The prospects of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have improved as a result, though not in proportion to the widespread disenchantment with the Congress. In any case, neither party is capable of winning a majority of seats at the next parliamentary election, meaning the next government will be inevitably a coalition government. But the generational shift underway in family-governed regional parties across India will make coalition politics more unpredictable. The country is faced with five possible post-2014 election scenarios.

A Congress victory in the next election, its third successive victory, would present the young, inexperienced leaders of regional parties with three options that lead to three different outcomes. First, they could join the already crowded Congress bandwagon as yet another regional ally or provincial/ethnic leader, resulting in the intensification of competition within the Congress and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. Second, they could join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and challenge the Congress in 2019 or even earlier. And, third, they could protect their home turf by plunging deeper into parochial politics.

The first two outcomes are essentially innocuous for the federal system’s stability, although the first outcome is associated with a level of uncertainty. Existing regional allies and provincial leaders of the Congress will try to keep out new allies and new entrants into the Congress, and if the party’s central leadership forces them to make room they will try to occupy the vacuum left behind by the newcomers. So, the first outcome could trigger a game of musical chairs.

The second outcome is associated with collective action problems because if the BJP loses a third successive election to the Congress, then its claim to lead the non-Congress alliance will weaken further. On the one hand, the BJP will find it difficult to rally allies, and, on the other, it will need many more regional allies to challenge the Congress. Larger coalitions are not only more unstable; they also present greater difficulties in balancing regional and community interests.

Leaders of regional parties can anticipate the game of musical chairs that would follow the first outcome and the coordination problems associated with the second, and will secure their immediate interests. So, the third outcome is more likely if the Congress returns to power. Young leaders of regional parties will play the ‘son-of-soil’ card and test the centre’s limits of tolerance. A small incident, like an isolated attack on Bihari migrant labourers in Assam or Maharashtra, for example, could kick-start a countrywide chain reaction. These circumstances would force the centre to interfere in states and validate the claim that the Congress does not respect federalism.

One is reminded of the early 1980s, when the Congress returned to power with a thumping majority. The lack of effective opposition drove people toward particularistic organisations. The simultaneous efflorescence of parochialism across the country resulted among other things in the birth or intensification of insurgencies and the imposition of president’s rule in ‘disturbed’ states, which in turn severely strained Indian federalism.

If, however, the BJP emerges as the largest party, then the regional leaders will not feel utterly marginalised. There are three reasons for this. First, they will have the option of allying with the Congress, which will continue to be an important player with governments in about a third of Indian states. Second, the BJP can accommodate a number of regional players without squeezing its own regional leaders, because it has very few coalition partners. Third, unlike the Congress, the BJP is a lesser evil from the perspective of regional parties, particularly in the south and east, because it does not have a presence in every state of India.

There are two possibilities if the BJP emerges as the largest party. First, it could choose a Hindu hardliner as its leader, and, second, it could choose someone who can claim the moderate legacy of the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Under the first scenario the BJP would lose bargaining power, as it would have to yield more concessions to prospective allies in order to make a Hindu hardliner acceptable as a prime minister. But from the regional parties’ perspective the first scenario is desirable for two reasons. First, the regional parties will enjoy greater bargaining power under the first scenario. Second, under the second scenario the government will be unstable due to the perennial threat of a coup by hardliners within the BJP, whereas under the first scenario the BJP’s hardliners will be busy keeping the coalition afloat. Since the BJP’s hardliners can anticipate the choices of regional parties, they will build bridges beforehand and render the second possibility superfluous.

Two final observations follow from this discussion. First, irrespective of which of the two national parties emerges as the largest party and which of the five scenarios materialises, the regional parties are going to loom larger on India’s political landscape. Second, unlike a BJP victory, a Congress victory will have an unintended side effect, namely, the efflorescence of parochial politics across the country.

Vikas Kumar is Assistant Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University, Bangalore.