Parties check anti-incumbency
Although the threat of anti-incumbency factor always makes the ruling party insecure in electoral battles, at least half-a-dozen states like Delhi, Orissa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar and Haryana have overcome this by changing the election agenda. In fact, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have also stabilised this trend in the last two Assembly elections.
Barring Maharashtra and Bihar, rest of the states got a clear mandate for one party. The Congress-NCP combine in Maharashtra has been winning the state Assembly polls since 1999, not because of its performance but due to lack of an alternative. But in Delhi, chief minister Sheila Dikshit has been winning elections since 1998 on the basis of her performance.
Gujarat is a different case altogether because of the sharp polarisation on Hindu-Muslim lines. The BJP has been winning the state polls even before the emergence of Mr Narendra Modi as chief minister. The Congress had tried to play the Patel card in the last election and roped in the BJP rebels, dissidents to defeat the saffron party but that did not help.
In the 2002 Assembly polls held against the backdrop of communal riots in the state, the Congress had fielded a large number of OBC candidates.
If Orissa is classic case of how a regional party (BJD) running the state without any gimmick under the leadership of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, chief minister Nitish Kumar has virtually changed the agenda of Bihar. All the CMs in these states have, by and large, risen above party politics and populist programmes by identifying themselves with the state. Maharashtra has not produced a tall leader after Y.B. Chavan, Vasantdada Patil and the Union minister Sharad Pawar.
But the incumbency factor has become relevant in UP where chief minister Mayawati is finding it difficult to get support from sections other than the backward castes despite ruling the state thrice. The SP, the Congress and the BJP are depending on anti-incumbency factor working against Mayawati.
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