INDIAN ELECTIONS 2009

After a month long election process, finally the results of elections conducted for Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian parliament was out on 16th May 2009. The result put to shame all the exit polls conducted by various print and electronic media organizations. In fact none of their predictions ever came near to the actual results. The Congress Party did well. It has got 200 plus individual seats and the alliance which it led got 260 plus seats. Though the present opposition group - the NDA headed by Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) expected more seats, it fared very poorly in the elections. There was the last minute hurriedly formed third front headed by the left parties of India led by CPI (M) which also came to a cropper. The regional parties, the JDU did very well in Bihar state and the so too Biju Janta Dal (BJD) of Orissa. Lately, we have been seeing the trend of the opposing parties alternating the ruling in both central parliament and state assemblies. But this time, all such logic was defied and Congress party had come back to power with higher seats. Good for them!

It is said that the reason for BJP not doing well was its strategy of personally attacking the incumbent Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh, as a weak leader. The strategy really flopped. In Bihar state, the humorous Lalu Yadav & opportunistic Ram Vilas Paswan combined to eject out Congress from the poll alliance, only to be routed. Both had publicly admitted that not forming alliance with Congress party in the state was a big mistake. Everyone is now lauding the risk taken by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi and the campaign chief Digvijay Singh to go alone in UP and Bihar, as a clever move which paid rich dividends. The left parties and its third front was rudder less and clue less and they lost heavily including their strong states, Kerala and West Bengal. The left went into all sorts of funny alliances, with the AIADK at Tamil Nadu, BSP in UP, the PDP in Kerala, the BJD in Orissa but none of its strategies worked and it has truly lost face. The political commentators say that Prakash Karat, the CPI (M) supremo is totally unconnected with the people and sits in ivory tower with his huge ego of a super intelligent being. They site this as the reason for all impractical alliances made by him.

While the group led by Congress will rule the country for the next five years, it is a fact that no group has a clear cut majority. Many itsy bitsy parties had come forward to support the Congress alliance, hoping for ministerial berths. We shall see some horse trading happening now (what was expected was high. thanks to the results, horse trading would be minimal). I feel it is indeed good that no group has any majority. Whatever alliance that will rule now will not hijack the country with its monolithic practices. It has to be democratic, consensus oriented approach and the alliance should adhere to a common minimum program that is set between the constituents. It is a practical (and definitely better) way for India.

So, Dr. Man Mohan Singh is going to rule India for a second term. Surely, he would be back seat driven by Madam Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Chief. Will Rahul Gandhi join his ministry? I don’t think so. He would spend more time in party matters and even if he joins the cabinet, it would be later. Everyone in the Congress expects him to be India’s Prime Minister after the next elections!

What about the State of Kerala? Here the UDF headed by Congress did exceedingly well and defeated CPI (M) in its bastions. Kerala is expected to get good representation in the central cabinet. AK Antony, Vayalar Ravi, E Ahamed, Sashi Taroor, KV Thomas are all aspirants. Let us see what happens!

The State Chief Minister V S Achtanandan is very happy indeed. His own party man, the chief of State CPI (M), Pinarayi Vijayan, whom he hates to the core, had been humbled in the election and therefore it is an indirect victory for VS. He could expect less intimidation from Vijayan and his cronies for some time. Probably that gives him a firm hand in ruling the state without much hindrance. However, his policies are not in tune with the time and therefore one is not very hopeful of any major development happening in the Kerala for the next two years. He would be mostly trying to play to the gallery, that’s all.

Even Obama, the President of US had praised the Indian democratic system and our election process. I believe the election result it is a victory for Indian democracy. As usual, the janta janardan had the last say and as expected, it has leveled out Indian polity.