The Hindu Business Line : No anti-incumbency factor here

BRAVING the anti-incumbency factor that has proved to be almost unbeatable in most Indian elections, the Congress-NCP combine returns to power in Maharashtra, and that too after a mediocre five-year performance.

Even though it contested a lesser number of seats, the NCP has edged ahead of the Congress, proving that the Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar deserves as much credit for the combine's victory as the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

For the BJP and the Shiv Sena, the Congress-NCP victory comes as yet another set of bad news in an already bad year, which saw the exit of the BJP-led Government at the Centre. Several factors have contributed to the saffron brigade's disappointing performance, not the least being the trouble brewing within the Shiv Sena, with the deteriorating health of Sena chief Bal Thackeray resulting in the emergence of two power centres ... son Udhhav Thackeray versus nephew Raj Thackeray.

Also, the Sena's hard stand on Maharashtra for Marathas has obviously backfired in a State whose capital Mumbai is fast assuming an international character, having already been a melting pot of people from all Indian States.

Sonia Gandhi also deserves credit for replacing in January 2003 Vilasrao Deshmukh with Sushilkumar Shinde as Chief Minister. And in December 2003, with Chhagan Bhujbal's exit as Deputy Chief Minister following his involvement in the Telgi scam, a positive signal was sent to the people of Maharashtra. Even though the State Government did not provide scintillating governance after this, there was some comfort that non-performers or people whose integrity was under a cloud were not acceptable.

Against Shinde's relatively clean image and dignified demeanour were pitted the squabble in the Sena camp and the despondency in the BJP camp after the Lok Sabha defeat. When the fiery sanyasin Uma Bharti's tiranga yatra failed to create even a ripple in the State, as elsewhere in the country, it became evident that the people were not in the mood to be swayed or divided along communal lines.

Coming to the minority and Dalit votes, parties like the Samajwadi party and Bahujan Samaj Party, which the BJP-Sena combine was banking upon to trip the Congress-NCP's prospects, cut a sorry figure. The BJP General Secretary Pramod Mahajan, who had publicly articulated his high hopes on BSP's Mayawati spoiling the Congress' prospects, must be ruing the day he hailed the BSP leader's rallies "attracting much larger crowds than Sonia Gandhi's rallies".

Not only did the BSP fail to win a single seat; Mulayam Singh Yadav's SP was also obviously rejected by the Muslims of Maharashtra who seem to have supported the Congress-NCP. It is another matter that had these parties come together in a grand secular, anti-BJP-Sena alliance, the BJP-Sena would have had to face a worse defeat. But when this could not happen in the Lok Sabha elections, chances of its happening for the Maharashtra elections were even less.

For the BJP, this should be a wake-up call. The party that was on the ninth cloud in its "India shining" campaign hardly a few months ago, needs to do some serious introspection.

The flop of the tiranga yatra should open its eyes to the limited appeal of divisive slogans, as of personal attacks against Sonia Gandhi.

In fact such strategies have only backfired and its time for its spin doctors to think of new ideas or slogans.