A much larger aspect of elections in the five states is the probable impact on national political mood and equations. The ruling party at the Centre in particular finds itself in a blind. Outcome in a big assembly election tells on the robustness of its national acceptability. Last year Aam Aadmi Party’s victory in Delhi Assembly election and then the impressive triumph notched up by the Janata Dal(U)-RJD-Congress combine dramatically slowed down Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership march. And, if Prime Minister chooses to pitch in on behalf of his party in the state-level contest, he is criticized for partisanship.

Congress will be looking to regain some of the lost ground after its 2014 Lok Sabha debacle. Thus it will just seek to retain Assam and Kerala, but also make sufficient gains in Bengal and Tamil Nadu. BJP, on the other hand, needs a solid performance to dispel the perception that Modi wave is waning, especially after its humiliation defeat in Delhi and Bihar.

In this regard, the state that’s expected to see the fiercest fight between Congress and BJP is Assam. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is serving his third term in office and faces sufficient anti-incumbency. BJP’s spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha election in the state was a jolt to Gogoi. Added to this, BJP’s tie up with regional parties—AGP and BPF—may pose a challenge to the Congress. The Congress, on its part, may be forced to reach out to Badruddin Ajmal’s AIDUF at some point.

In Bengal, the Congress-CPI(M) tie up could cause worry to Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress. However, it is unlikely to unseat her. While disaffection has begun to set in against Trinamool in urban area, Mamata’s hold over rural and poor constituencies will help her sail through. Added to this, she will surely highlight the Congress-CPI-M alliance as opportunistic given that two parties are in direct contest in Kerala.

In Kerala, Congress is banking on new development projects--- airport, deep water port and metro rail—to break the alternating cycle of government formation between UFP and LDF coalitions. However, the problem for the Congress is that two-third of its ministers have been facing vigilance probe and this may pose a big hurdle for the party.

In Tamil Nadu, it is straight contest between AIADMK and DMK. Here the trend of alternating governments between the two regional rivals means Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi. But her handling of last year’s post-Chennai flood relief may turn her huge advantage. Both BJP and Congress are minor players in the state though the Congress has tied up with DMK. The BJP, which during different periods, had shared power at centre with both DMK and AIADMK, now has virtually no role in coming election the state. Given that all four states going to polls are non-Hindi speaking states, and BJP’s reliance on RSS puts it at disadvantage. This provides Congress with a crucial opening to gain politically.

The Election Commission has already announced the schedule for Assembly polls in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Using the by now familiar staggering stratagem, the Commission has decreed that West Bengal would vote in six phases and Assam in two while other three states would do so on the same day April 29. The idea of staggering the election process over various phases in premised on the assumption that adequate security forces would be available for each phase and that in itself would be sufficient to ensure free and fair election. Admittedly, both Assam and West Bengal have a history of poll-related violence and Election Commission predictably erred on the side of more than abundant caution.

But an election exercise that is spread over a month becomes subjected to distortion of other kinds for which the ECI has not yet devised effective counter-measures. The role of surveys, for example, which are used unfairly to influence the voter. Nor has any code been devised yet that would effectively prevent the electronic news channels from playing partisan game. The Commission has, however, over the successive elections, been getting good at restricting the movement of money across the election bound states.

Over 17 crore voters in 824 constituencies will exercise their franchise in the elections. New voters can enroll themselves 10 days ahead of the date of filing nominations. The Election Commission has removed over seven lakh entries from the electoral rolls because of duplication and death of voters.

The electronic voting machines, for the first time, will carry NOTA (none of the above) symbol created by the National School of Design. Photographs for the candidates will also be featured alongside the voting buttons. (IPA Service)