The development community has largely been cheered by the election results of May. Having long opposed the religious nationalism of the BJP as well as the government's embrace of privatisation, many were glad to see regime change in New Delhi. The bargain sale of state assets, the dilution of environmental regulations, suspension of minimum wage laws to benefit contractors (TDP), and the enaction of laws that muzzle working class opposition cannot be counted as reforms, by any stretch of the imagination.

With their ground realities having worsened or not changed for the better, understandably, voters rearranged the constituents in Parliament. Indeed, the champions of the sort of changes we have become used to calling 'reforms' have been collectively given the boot in the behind, regardless of the political symbols next to their names. To argue for the continuation of these policies by insisting that they are reformist would be patently false. The Confederation of Indian Industry, for example, is confident that 'reforms' will continue under the new regime. But in fact, for the most part, real reforms have yet to begin.

That said, the development community and liberal minded citizens cannot assume that the new alliance at the Centre is automatically more allied to - or up to the task of managing - a pro-development agenda. First, it has become increasingly harder to conclude that Left-leaning parties have a more pro-poor approach on the ground than the NDA. Political parties of differing stripes now agree on formerly controversial aspects of economic development regardless of ideology. In part, this may be because the various spheres of Indian governance are together still reliant on external funding and dictates. But there is agreement nevertheless.

Second, and more significantly, Indian governance and its anachronistic system plods on with many vicious cycles, bottlenecking development machinery in ways that eclipse puritan Right and Left solutions altogether. Massive systemic reforms for the delivery of the most elementary health and educational entitlements, streamlining of indirect and direct taxation to generate greater resources due to government, cleaning up electoral politics, real decentralisation to local governments - are all worthy steps that could move the country faster towards its developmental goals. Our history shows that nationwide, exceptions notwithstanding, these reforms remain the hardest hurdles for any government, Right or Left. And in a nation whose constitution already mandates these deliverables, acheiving progress towards these goals involves more focus on processes and less on ideological prowess.

The cheer at the exit of the NDA is partly also because of the ideological roots of the NGO-led developmental movement itself, and less because the new administration has the deeper potential to actually deliver on long-standing expectations. This is similar to what is seen as the Right-leaning tendencies of reforms advocates who have a greater belief in markets. But disdain of the Right cannot automatically translate into love of the Left, or vice-versa. Political parties will have to earn the support and loyalty of voters on their own merits, not on the backs of discredited others alone.

At the current level of highly inequitable development in the country, development efforts must maintain and strengthen the one partisanship that the public good needs - mobilizing people, Left and Right alike, both for systemic reforms and for making the myriad pro-poor government schemes actually work. The new administration's claims of being more friendly to development objectives has created additional space in which expectations can be put forward, but actual celebrations must be deferred until real signs of delivery begin to emerge.