Towards a one-party system

The landslide victory of the National Democratic Alliance comprising in the main the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal United in Bihar suggests India is closer to becoming a oneparty system than it was until last year A oneparty system presumes the Oppositionrsquos defeat is almost inevitable and that itrsquos impossible to dislodge through elections the ruling party or the alliance it headsThis is the conclusion to be drawn from the NDA and BJPrsquos tsunamilike victory in Bihar where it bagged 202 out of 243 seats building upon their already impressive triumphs in Maharashtra Haryana and Delhi after suffering a setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections These victories will further demoralise the Opposition which will find the going tough in states due to elect new Assemblies before 2029Indiarsquos movement towards a oneparty system has two principal drivers One of these is the BJP deploying its extraordinary powers derived from the party ruling the Centre to cripple the Opposition This it has done through raids on Opposition leaders filing corruption cases and jailing some of them This instrument of fear along with the formidable resources it commands is wielded to split rival parties debilitating the Opposition thatrsquos dogged anyway by the perception thatrsquos created of it being incorrigibly corruptThe second driver of the emerging oneparty system is the Election Commission of Indiarsquos failure to inspire confidence in its neutrality not least because the BJP has a preponderant say in the appointment of its commissioners The Opposition has habitually taken to blaming its decimation as in Bihar on the alleged votetheft undertaken through wrongful additions to and deletions from the voter listThese flaws the ECI ostensibly sought to rectify by ordering a Special Intensive Revision SIR of Biharrsquos electoral rolls There were massive deletions and additions to the voter list that was summarily revised earlier this year leading to its contraction by around 40 lakh voters It requires Opposition activists to go from door to door to check the extent to which the revision is genuine a gargantuan task nearly impossible to accomplish with accuracyThe ambiguity over the ldquopurificationrdquo of Biharrsquos electoral rolls has prompted the Opposition to claim the state was stolen as Maharashtra was last year Yet unlike in Maharashtra the NDArsquos voteshare of 472 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar came down marginally to 465 per cent in last weekrsquos Assembly elections By contrast the voteshare of the Mahagathbandhan comprising in the main the Rashtriya Janata Dal the Congress and the Left dipped from 392 per cent in 2024 to 376 per cent last week These figures suggest both the alliances have stable support bases which werenrsquot reset because of the SIR processYet the SIR damaged the Opposition because it was suddenly sprung on it Thrown off kilter the Opposition spent crucial months before the Bihar Assembly elections appealing to the Supreme Court against the SIR and rallying the people against the alleged votetheft instead of preparing for the battle of the ballotIn contrast to the Opposition the NDA utilised those months to roll out welfare measures None of these was as effective as the transfer of R10000 to women 10 days before the elections were announced Even after the Model Code of Conduct came into play the Nitish Kumar government continued the payouts sparking the Oppositionrsquos charge that voters were being bribed for their votesThe ECIrsquos refusal to stop the transfer of money to women in Bihar is a reversal of its own policy For instance in March 2004 after the Assembly elections were announced in Tamil Nadu the disbursal of money under a cash support scheme for power consumption by farmers introduced by late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was stopped Likewise in March 2011 the ECI stopped the distribution of free colour TV sets a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government scheme as soon as the poll schedule was declaredThe payment of Rs 10000 to women is widely believed to have generated such excitement as to have Biharis forget their own misgivings about Kumar Bihar isnrsquot an isolated case Cash doles were also credited with turning around the BJPrsquos fortunes in Maharashtra Haryana and DelhiItrsquod seem a oneparty system is being built with the instruments of fear the Statersquos financial resources and the ECIrsquos partisanshipIt will increasingly become the case that the Opposition would lose heart even before entering the electoral arena in the process becoming amnesic about the grammar of politics This was evident in Bihar where the votetheft issue was rarely kindled after the Oppositionrsquos yatra against it terminated The Mahagathbandhan partners squabbled over seats for days even delaying their campaign It was as if they believed the alliance couldnrsquot win as the system was rigged against themFrom this perspective their participation in the Assembly election has paradoxically had them legitimise the alleged rigging even implicitly consent to it If Bihar has indeed been stolen there would be widespread disquiet which the Opposition requires to harness for ensuring India doesnrsquot become a oneparty system mdash and with it an unremitting Hindu rashtra Or else votetheft will seem a lame excuse for explainingelectoral debaclesThe writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon Challenging CasteSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper