A Mixed Bag

 The results of the elections to the five state assemblies have major implications for the political authority and cohesion of the government at the centre. It has weakened the ruling National Democratic Alliance and its leading party, the BJP, and strengthened the principal Opposition, the Congress. One consequence of this development is to mar the short term prospects of coherent economic reform at the level of the central government, although the election results also send out some positive signals that improve the prospects of reform in the longer term. These elections have further consolidated the trend, visible since the elections of 1999, for identity politics to increasingly give ground to renewed focus on governance. However, from the ambit of governance, the people would seem to have excluded corruption.

The net effect of the elections in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, West Bengal and Assam has been to weaken the ruling National Democratic Alliance. The Congress has added Kerala and Assam to the list of states that it rules with a stable majority and is close enough to a majority on its own in Pondicherry to sustain a government there as well. In Tamil Nadu, it has the satisfaction that the NDA, led by the DMK in the state, has been routed, although the credit for this goes to AIADMK and its leader, Jayalalitha. The CPI(M) led Left Front has retained power for a record sixth term in West Bengal, trouncing the Trinamul Congress Congress combine.