Saturday, May 16, 2009

Form Many to one


When I switched on the TV it was almost 6-30… About 11 am in India. The first words I hear was, “This is a setback for BJP & NDA”… I knew the significance of those words among the speculation of a hung parliament… For the rest of the day, the same message was replayed and retold by several personalities and several different ways… Yes, verdict on the general election 2009 was out. People had (almost) decisively accepted Congress and UPA as the choice for running the country for next five years.

When I look at the result, more than the loss of BJP & CPM, what strikes me is the annihilation or diminishing importance of the fringe players. SP, BSP, RLD, INLD, RJD, LP, TDP, NCP all had suffered embarrassment to the core. Ram Vilas Paswan, who once had a record for the winning margin, was grasping for words while commenting on his loss. Lalu Prasad was never seen during the day to comment on his party’s shameful performance. He is the lone MP and that too after loosing from one constituency.

Now that is a story to follow. Are the days of fragmentation getting over? Are the nuisance makers on their way out? Would this lead to a consolidation among politicians along well defined ideological line? Too early to speculate on that. However, emergence of Congress as a power in UP & Bengal (I consider TMC as a congress only- as all the leaders are old congressmen) & partial polarization of votes across two major axis is a good sign now doubt.

One more observation. Arun Jetly and Prakash Karat, while accepting defeat, were graceful in their speeches. Mayawati & Jayalalitha were not. These ladies had the blame every one but themselves. There were no congratulatory words towards the winning combination, no mention of self introspection. A sigh of relief … these nuisance would be out of business… at least for a while… “Jai Ho” to a stable central government.

PS- News channels in UK (BBC & Sky) treated election in India as low priority news. It came much later news on a local politician being caught for a misappropriation of a few thousand pounds got more importance. BBC’s 96 second coverage made sure that a fat ugly looking congress supporter, making funny moves gets to British households… So predictable from BBC…

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