Unfortunately in Maharashtra …….

By Japan K Pathak, Ahmedabad, 20 October 2014

How unfortunate that even after witnessing ‘the great Delhi state debacle’, voters of Maharshtra elected hung assembly!

General perception is that India is into era of fractured verdicts and hung assembly/parliament. But truth is completely different.

If you notice, barring Uttarakhand, Meghalaya and Delhi, there had been almost no hung verdict in the assembly polls, and even in Lok Sabha general elections in last five years. Most of the states witnessed multipoller contest, and there were third,fourth,fifth factors present, but voters gave clear verdict in favor of likely-to-win leading party with incremental push.

In latest development, even Haryana has elected a government with clear majority, but unfortunately Maharashtra has been a new addition in the list of the states having hung assembly!

Fractured verdict:

Uttarakhand(leading party short of 3 seats)
Delhi(leading party short of 4 seats)
Meghalaya(leading party short of 2 seats)
Maharashtra(leading party short of 22 seats)

Clear majority to leading party/pre-poll alliance:

2009: Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir
2010: Bihar
2011: Assam, Kerala, Puducherry
2012: Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat
2013: Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Karnataka, Rajasthan
2014: Andhra Pradesh, Talangana, Odisha, India(Lok Sabha general election)

Leading parties in Uttarakhand and Meghalaya managed to have majority with support of other parties, thanks to which there has been a stable government there. Delhi however has been a strange and unique case where leading party(BJP) is lately now in capacity get support of few MLAs to offer stable government, but it’s just not doing it for some reasons.

If country as diverse as India can elect a single party government with full majority, if big states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar could elect governments with clear majority at state level, just imagine the maturity of voters. Actually, people have seen enough of coalition era in past, and they are now choosing governments with clear verdict. Just four states including Maharashtra(the latest) have been exceptions!

I guess the reason why Maharshtra elected hung assembly could be attributed to break of alliance of coalition – particularly the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition. Though both parties separated just two days before final date of filing nominations, people still perceived both parties as 25-year-old ‘Yuti’. This is perhaps because the main campaigner and even other major, middle size, minor and even micro campaigners from BJP camp avoided hard-hitting attacks on Shiv Sena. If you look at the science of electoral campaign, at least through middle level campaigners, BJP could attack Shiv Sena just to give a loud and not subtle message that they both are different, ‘Yuti’ is no more in existence, and when you vote for Shiv Sena which is also a saffron force, it actually doesn’t contribute to clear mandate to BJP.

Source:Minority Governments in India: The Puzzle of Elusive Majorities (By Professor Csaba Nikolenyi)

Arun Jaitley’s take:
Arun Jaitley on why BJP couldn’t win clear majority in Maharashtra

NCP’s proposal: NCP hasn’t sent ‘friend request’ to BJP, it has just clicked ‘follow’ button