MAY 17, 2009

By TIOL Edit Team

THE LOH PURUSH Lal Kishan Advani and his BJP spared no efforts to project Dr Manmohan Singh as a weak Prime Minister. Blessed are the weak, for they shall inherit the Earth. And the BJP’s strong man and PM-in-waiting must be licking his wounds and cursing the stupidity of the Indian electorate in voting back to power the weak sardar.

If you remember the BJP had not allowed Dr Singh to reply to the confidence vote. His written speech had to be taken as read. After the Budget, the BJP disrupted Parliament so many times that Budget could not be discussed. Advani and team went to meet the PM and submitted their written comments on the budget. Dr. Singh is said to have rudely pushed away those papers and told them that Parliamentarians had to discuss the Budget inside Parliament, not in the PM’s House. BJP made a big issue of the offensive Prime Minister. A courteous gentleman like Dr Singh would have certainly not done that, but had he done that, he was perfectly right.

This is not an issue in the elections which ended the dreams of India’s senior most politician of becoming the Prime Minister, but is an indication that BJP and the NDA were doing all the wrong things and the great Indian Electorate has come of age and simple tricks will not get you votes.

Apart from his diehard fans (which apparently are not many), nobody is prepared to accept Advani as Prime Minister. As if projecting Advani was not enough damage they projected Mody as his successor – and this was sure to kill. Advani is not Vajpayee – Advani is good for party work, but certainly not for Prime Minister of India.

The people of India have sent a clear message – they don’t tolerate arrogance and incompetence. Now it is clear that the cash and caste factors are not very relevant in Indian Politics. Voters may take cash but you are not sure they will vote for cash. Mega star Chiranjeevi was defeated in his home constituency in which his caste is predominant. That is why we suggested in one of our editorials that politicians should be allowed to spend money freely as that would release some of the ill gotten money they have and in any case people don’t vote for money.

Mayawati was smiling smugly when hangers-on (read irrelevant politicians) suggested that she should be the PM. People in UP now told her not to entertain such dreams.

Lalu and Pashwan thought that Bihar was their private estate and had the audacity to ditch Congress while still remaining in the Cabinet. Biharis taught them a lesson, not the kind of lesson that Lalu taught in IIM. Lalu while turning round the Railways lost touch with his people and they quickly found a new messiah. Nitish Kumar with his good work has proved that people can be influenced by good work. He has swept Bihar, but he is in bad company. If there was a hung Lok Sabha, perhaps he would have been a strong contender for the PM’s post. He seems to be India’s future Obama.

The LEFT who thought that they were always right had just been left out by the electorate. Mayawati will have more seats in Lok Sabha than the left combine! As rightly commented by Somnath Da, they have made themselves irrelevant in Indian Politics. The anger against the Left was so strong that in spite of Mamta Banerjee causing irreparable damage to industrialisation by forcing the TATAs to abandon the NANO project, people voted for her. And among the three most powerful women politicians of India, only Mamta was successful. Both Mayawati and the southern siren Jaya had been humiliated though the other glamorous lady, Jayaprada was successful in a predominantly Muslim constituency, in spite of the fact that a local Muslim leader from her own party was against her and morphed nude posters of her were pasted right across the constituency.

People of Andhra Pradesh have proved that cine glamour and caste factors are not going to tilt votes. Chiranjeevi who went round feeling as an already Chief Minister had to bite dust. Congress Chief Minister Rajasekhar Reddy virtually runs a one-man regional party and has come back. He is accused of being the most corrupt CM in India – his acquisition of wealth from politics is said to be more than one Lakh Crores. Corruption and bad roads are apparently not election issues.

The former CEO of AP Inc., Chandra Babu Naidu tried all the tricks of the trade like offering colour TVs and direct payment of monthly doles to poor people. But ultimately people thought Reddy could deliver.

Naveen Patnaik has proved to the BJP that they got a few seats because of him and not the other way round. This is another problem with the BJP. With the support of regional parties like BJD, TDP, AIADMK, they got a few seats and they thought they were all BJP seats!

Extremely capable but haughty ministers like Chidambaram, Mani Shankar Iyer and Renuka Choudhary had to learn the bitter lesson that power starts from your constituency not Delhi.

Success has many claimants but failure is an orphan but Elections 2009 have thrown up only one claimant for success – Sonia Gandhi.

India today has the best political system in the world. We have an ornamental President to look after ceremonial functions like addressing meetings, receiving foreign guests, etc,. We have a Prime Minister who is not bogged down by petty Party politics, to look into which, we have the Ruling Party President. It is not fair to call the Prime Minister weak – the Party President is indeed strong, but she runs the party which runs the country and she has to be powerful.

Now that elections are over, the congress has a big problem. As of now it is sure that Singh is King but he is expected to keep the seat warm for the real prince, Rahul Gandhi. Had the Congress lost the elections, they would have happily sat in the opposition for a couple of years and in the next elections, they would project Rahul as PM and most probably they would win and Rahul could become PM. Now in 2014, there would be a strong anti incumbency factor and perhaps it would be difficult for Rahul to become Prime Minister. So the results are not really good news at 10, Janpath.

Now that a strong Congress government will be in place in the centre, all other parties will have to redraft their strategies and policies. Mayawati, Mulayam, Jayalalitha, Lalu, Pashwan, Naidu, Nitin, Naveen – all have to keep their flock together and sustain for five years. Lalu is down but certainly not out – there is every possibility that he will bounce back.

In politics, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies – there are only permanent interests. Indian Politics is in for a major re-haul.

The Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi are going to have a tough time in forming the next Cabinet. Babus in North Block are happy that it is almost certain that PC will not be the next Finance Minister. No bureaucrat likes to work with PC as he is too efficient and too offensive – he is known for his rude behaviour with officials and they must have all prayed for his defeat. But he has won and would certainly be considered for his unfinished 'Home' assignment.

Shashi Taroor has won from Thiruvanathapuram and is perhaps the ideal choice for the post of Foreign Minister. Arjun Singh is out and the HRD slot is vacant and they have to find a slot for Rahul Gandhi if he joins the cabinet, which he most likely will.

The world’s largest elections are just over, and we will have a strong government headed by a not too weak Prime Minister with his party winning the largest number of seats in 20 years.

Hats off to the Election Commission of India and the great electorate of India.

And India’s Stock Markets which were expecting a hung Parliament is sure to shoot up on Monday!