Lok Sabha elections 2019: A return to the lure of coalition politics?

While BJP chief Amit Shah has come to appreciate the importance of alliances, the experience of the 1999 and 2004 polls throws lessons for the Congress as well

On May 13, 2004, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance suffered what most then considered a shock defeat in the Lok Sabha polls.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 138 seats to the Congress party’s 145, failing to emerge as the single largest party – a feat it had accomplished in 1996 (161-seats), 1998 (182-seats) and 1999 (182 seats).

The BJP’s poor performance was primarily the result of its tally having nosedived in two states and a quasi-state – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi.

The Congress became the single largest party largely due to its sweep in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, and the fact that regional parties, such as the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Rahstriya Janata Dal, worsted the BJP in UP and Bihar.

The BJP seat tally dropped by 44 seats in 2004 – from 182 it won in 1999 to 138 seats. It lost 19 seats in UP, 18 in Bihar and five in Delhi.

The Congress tally improved from 114 seats won in 1999 to 145. It won 29 of Andhra’s 42 seats in 2004, up from five in 1999 in that state. The Congress also swept Delhi, winning six of its seven seats.

The story, however, of the 2004 Lok Sabha polls and the undoing of BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign, was its utter failure in UP and Bihar.

The 2004 result in these two states continues to haunt the BJP and Sangh Parivar leadership to this day. In 2004, the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party did not have any alliance, but still reduced the BJP to 10 of the state’s 80 seats. The SP, under Mulayam Singh Yadav, was the destroyer-in-chief, winning 35 seats. Mayawati’s BSP won 19 and Congress nine seats.

In Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party alliance won 29 of the state’s 40 seats, with BJP and Janata Dal (United) winning 11. The situation in 2019 is marginally different, as Paswan’s party continues to be part of the BJP-led NDA in Bihar.

BJP chief Amit Shah has come to appreciate the importance of alliances now that his party might struggle to come close to its 282 seats--once in 30 years, and a simple majority in 2014.

In Bihar, the BJP has surrendered five of its sitting seats. It won 22 in 2014 in the state, but will contest only 17, with the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) contesting an equal number.

The 1999 and 2004 elections were also an abject lesson to the Congress in coalition building, particularly in Maharashtra. In 1999, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) fought separately and could only win 10 and six seats, respectively. The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance bagged 28. In 2004, the Congress and NCP effected an alliance to improve their cumulative tally to 23 seats, while BJP-Sena alliance won 25.

On Monday, the BJP and Shiv Sena sealed their seat-sharing formula for the Lok Sabha and subsequent Assembly polls in the state. Yet again, the BJP agreed to return to its old formula with the Sena contesting 25 and the regional party 23 seats. This, despite the BJP having won 122 to the Sena’s 63 seats in the 2014 Assembly polls, when the two had contested separately.

Another key state where the battle is shaping up to resemble the 2004 contest is Jharkhand. The Congress has nearly finalised its alliance with smaller parties in Jharkhand. Along with its allies like Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and others, the Congress had won 12 of the 14 seats in the state in 2004.

In 2004, the poor performance of its allies also hit the BJP. Nearly all its allies fared poorly, including the Telugu Desam Party, Trinamool Congress, AIADMK and Janata Dal (United). The exceptions were the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab and Biju Janata Dal in Odisha. The BJD is no longer BJP’s ally, while the Akalis could struggle to win more than a handful of Punjab’s 13 seats.

Interestingly, the BJP nearly swept Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2004. It won 21 of Rajasthan’s 25 seats, 25 of Madhya Pradesh’s 29 and 10 of Chhattisgarh’s 11 seats. In Gujarat, the Congress could win 12 and BJP, 14 of the 26 seats.

However, after the Pulwama terror attack and heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, the 2019 elections also has echoes of the 1999 Lok Sabha polls.

On April 17, 1999, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government lost the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha by a single vote. The BJP’s government had lasted 13 months.

From the first week of May to the end of July, the Indian Army was involved in evicting squatters, mostly Pakistani soldiers, from the heights of Kargil range.

The polling for the 1999 Lok Sabha elections took place a little over a month later, across September with the last phase of polling on October 3, with Vajpayee-led BJP returning to power.

Interestingly, the BJP matched its 1998 seats tally of 182 seats in 1999 as well, but dropped its vote percentage from 25.59 per cent in 1998 to 23.75 per cent in 1999.

The BJP also lost significant number of seats in Uttar Pradesh despite the nationalistic fervour that Kargil raised. Several of the soldiers killed in action hailed from UP.

In 1998, the BJP had won 57 of UP’s 85-seats (Uttarakhand was then a part of UP). In 1999, it could win only 29. It compensated this loss with its improved performances in other states.

In 2004, the BJP’s vote share dropped further to 22.16 per cent. The Congress won 141 seats with 26.14 per cent vote share in 1998. Its vote share increased to 28.3 but seats dropped to 114 in 1999. In 2004, the Congress party’s nationwide vote share again dropped to 26.7 but seats increased to 145, which in some measure was a result of better alliances.