Exit polls are out and most of them predict a massive win for the National Democratic Alliance. Political analysts went bonkers giving us their opinion on why the Bharatiya Janata Party is winning, why there is no alternative to Modi, and why the Congress failed to stop the “TsuNamo 2.0”. Whatever that means.

But this piece is not going to be about that. It’s going to be about an alternative possibility: a possibility that we might get a coalition government after May 23 and why we do need one. This is about why a government led by a national party with a majority seat-share in the Lok Sabha is actually a bad idea.

Let’s talk about why there might be a possibility of the formation of a coalition government in 2019. Look at this as a Schrodingers’ Cat scenario, of sorts. We don’t know who forms the government or which party leads it till May 23. So, at this point of time, all scenarios exist at the same time. It’s all just a blur of probability.

First, let’s look at bypolls. The BJP had secured a comfortable 282 seats in 2014, 10 more than the half-way mark, thus forming the first majority government since Rajiv Gandhi’s in 1989. Five years on, their current number stands at 268, with 24 seats still vacant after their members vacated their seats or passed away during the last term. Thirty Lok Sabha bypolls have been held since 2014 and PM Modi’s party has directly contested in 27 of them. Out of these, they managed to win in only six. What’s more, they haven’t been able to win a single new seat away from Opposition parties.

In the recent Karnataka bypolls held in November where three seats were up for grabs, the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress alliance won two seats while the BJP got one. It’s easy to dismiss bypoll elections as anomalies since the national elections are a whole different ball-game, but these are signs that not all is well within the BJP camp.

Second, we need to also consider the results of the Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly polls which happened last year. These three major states were wrested away from the BJP. It’s also important to point out that although these were state elections, the BJP had fought these elections by banking on the Narendra Modi factor.

Just going by these two significant trends, there could be at least a teeny-weeny possibility that the BJP will not get a majority on May 23, 2019. They might be the single-largest party and end up forming a coalition government with other NDA partners, they might even form post-poll alliances with other non-committed parties.

At this point of time, there are multiple possibilities. So let’s just go with this one for argument’s sake, shall we?

The ‘policy paralysis’ sentiment

Before 2014, especially towards the end of the United Progressive Alliance government, the general opinion doing the rounds was about India being in a state of “policy paralysis”. Commentators pointed out how a non-functioning Parliament was leading to a non-decisive government which in turn was holding back a bunch of big ticket reforms. People pointed towards the Congress-led UPA coalition government and how we need “decisive” people in power instead. Then 2014 happened. The people of India overwhelmingly gave a majority to Narendra Modi and the BJP.

The immediate problem of indecisiveness vanished. There was now a decisive bunch of people in power led by a strong and non-compromising leader. But unfortunately, this decisive leader turned out to be a disappointment when it comes to major big ticket reforms. What he did was quite to the contrary. He aggressively took steps that turned out to be more harmful than beneficial for the Indian democratic setup.

Just take a look at how Parliament functioned in the last five years. Aadhaar was passed as a money bill and so was a controversial Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) amendment, completely denying the Upper House a chance to deliberate and decide on these laws. On top of it, a flurry of ordinances were cleared. Bills that did not get proper parliamentary approval became laws overnight. Things got so bad that the Supreme Court had to step in and stop this nonsense. This government practically reduced the institution of Parliament to a rubber stamp, where Members of Parliament don’t matter. Only the will of the government and its leader does.

(I’ve written a detailed three-part series on the overtures of the Modi government against Parliament which might give you more context: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.)

The public didn’t really seem to care about these moves, primarily because it’s difficult to explain why aggressively bulldozing bad laws through Parliament affects the very last individual. And also because of the overall pre-2014 sentiment of “MPs only scream and shout in Parliament. What’s the point of this even?”

Another worry often expressed is that coalition governments slow down the economy. Analysts have said this is simply not true. In fact, it might be quite the opposite. It can even be argued that major economic reforms have been driven by coalition-led governments.

Voters wanted aggression and we got it in the form of a national party-led majority government. But now, I think it’s time that ends.

Why coalitions are better

Let’s talk about the nature of a coalition government first, in super simple terms.

There are multiple parties with differing opinions that come together to cobble up a government. The parties share ministries among themselves, depending on their strength and what they bring to a coalition. As of 2019, the Modi cabinet had non-BJP members like Anand Geete (Shiv Sena), Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Shiromani Akali Dal) and Ram Vilas Paswan (Lok Janshakti Party). They are allies that got ministerial berths for adding numbers to the NDA coalition. But since it was a majority government, most of the cabinet was made up of BJP members. The BJP didn’t really need to depend on any other party for its strength in the Lok Sabha.

However, if a party does not have majority in the Lok Sabha, the allies which support the primary or anchor party will demand more cabinet posts and even certain special attention to their states/constituencies. If the anchor party denies it, they can pull support and thus threaten the formation of the government in the Centre. That fear and motivation of a quid-pro-quo political relationship between parties is, I would argue, a welcome thing.

It’s good to have an anchor national party which is mortally afraid of coalition partners abandoning them if they get too aggressive or push too hard. The allies keep the party’s aggression in check, whether they like it or not, and also allows for more diversity in decision-making.

Ineffective leaders are better than dangerously effective ones

Demonetisation was a hare-brained, utterly disastrous decision. There, I said it. And it was a decision taken by an extremely effective leader.

All said and done, the only reason that disastrous event even happened was because of the whims of one man who appeared on our TV screens and declared that the money in our pockets is worthless. That sort of power in the hands of any individual is scary—to put it mildly. A coalition actually ensures, to a certain extent, that leaders at the top remain more or less ineffective. They are burdened with political compulsions which weigh them down and temper their aggression. Leaders are forced to think about the multiple political implications of their decisions and proposed policies before they actually go out there to unleash it all on an extremely diverse country like India.

The hasty implementation of GST is another instance of this aggression. It was a much needed reform for India which has been in the making for more than a decade. But to turn it into an event instead of a process turned out to be harmful for many businesses across the country. It’s smoothing out now after a very rocky ride.

A coalition government also forces political leaders and their parties to engage in dialogue with each other. National parties are forced to talk to regional ones, especially if the very existence of a government depends on that dialogue. That vulnerability in national parties, thanks to different regional outfits, is something that ultimately ends up protecting our federal structure. Demands and needs of different states come into consideration when policies are implemented, leaders who speak in Parliament as representatives from regional parties are taken more seriously and, ultimately, attention is given to the political realities of different states and their people.

May 23 is coming and we honestly can’t predict what will happen. Exit polls say that the NDA might get majority and form government but the BJP by itself might not get majority. When you think about it, a BJP constrained by a coalition in such a scenario might not be such a bad idea for India after all.