What RS polls tell us about Indian politics
Politically, existing trends have got reinforced and the national hegemon reasserted its dominance. Institutionally, whether the Rajya Sabha can act as either a Council of Elders or Council of States remains in doubt
The outcome of the recent round of elections for 57 Rajya Sabha seats offers significant political insights into the lay of the land in India’s states and at the Centre, and highlights the institutional paradoxes at the heart of India’s bicameral parliamentary system.
Take the political story first and four features are apparent.
The first is a confirmation of what has been known since 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fights to win; it fights even when the existing arithmetic would suggest restraint may be better than valour; its aggressive politics exposes the underlying contradictions within opposing ranks and puts other parties on the defensive; and it is willing to use every political and institutional tool at its disposal to achieve this victory. This playbook helped the party get a third candidate elected in both Maharashtra and Karnataka (where it had enough legislators for two seats when the contest started), and enabled the victory of an independent candidate in Haryana. It sent out yet another message of the BJP’S political dominance and will continue to give the party not just a numerical but also a psychological edge in the Upper House.
Two, non-bjp forces struggled when it came to the seats on the margin. The Shiv Sena-congress-nationalist Congress Party alliance in Maharashtra appears stable, but there is enough room in the state for the BJP to push back. The Congress in Haryana has a problem of abundance at the top (even as its footprint on the ground diminishes), and the inability of all of its senior state level leaders to get together has cost the party yet again. In Karnataka, the gulf between the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) did not just help the BJP in this round, but will give the party an advantage as the state heads to polls next year despite the clear governance deficits of the current state administration headed by it.
Three, Rajasthan offered a lesson to the non-bjp end of the political spectrum on how to take on the national hegemon. And once again — like Ahmed Patel had shown in the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat in 2017 — it was the Congress’s old guard that delivered. A rooted and aggressive chief minister (Ashok Gehlot), who micromanaged every legislator and monitored voting on a minute to minute basis, was able to secure the election of the third Congress candidate and foil the BJP’S plans of getting an independent elected. This was also the only state where the gulf within the BJP — a party that otherwise is able to enforce discipline — once again hurt its political ambitions. But while the election has implications for the internal power struggles underway in both the Congress and the BJP in the run-up to the 2023 assembly polls, any larger conclusions from this episode about how the election will pan out will be premature.
And finally, the BJP will continue to have an edge in pushing through its legislative agenda in the Rajya Sabha, along with its visible and invisible friends (regional parties which claim to oppose the BJP but mysteriously end up backing it on every crucial vote). It will also give the party a cushion for the presidential elections in July. Remember, this was not a given when the party lost a string of state assemblies or saw a reduced presence in these assemblies in the last few years.
But beyond the immediate, it is useful to examine the institutional story.
When the drafters of the Constitution envisaged the Rajya Sabha, there were two underlying impulses. The first was the creation of a House that would be immune to the day to day popular pressures that are, by design, at the heart of the directly elected Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha — because of the indirectly elected nature of the chamber — was meant to insulate the lawmaking process from immediate party-political imperatives and act as a Council of Elders. The second was ensuring that India’s states had a voice in the national legislature. The constitutional design itself was tilted in favour of the Centre in terms of power-sharing. But the legislative check on the central executive — which drew its strength from the Lok Sabha — would come from the Council of States — as members drew their presence and strength from the balance of power in states.
On both counts, the recent elections have reinforced structural infirmities that have deepened over the years. The Rajya Sabha polls are not immune to immediate political imperatives — but, in fact, are often driven by them. The selection of candidates is not driven by an eye on who would be able to contribute most effectively as a lawmaker, but by a political party’s patronage requirements and question of winnability. And there is a clear tension between the efforts of parties to institute discipline in order to expand their presence in the Upper House, and the role of the individual agency of the legislators who often seek to use the power of their vote to send a message to their parties, extract rent from candidates in the fray, or open the doors to defect. All of this means that there is little basis to expect that the Rajya Sabha can play an effective countervailing role as a guardian, on the basis of principles.
And while the balance of power in state legislatures is key to the election, this does not mean that the voices that are heard in the Rajya Sabha are a true reflection of the priorities of the states. They are a reflection of the respective party’s political agenda in both the state and at the Centre at any given point. The stance of a Rajya Sabha member is dictated by the relationship that the member’s party has with the ruling party at the Centre. This is not good or bad in itself, but it does mean that those who expect the Upper House to be a true Council of States will continue to be disappointed.
Amid the political noise that the Rajya Sabha elections have generated, the larger institutional story does not change. India’s Upper House is struggling to be either a Council of Elders which qualitatively transforms the process of lawmaking and deliberation for the better, and it is struggling to act as a Council of States which can effectively intervene on the most significant issues that affect their states and Indian federalism in general. With 57 members either newly elected or returning to the House, the Rajya Sabha may wish to reflect on how to make the institution more effective in meeting the original constitutional vision.