The Indian national elections will be held in less than a year. Whether or not the current political stasis surrounding the Indo-US nuclear deal premonitions the shape and form of a future government, there is no doubt that India is in the era of coalition governments. Apart from the two pan-Indian parties, namely, the Congress and the BJP, regional parties have now become crucial to the continuity of the ruling party at the Centre.

The prominent role that many regional parties played in the formation of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and today, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is testimony to the regionalisation of the national political arena. With voters’ choices hinging on local and even municipal issues, the political system has morphed to structure the process of governance around a broad coalition comprising mostly of the middle and lower castes in the social hierarchy.

One of the reasons for the growing importance of regional parties has been their success in articulating the interests of the assertive backward castes and Dalits or ‘untouchables’. These parties remain ‘regional’ in terms of geographic location, but are national in terms of issues relevant to the country as a whole. Their role within the national coalition is also indicative of a more competitive and polarised party system. The continuity of coalition governments (first under the NDA and later UPA) confirms not merely the decline of one party rule and rise of regional and smaller parties, but a crisis of majoritarian political culture, based on the dominance of a single party led by a charismatic leader.   

By withdrawing their support to the UPA over the Indo-US nuclear deal earlier this month, the Left parties seem to have confirmed the fragility of a coalition that lacks an ideological adhesive. The failure of the government to reach a consensus on the Indo-US nuclear deal with the Left parties left the future of the UPA uncertain, until the apparent savior in the form of the Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party stepped in to provide the numerical support in parliament.

While it is still too early to make predications about the outcome of the forthcoming national elections, there is no doubt that the Left parties will try their utmost to capitalise on their sacrifice for a cause, namely a well-defined stance against US imperialism. This will give them an edge in the left Front-ruled West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. However, in view of rising inflation and price rises affecting the masses across the board, it is doubtful whether opposition to the nuclear deal will be as meaningful to the voters at large as the Left parties seem to think.

What remains paradoxical is that despite condemning the BJP as ‘communal’, the withdrawal of support on the nuclear issue has brought the Left parties closer to the BJP. More interestingly, the commitment of the Samajwadi Party to bail the UPA government out of the Indo-US nuclear deal inspired crisis, is equally ironic since the former was on the receiving end of some decidedly raw deals from the Congress Party, both in its state bastion of Utter Pradesh and at the national level.

For the moment, the tenor of Indian politics will be decided by the ability of Congress ‘managers’ to tackle the Samajwadi Party, that has suddenly realised its importance as ‘a powerful bloc’ in parliament in spite of their relative numerical "strength" of 39 members in a 545-seat legislature.     

Besides the nuclear deal, three Ms (Mandal, Market and Mayawati) are likely to be critical in the forthcoming election. First, the Mandal reservation scheme for fifty-two percent of population belonging to the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) continues to remain significant, as it has been in all national elections since 1989. By implementing the recommendation of the Mandal Commission on the reservation of jobs for the OBCs in 1990, the National Front government, led by VP Singh sought to counter the vote-catching Hindutva wave. This has gained momentum with the decision of the UPA government to adopt the Ninety-Third Amendment Act, 2005 which provides for reservation in admission to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes in certain central institutions, established, maintained or aided by the Central Government. Besides extending government patronage to the genuine backward sections of society, the 2005 Amendment was also a vote-catching UPA gambit, as OBCs constitute almost fifty-two percent of India’s population.

The second issue, the Market, is likely swing the balance away from the Congress led UPA government in two ways: first, India’s endorsement of ‘neo-liberal’ economic policies have hardly contributed to the well-being of those at the periphery. It has certainly improved the condition of the middle class that constitute about one-third of India’s present demography. With its integration to the global economy, India lost the protection that the government extended during the state-directed development era.

The increase of price of crude oil in the international market has had a spiraling effect on household goods. As a result, the price of daily consumption items such as flour, rice, lentils and edible oils have gone up by almost thirty-seven percent in the last six months. Items of daily use like soap, shampoo, biscuits, detergents and other fast-moving consumer goods have become costlier by 10 to 30 percent since March this year. The government's failure to combat price rises especially that of petrol and petrol-products provoked serious consternation among its coalition partners, including the Left parties that observed a day-long strike in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala immediately after the price-hike of crude oil was announced by the UPA government last month.

Despite its best efforts, the uncontrollable price rise has been an Achilles heel for the UPA coalition. It has sought to draw attention to ‘the farm loan waiver’ and has extended the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to the country as a whole, in an attempt to lure back supporters. However, both these objectives seem to have been appropriated by the vested interests in rural areas.

The third important variable is the rise of the charismatic Mayawati, who by applying an effective social engineering platform, has succeeded in garnering support from contradictory castes groups. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that Mayawati leads no longer remains a party of the Dalits, but one that represents Brahmins, other upper castes and peripheral caste groups as well. Mayawati’s victory has been largely due to a peculiar caste chemistry that fermented the coalition between Brahmins and Dalits. She has succeeded in building a social coalition that inverts the pyramid of caste/class hierarchy by forming a rainbow alliance of social groups, now dominated by the greatest underclass of all, namely Dalits.

The growing importance of the BSP cannot be explained by one’s conventional understanding of caste as a determining factor in Indian politics. For the party, caste is just a metaphor to build innovative alliances, which demonstrate that concern for other communities also matter as much as those of Dalits. This is a significant development which is likely to adversely affect the support base of both the BJP and Congress. With an equally strong anti-incumbency wave, the Mayawati factor has the potential to damage the Congress more than the BJP, given the latter’s obvious advantage of being in the opposition.

As far as the national elections are concerned, the Congress-led UPA remains a weak contestant for its failure to grapple with issues affecting the preponderant sections of the Indian population. Of all the gripes, inflation will make a serious dent in its support-base for obvious reasons. Despite the euphoria surrounding the BJP’s victory in the Karnataka assembly elections in 2008, the BJP along with its partners in the NDA do not seem have a clear edge over UPA, barring anti-incumbency sentiments that adversely affect any government of the day.

For these reasons, both pan-Indian parties, the BJP and Congress, will not underestimate the role of regional parties - a factor that is likely to determine the constitution of the next government. Whether it will be UPA, NDA or any other coalition government, depends on the success of these conglomerations to muster enough support of the regional parties to cobble together a majority in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.