Even as parties’ campaigns are on in full swing and candidates have been announced in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana, one development that seems to be common to these elections and those held recently is the last-minute defection of leaders from one party to another. Elections in India have become expensive and most parties, except those from the Left, tend to field candidates not just based on their dint of work or popularity but, increasingly, on their abilities to mobilise resources for campaigns. So, electoral politics has thrown up a set of politicians who are in it to build a career more out of patronage and less out of ideological conviction.
Arunachal Pradesh is one classic example. Here the leaders are known to change party and ideology overnight. The politics of patronage can be frowned upon as being less representative of interests and demands in a constituency and more of a transaction between the candidate and the voter – the voter gets goods and services from the winning candidate for voting in favour while the legislator uses the post to create an elaborate spoils system, usually to benefit from it as well. This system of patronage can also be seen as an outcome of the larger democratisation of the polity itself, as it throws up representatives catering to specific demands of voters, making the process meaningful for them, bypassing the party structure.