As India awaits the results of the Assembly elections in five states ~ Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, and Goa ~ which went to the polls over the past month and a bit, the projections of various post-poll surveys telecast on Monday have served to confuse rather than clarify. But then that is par for the course given the different models and motivations of psephologists ranging from the credible to the fly-by-night who have inveigled themselves into the chaotic ecology of the poll process in this country.

Without wasting any time on the specifics of each prediction, there is one broad trend which does emerge from the findings. It would seem reports of the death of national parties are highly exaggerated. This is not to say that regional forces are not strong or, indeed, may not be all-powerful in their respective areas of operation, but to underline the fact that the electorate seems clear that India in the Constitutional scheme of things is a unitary State with federal characteristics and not the other way around.

Take Uttar Pradesh, the largest, most populous, and arguably most politically significant state of the Union. The Bhartiya Janata Party, one of the two major national parties in India, is projected by all post-poll surveys to be coming back to power (though the predicted margin of victory differs wildly from one survey to the other).

In Punjab, another important state which was the epicentre of the farmers’ protests against the Centre, it is either the oldest national party in the country, the Congress, or the newest, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which surveys indicate will form the government. In Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur, it is BJP versus Congress with smaller parties in the North-Eastern state in a prepoll alliance with one or the other national party. And all this, remember, is going down in state elections and not a Lok Sabha poll where one can argue regional players become less important.

If anything, the results of the current round of Assembly polls on 10 March will bust the carefully cultivated political myth propagated by rent-seekers at the provincial level that only regional parties truly represent the aspirations of a state. Admittedly, this is not a one-size-fits-all situation; but it is also true of the major Indian states.

It is perhaps only Tamil Nadu where national parties have a marginal role. In all other states where regional parties are strong ~ West Bengal (Trinamool Congress), Andhra Pradesh (YSR Congress), Kerala (CPI-M), Maharashtra (Shiv Sena/NCP) and Telangana (TRS) ~ the main Opposition is a national party. That’s surely worth thinking about for all political parties as they enter the last lap before the next General Election scheduled for 2024.