T
he recently concluded Bihar Assembly election highlights an interesting point; that Nitish Kumar, who has taken oath as Chief Minister for the 10th time, has been able to retain the government even after almost two decades of ruling the State. This shows us a contrast between global and Indian State-level patterns of (anti) incumbency. In many major democracies across the world, voters displayed a strong sense of anti-incumbency.
The defeat of the U.S. democrats, the U.K. conservatives, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and South Africa’s African National Congress reflect that people in these countries were willing to use their elections as an instrument to address perceived non-performance of the government and demand an alternative in power. Senegal’s election similarly captured youth anger and a generational push against elites.
A pro-incumbency trend
Indian State assembly elections held over the last few years indicate a trend in the opposite direction. Many governments during this period got re-elected, indicating a strong pro-incumbency sentiment. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party government got re-elected in Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, despite spirited opposition campaigns. These governments were re-elected, beating anti-incumbency, because the ruling party anchored its election campaign pushing narratives of stability, ‘double engine ki sarkaar’ (the idea that the Centre and the State is ruled by the same party) for faster development, welfare delivery and strong leadership, which triumphed the narrative propagated by opposition parties. In Gujarat, the BJP extended its record to a seventh straight term, while Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha converted personal credibility and targeted schemes into multi-term mandates. West Bengal’s 2021 mandate for Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, against a highly contested BJP challenge, highlights pro-incumbency in a polarised contest. These examples may look like isolated cases of States being voted back to power, with the recent Bihar Assembly election being one of them, but Indian elections since 1952 had witnessed periods of pro and anti-incumbency.
