Anti-incumbency is something which people tend to highlight whenever elections happen in India. It has become almost a trend to blame anti-incumbency whenever an incumbent loses an election. However, people start looking for plausible reasons when an incumbent party storms back to power. The question is, does anti-incumbency reflect the mood of the electorate or not?
I think that it would be far too easy to make this a main issue and even if so then one would need to explain why an incumbent is losing the election.
Before the mid 1960s Congress had a power monopoly at centre and in the Indian states. After that things became more complex. Indian as a very complex multi-cultural (religion, languages, ethnic groups, caste groups, rural vs urban, gender, etc) makes it difficult for an individual party to cover all cleavages in society. Parties have become rather similar and in order to e perceived different they need to become spectacular like the BJP with destroying mosques or holding holy processions throughout the country (Ram Rath Yadra). With the huge diversities governments and opposition parties often can cover only some spectra of the political landscape. This also leads to the importance of political alliances / coalitions. In the end it is often the result of clever political strategies that decides on the outcome of elections. Here we might come back to the initial question: it seems that in India it is a disadvantge to be in power. It is easier for the opposition to organize support among the very fragmented society. In many other countries the ruling party / PM / President is often believed to have a bonus / advantage, in Indian it might be a disadvantage resulting from the complexity of the country and the difficulty of a ruling party / coalition to successfully appeal to all different groups in society. Considering that running for election means to make many promises harm is only done when power is achieved and promises not delivered.... This then can cause consequences only in the following election.....
So long the work done is as per the aspirations of the subjects the incumbency may not be an issue, but the moment electorate realizes that there is misuse and abuse of power due to prolonged stay in power, people may vote for anti-incumbency. however, in developed countries, anti-incumbency becomes a reason as people believe in change and they believe change is to be brought for better.
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