Aam Aadmi has slapped the UPA Government

 

The message from the five states is loud and clear. No to Congress (Read inefficiency, corruption,.cunningness). Congress has forgotten the Aam Aadmi. It has failed to check the rising prices. It wants to demolish the retail trade by allowing FDI in retail business. It wants to pursue a blatant pro-US foreign policy. It does not care for the welfare of the citizens.

An emphatic NO to BJP (read Hindutva, anti-Muslim, anti-Dalit). Bharatiya Janata Party has landed in noman's island. It does not have a clear vision for the multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-cultural plural nation that is called INDIA. It's divisive policies and politics has failed to strike a chord with the peace loving Aam Aadmi. It has refused to shed the burden of Narendra Modi. It has no agenda and has lost its relevance.

And a Big NO to BSP (read inefficiency, autocracy, corruption). Mayawati has lost a golden chance to evolve into a statesman and towering leader. She failed to cultivate, nourish, and groom second line of leadership. She has no clear vision for the emancipation of the dalits and her alliance with the Brahmins has taken away the sheen from her sole armour.

And a fresh lease of life for the THIRD FRONT. Both Congress and BJP have failed to care for the welfare of the Aam Aadmi. Hope for the emergence of the third front has got revived. Mulayam Singh Yadav has  bigger role to play at the centre.

Once again Muslims have played their cards well and voted tactically defeating both Congress and BJP. The number of Muslim MLAs has risen to all time high 69. The emergence of the Peace Party is significant.  Here

Anti-Congressism gets a new lease of life

Rahul Gandhi’s perpetual attempt to run as an outsider, as if the Congress is not responsible for the tales of woe he recounts, is patently disingenuous. Every single issue he took up, from Bhatta-Parsaul to Bundelkhand, had no follow-up.

There is little aspirational about the Congress politics: it is still tethered to a discourse of noblesse oblige that is out of touch with the dynamism of a society. And personal sincerity has done little to transform the party’s political structure. There are limits to leadership by avoidance. And there are limits to how much he can substitute for local candidates. Rahul, like Rajiv Gandhi, risks being done in by sycophants masquerading as strategists, communalists masquerading as minority protectors, and party officials who do not think that governance matters.

The implications for national politics are immense. Even if it is magnanimous, the incentive for the SP is to ensure that the Congress does not grow. Anti-Congressism also gets a new lease of life. The motive for every party is now to demonstrate that the Congress cannot govern. The Central government has been facing a crisis of authority. Its moral image has been battered; its capacity for negotiating with regional parties has been diminished. These results only exacerbate this crisis of authority. In the short run, expect a rocky political ride. It will take something drastic to reverse this erosion of authority.

Bhanu Pratap Mehta in Indian Express. Here

  

Akilesh Vs Rahul

The emergence of Akhilesh Yadav, son of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party which has won a spectacular victory on its own, as the new shining star of UP politics was totally unexpected by large sections of the public and the Congress Party. The electorate tired of old faces and old style of politics and gimmicks was looking for a Mr.Different and they saw Mr.Different in Akhilesh. Whereas they found Rahul young in looks, but old in thinking and articulation, they found Akhilesh young in looks and young and refreshingly different in his thinking and articulation.

When one saw Akhilesh and Rahul on the TV screen, the difference between the two young personalities was striking. What came out in the case of Akhilesh was his earnestness, seriousness, sincerity and his ability to articulate in a manner that could carry conviction to the public. What came out in the case of Rahul was a lack of such qualities. Akhilesh’s ability to connect instantly with the public and the media stood in refreshing contrast to the inability of Rahul to do so.

B. Raman. Here

The voter votes not for an idea or an ideology

Poribarton is the word we will hear a lot of for a while. The defeat of the Left in West Bengal has been reduced to this single word, a desire for change so strong that even though most people do not seem to believe that Mamata will necessarily improve their situation, they still want to see the Left out of power. This slow defeat of the Left, long in coming, is the last whimper of ideology in Indian politics. The BJP had long renounced its pretensions to such a claim, the DMK, a party born on a rationalist, secessionist, anti-Brahminical platform, has long morphed into a local imitation of the Congress, with its own cult of family.

But ideology is a big word; ideas can be smaller and more focused—the promise of good governance, a programme for roads or education or health or even administrative accountability. Neither Mamata nor Jayalalithaa nor the winners in Kerala or Assam have won for these reasons. 

Yet, the only thing that the elections in the four states have in common apart from their lack of ideas is a high voter turnout. How do we account for this paradox? If politics with its lack of ideas is so dispiriting that we need outsiders to inject ideas through fasts, why is it that the voter does not think so, and why is there such disconnect between the pontificating political discourse in Delhi and what actually unfolds in elections in this country?

The voter votes not for an idea or an ideology but for the possibility of individual benefit. This possibility is not as straightforward as accounting for the money, a television or alcohol handed out even though each counts. If roads matter, they will be weighed in, it is just that the importance given to each factor varies from individual to individual. And since the individuals whose aggregated vote decides most elections are not from the middle class, this class feels left out because its own individual benefit is often discounted in such a result.

This is a simple conclusion but one that irritates the elite no end. It may be true that the CPM and the DMK were both embodiments of certain ideas, but the response was not to an idea, whether it be the Marxism of the CPM or the atheistic Dravidianism of the DMK, but to the possibility that the old structures would change for the better, that they would have some access to the institutions of power. In the case of the CPM, this possibility was real for more than a decade but that changed with the creation of a new elite that controlled power. Mamata is not an idea, she is a possibility as easily accepted as renounced if things do not work out.

It is easy to be cynical or sceptical about such a democracy but the fact remains it delivers in ways that the elite fails to anticipate. A Mayawati, Mulayam or Lalu are products of such a system, and for all the mockery made of them by the elite, they have changed the political landscape of the country. It is difficult to ascribe ideology or even ideas to the politics these three actually practice, but over the past 20 years, they have reshaped Bihar and UP by dismantling the hierarchy of caste.

Hartosh Singh Bal in Open. More Here