namely: Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party (SP), Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Ajit Singh led Rasthriye Lok Dal (RLD) and several other parties contesting in different states. The coalition came up as a force against the Bharitye Janta Party government.
The Mahagathabadhan in the era of identity politics was an important merger of different caste based parties which managed to bring the Yadav’s, Dalits, and the Jat community together.
These three communities have their strong foot hold in western and eastern UP. These Other backward caste groups in the past few years have emerged as a challenger to the narrow ideas of Hindutva and its propagator BJP.
The BJP government although refuted the Mahagathbandhan by stating it to be a “fake” alliance, on several occasions they also labeled it an alliance of the corrupt.
Taking a jibe at the alliance the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in his speeches remarked “These days a campaign has been going on to promote Mahagathbandhan which is a failed experiment of Indian political history. The parties, which were born protesting against the Congress, its working culture and its corrupt practices, are now uniting.”
Time and again the BJP government has alleged that the Mahagathbandhan alliance is a corrupt alliance whose intention is to engage in corruption after coming in power.
Despite the jibes and the politics of image bashing the Mahagathbandhan was an interesting alliance to observe. Since it was an alliance between two rival parties: SP and BSP that have fought each other neck to neck in previous elections.
SP and BSP’s merger was an example of weakening opposition parties in the country. There were skepticism about their victory previously not because of their image bashing but because of certain structural problems which can be the following.
The Mahagathbandhan was announced months prior to the Lok Sabha Elections which did not give them ample time to connect with the masses at the grassroots.
In politics one has to understand that it isn’t that only the government is changing rather society is also changing, people are becoming more aware, there is sense of awareness in today’s voters who might not be educated but keeps an eye on the visibility of political parties at each level.
BSP is a party of the Dalit voters which has Dalit loyalist whereas Samajwadi party relies on the Yadav votes primarily. Such kind of an alliance requires time to capture the trust and imagination of the masses. Mahagathbandhan neither was able to give time to the people nor was able to garner their trust.
The split in the Samajwadi party in itself was a biggest jolt for the party added to that splitting of votes became another reason for their failure. The moment congress decided to back out of the alliance Muslim votes getting spilt was predicated.
All these structural problems and odd timing of arrival of the Mahagthbandhan contributed to their poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections. The Mahagathbandhan must have failed in 2019 but it does not mean that there is no hope for the alliance in future politics. What remains to be witnessed is the emergence of a strong, articulate and visible Opposition that strengthens the democratic space.
