Bihar delivered an astounding verdict in favour of the National Democratic Alliance last week. But the chatter about the assembly poll result is yet to cease. Political pundits have cited several factors that have led to the NDA’s landslide win: Nitish Kumar’s mass acceptability, the NDA’s ability to forge a formidable caste solidarity, a dole targeted at women voters are among them. However, one school of thought has offered a novel explanation that merits scrutiny. It says that the NDA pocketed not just Bihar but also Maharashtra and Haryana earlier by winning the mind — not the heart — of the ‘median voter’. This constituency, according to some political scientists, exhibits specific traits. It is risk-averse, appreciative of stability, keen to benefit from welfare and — this was important in Bihar’s case — indifferent to ideological or emotional appeals. The fact that the polls in Bihar, Maharashtra and Haryana were largely devoid of a wave — massive public endorsement of or against an issue — analysts argue, proves that this block of silent but critical voters swung electoral fortunes. The NDA’s poll pledges based on sops — no longer rewdis? — and its ceaseless attempts to engineer fear regarding the principal opponent’s legacy of jungle raj yielded a better response from the median voter. The Mahagathbandhan, which hoped to benefit from accrued discontent on account of anti-incumbency, failed to persuade this seemingly amorphous but crucial electoral block.
Of course, the median voter theory is only one among the many analytical templates available for public consumption. The efficacy of the claim needs to be vetted by reliable data sets and research. But if one were to accept the centrality of the median voter to elections even for the sake of argument, it would still lead to some interesting — not-so-assuring — questions. For instance, does the rising influence of the median voter indicate the death of ideological prerogatives at the hands of a welfare model that perceives the elector as a beneficiary rather than a rightful claimant of equitable economic prosperity? What about the scope of morality? Is the indifference of the median voter to the NDA’s unethical disbursal of a sum of Rs 10,000 to Bihar’s women well after the Model Code of Conduct was in place desirable? Will the prospect of electoral change diminish given the median voters’ preference for stability? These queries must be reflected upon for the sake of the future of Indian democracy.