Pepsi or Coke - Congress or BJP

Once upon a time, I heard someone say - "There are only 2 kinds of people in this world, those who drink Coke or those who drink Pepsi". For years now Pepsi and Coke have built an intense rivalry between each other, and have managed to become the only 2 names in the world of Cola. And they have each other to thank for it. Both Coke and Pepsi, who spend gallons of money on advertising, have tried their darnedest to claim that they are the best, at the same time they also, by competing only with each other, virtually imply that the other is the only viable alternative. Hence you have what we call in the business world an oligopoly or in this case Duopoly - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duopoly.

Why is this relevant to the Congress and BJP?

Well, because, considering that the 2 seem to have been very busy learning marketing this year, this is one trick that they did not learn, and now it has finally come to haunt them. In fact take a look at the majority of the developed nations, you will find that most of their political systems are Oligopolies. And it is this failure of the 2 largest political parties which has left the Indian voters spoilt for choice and our democracy, well that is just plain spoilt.

In the book "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing", Jack Trout and Al Ries, say that, in any industry, over the course of time, there are only 2 dominant players, there is no room for 3rd place.And so too in Indian Politics, there is no 3rd National Party, all the rest apart from the Big 2 managed to carve out a niche' for themselves and stay there, but the fact they have jumped to national prominence and can today aspire to host the next Prime Minister of India, is largely down to the short sightedness and ineptitude of the big 2. The once little known parties have piggy-backed on the larger parties and have grown in prominence and fame, using the resources and the reach of their much larger brethren. At a time when the big boys had a chance to assert their size and ignore the midgets, they chose the easier course, and entered into several unholy alliances all for the purpose of gaining immediate power, not imagining what the alliance could do to their own strength in this country. Back when the BJP gained power by forming the NDA, the Congress had the option to continue on its own, but they chose to take the coalition route, failing to see that the BJP was crumbling under the weight of its own size. 

So what could the National Parties do to form an Oligopoly:

1. Do not form a coalition - The Big 2 are forming a coalition only because they can't get enough seats across the country. If they both don't form a coalition then they might not sit in the government, but then neither will regional parties. And initially there might be a little unrest and chaos, but ultimately through sheer neglect the regional parties will realise that they cannot compete at a national level, and that contesting Lok Sabha elections is an unnecessary strain on their resources (the Big parties could force their hand in this by conducting state elections vehemently, forcing the regional parties to concentrate on the Assembly elections).

2. Fight within Yourselves Only - If the Big 2 fight only amongst themselves, then they have the power to hog all the media attention, and starved of media attention a political party is nothing.

3. Recognize the other as the Only Viable option - The Big 2 have to state unequivocally that the other one is the only option for forming a government. In fact the 2 parties started doing that this year stating that a third front was not possible but again have begun to loosen their stance on that fcount.

These were just a few ideas of how India might get to becoming a 2 party Nation, for purposes of a National election. Of course any of this is very difficult to actually bring about and requires immense amount of political courage, a quantity, which currently is a rare commodity.

The other side of this issue is that a 2 party system good enough. People often say that 2 party systems lead to little or no choice, especially when it is ultimately the party which decides who the leader of the Nation is going to be. However I do believe that there is a need for reducing the sheer number of parties in a coalition, and more importantly bring ideology back into politics. We need parties which are different from each other in terms of belief and approach and not just some motley assortment cobbled together at the Nth hour.

May 16th is probably going to be the biggest day in the history of Indian Democracy (ya I know they say it every time), but this time we are at a crossroad. The coalition system has obviously become very unsustainable and might be reaching the end of its life cycle. If any of the Big 2 can form this government with minimum coalition, then it well might be the beginning of an Indian political oligopoly.

Update: Its the day afte the election and the birth of the Oligopoly has taken place. Congress got 200 seats and will form a government with around 3-4 firm allies, no more. And the fact that they have upped their individual seat count by over 50, means that the number of allies could go down further in the future. In fact but another 3 elections (2025 or so), provided they do reasonably well and the likes of RJD, SP and BSP and the Left continue their downward trend, we could easily see the Congress contesting the election more or less on their own, which apparently is Rahul Gandhi's vision. In the long term this could be the best thing to happen for India, in the short run, honestly speaking, the DMK and Trinamool Congress are not 2 parties I want to be at the centre in the current economic scenario right now. But democracy has never been about perfection anyway, so we live with what we have.