[prpoint] appropos srini's nice article on elections

 

dear all,

Nice article backed with good research. but having lived in north india for over 40 years and seen politics from jana sangh days, here are a few observations to add to srini's article. 

My Observations , freel free to endorse or reject these as they are my own and not based on any TV channel's poll pundits  blah blah or editorial pontifications by some of our illustrious editors of newspapers. . 

1) AAP differed with Anna Hazare and jumped into electoral fray only because BJP and Congress dithered on the LOK PAL issue, they had to do something dramatic before the people who thronged their meetings on the issue and anti corruption movement. They have won the day and retained public trust. Its another matter altogether if they are capable of ruling a state. Judging by the experience of the ashom gana parishad, just that, aap has better assembly of intellectuals and thinkers. 

2) Congress has lost because of its inability to decentralise power. BJP has succeeded because it has reposed faith and power in local leaders and thats why leaders such as Narendra Modi, Dr Raman Singh and Shivraj Chouhan have risen and returned their parties to power successively in every election. Congress has no local leaders who can stand up for themselves and is largely Gandhi family centric which decided everything without any clues on whats happening in the state.

3) Also, victory and defeat is something Congress has seen and has risen like the Phoenix from the ashes. Post emergency it was routed but came back in 1980,  retained power in 1984 post Mrs G's assasination, but lost power in 1989 to VP Singh's movement , and again back in power post Rajiv G's assasination in 1990, lost power in 1995 ( vajpayee, deve gowda, gujral, vajpayee), but came back in  2003 and 2008, and are set for a reverse in 2014. Too far to assume they could come back in 2018?

4) Most Congress leaders have made two cardinal mistakes in their analysis : 

1) Its not Modi magic but local leaders popularity

 2) assembly elections are different from lok sabha elections.

The mistakes are : Both Dr Raman Singh and Shivraj Chouhan are excellent administrators but very self effacing personalities. It requires an agressive CM like Narendra Modi to help them show case their strengths. So it was Modi who helped them to reinforce their strengths and retain power with such thumping majorities. Rajasthan is a classic example for Modi magic where4 BJP has been in the doldrums. Dr Raman Singh won a cliff hanger ( the Bastar massacre by maoists and the failure of law and order machinery to protect congreess leaders and some others  threatened to eat votes and seats) because Modi Magic washed it down. This has become a debatable point now, but i strongly endorse the Modi Mastan Magic. . 

5) The issues on which the states such as Rajasthan, MP, Chattisgarh and Delhi wen to the polls all had a common thread. Pro incumbency and anti incumbency. High voting in MP and Chattisgarh signalled pro incumbency because both chief ministers had launched welfare schemes and ensured the delivery mechanism was good enough to reach the benefits to the people. So the people did not want another political regime to come and screw it up.

6) Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot failed to ensure a delivery mechanism for his good public health and other pro poor schemes and it failed because people never availed of these and still thronged private hospitals and clinics signalling the failure of the govt schemes. 

7) Delhi suffered because Congress diethered on the Lok Pal Bill issue to make the highest office bearers of govermet accountable to public, AAP launched itself into the political fray only because of this and wanted to take their agitation against politicians to the next level and caught the imagination of the people on crucial issues such as corruption and inflation. All the 15 years of good work by Sheila Dikshit on the infrastructure front had come to a nought because of the party's complacency and lack of PCC support. Modi magic and AAP power swept congress away. Its rumoured that the campaign was Modi for PM and Kejriwal for CM.

8) AAP has raised the moral code and hence BJP CM had clearly said : I dont have the numbers to form the govt " hinting there would be no horse trading by the party. BJP wants to sit on a higher moral ground than the AAP now to garner more votes so that they have a clear majority next time around when elections are held again , probably in May next year along with Lok Sabha elections, to constitute the Delhi assembly.  

cheers
ashok 

--

TN Ashok                
Corporate Consultant,

(Public Affairs/ Media Advisories)

Resident Editor, Industrial Economist,

Contributor, Business Line,

Ex Economics Editor, PTI,

Ex Communications Advisor,

Alstom Group of Companies SA France

+91 98101 88700

+91 88005 35205

+91 11 2271 3192

ashoktnex@gmail.com

ashnews@yahoo.com

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