No major shift in popular mood

IF Tamil Nadu threatened to be a psephologist's nightmare this time, the exit poll disaster of 1998 was not the only reason. The basic alliance arithmetic of the State was written afresh between the elections of 1998 and 1999. So much so that it is difficult to fix a benchmark from where gains and losses can be calculated. In 1998, the alliance led by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which included the Bharatiya Janata Party, swept the polls: it won 30 of the 39 seats on the basis of a lead of merely five percentage points over the rival front, which comprised, among others, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). The Congress(I) fought independently and ended up empty handed, with just 4.8 per cent of the vote.

By the time 1999 elections were held, political merry-go-round had turned full cycle. If the new alliances were to be judged by the performances of their individual components in the 1998 elections, the starting point for the AIADMK-Congress(I) combine was 33.8 per cent of the vote, while the new DMK-BJP front started with an advantage, at 39.3 per cent of the vote. The TMC-led third front could be assumed to have been left with 21.9 per cent.

The final results show a much higher vote share for both the AIADMK-Congress(I) and DMK-BJP fronts, gained at the expense of the TMC. However, the final figure of a 5.5 percentage-point gap between the vote shares of the two fronts was exactly what it was at the starting point. In other words, the final verdict seems to have had more to do with better alliance-making by the BJP than any major shift in the popular mood.

The gap between the vote shares of the two major fronts was to the tune of 8 per cent in the northern region, the largest in the State. The DMK and its allies won 19 of the 23 seats here. Six of the seats they won were wrested from the rival fronts. The AIADMK-led alliance could have ended up in a much worse situation if it were not lucky enough to save seven seats in the southern region despite trailing behind the DMK-led front in the matter of vote share by around two percentage points in each case. In the western region, the gap narrowed down to less than one percentage point, and the two fronts shared the honours.

In all only 17 out of the 39 seats changed hands in what appears to be a complete turnabout. The AIADMK was of course the biggest net loser: it conceded 10 of its 18 seats to the DMK-led front and could win back only two. The DMK retained all the five seats it had and added seven seats and three percentage points in terms of votes. The TMC lost all its three seats, two to the Congress(I) and one to the BJP. At 9.3 per cent of the popular vote share, the TMC-led front is nowhere in terms of seats, but retains enough clout to act as a spoiler.

AS seats changed hands, so did votes. The 1999 elections in Tamil Nadu represented an unusual phenomenon of voters changing their voting preferences as the alliances got forged afresh. The Congress(I) carried most of its meagre vote share to its new alliance. So did the DMK, except that its share was not meagre and was not entirely its own. The TMC is virtually born anew, shedding most of the votes it won in 1998. The 1998 vote of the AIADMK front appears to have got split between the alliances led by the DMK and the AIADMK this time. But this is more apparent than real, for the voters only continued to vote for the same party which had changed sides. Significantly, the direct shift of votes between the two traditional rivals, the DMK and the AIADMK, was negligible. Much of the flow took place via the allies, such as the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), which changed sides between the two elections. The viability and success of this vote transfer make coalition politics in Tamil Nadu function in a much less arbitrary fashion than elsewhere. It is not surprising that at 34 per cent, Tamil Nadu has a much higher acceptance for coalitions than the national average of 21.

AS the internal composition of the three main fronts changed substantially between the previous two elections, their respective social bases also went through major transitions. Between 1998 and 1999 members of the upper castes and of the Thevar community united behind the DMK-BJP front while the Vanniyars too shifted their loyalty to this front. The formation of the AIADMK-Congress(I) alliance facilitated a consolidation of the Muslim vote. However, it could not lead to a consolidation of the Scheduled Caste vote, as the TMC's alliance with Puthiya Thamizhagam (P.T.) took away the support of the majority of Arundhatiyars and Chakkiliyars. The Congress(I), which fought on its own in 1998, had fairly uniform support in terms of different communities, barring Christians. It did not, therefore, carry with it any exclusive vote bank when it joined the AIADMK-led front.

INTERESTINGLY, the major parties carry their class profile to the alliance they join. Last year the AIADMK-BJP front had a stronger base among the lower classes and the DMK-TMC combine was supported more by the upper classes. This time the AIADMK-Congress(I) alliance inherited the lower-class profile while the DMK-BJP combine showed an upper class profile. The only change is the entry of the TMC combine, which took away some of the poorest from the AIADMK. Clearly, the national parties in Tamil Nadu take over the basic cleavages of Dravidian politics depending on which ally they team up with. Voting by the levels of education shows the same pattern as in class, for education is largely a function of class. Again, the highly educated mostly support the DMK-BJP, while the AIADMK front and the TMC-P.T. both compete with each other for the votes of the least educated.

There is a clear gender divide in terms of support for the two main fronts. The DMK-BJP front is more popular with men than it is with women, and the reverse is true for the AIADMK-Congress(I) front. But the six-point gap is not as big as one would expect from a front that was jointly led by two women, Jayalalitha and Sonia Gandhi.

THE preferred choice for Prime Minister reveals that the voters of either of the main fronts are firmly behind their national allies' prime ministerial candidate. More than four-fifths of the AIADMK front's voters named Sonia Gandhi while nearly 90 per cent of the DMK alliance mentioned Vajpayee - surprisingly high figures given the secondary role of the Congress(I) and the BJP in their respective alliances in Tamil Nadu. The large percentage of TMC voters who nominated Sonia Gandhi as their choice for the top spot indicates that the party continues to occupy some of the Congress(I) space.

The distinctiveness of Tamil politics has not been eroded by the presence of national political parties in the State. Nationally, 50 per cent of the voters believe that they should be loyal to their own region first, and then to India. However, in Tamil Nadu 78 per cent put their own region first. One must therefore read the gains that the BJP made in the State with caution.