General Elections 2019 - India

Indian Political system has picked up the momentum towards the General Elections 2019.  It is very interesting that every political party is geared towards ensuring that the current ruling party in Center is defeated and for that purpose all the coalitions are being considered.  Though the main coalitions that exist today standing against BJP led coalition NDA is UPA, but we may see a few more from the regional perspective and then combining them on central perspective.  This could be a good development only if the voters / citizens are benefited and the coalition parties work together towards progress of the country.

Though I have my reservation that the mismatched coalitions would not sustain the test on the floor for their ideologies differ and the only things that's bringing them together is the motive to defeat BJP led NDA.  To be successful, there always is a need for mapping the ideologies and goals that are constructive and positive in nature, negative goals certainly don't help.  In politics, the typical understanding that "My Opposition's Opposition is on My Side" doesn't necessarily work.

From where the situation needs to be assessed and the way social media particularly is buzzing with anti-BJP sentiments with all the sorts of negative news being highlighted, the current opposition parties are not helping themselves to garner the votes. They actually are aligning on the negative axis, and the young voters of India do understand the Two negatives not necessarily align to get one positive.  Anti-BJP sentiments would trigger BJP highlighting its good work and the positives the it has brought to the economy and the way nation got benefitted with whatever BJP did.  Now, at this juncture, it certainly would be the progressive aspects highlighted that would garner more votes and the feel that if a party in Particular has done so much in so short a timespan, then that party should be in the center to take the nation forward.

On the contrary, the negative campaign being run by the opposition would harm them only for they are not stating what they would do in this case and How would they make things better in the areas where they are trying to highlight the lack of governance oversight by BJP - the current ruling party.  The time has gone when we used to think on one stream and may be there are still a few who think or act on those lines like Religious divide and caste based approach.  The current generation thinks more positively and in constructive manner and looks at the 360 degree rather than having myopic view on the negative sentiments.

In reality, need of the time is to unite for the progress of India. Even if the Opposition fails the floor test, they needs to unite for Constructive Criticism and not for the negative criticism as they are involved right now.  What we see at present is negative criticism with no suggestion on how to better things; they are just focused on why the things are wrong, not where things can be better. As state earlier, this would not help them win the general elections in 2019.

On the other side, BJP would need to ensure that it reaches out to its cadres across the states and teaches the to behave responsibly so the the negative news is no more available.  There is a need to address the negative news right where is could generate rather than trying to curb it once it has generated.  Social Media is very strong and reality can traverse faster than not along with the Rumor Monger news.

Catching up on UP Elections

Five states in India underwent Assembly elections earlier this month and the results were not too encouraging for the opposition parties.  The current ruling party BJP won with clear majority in two states - Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand where as with some support formed Government in Manipur and Goa. The only state they lost elections is Punjab, the state where it so seems that anti-incumbancy wave against Akali Dal took toll on the election results with Congress (INC) winning majority of seats there.  Interesting though that INC could save that one state to get some grace marks.

However, Indian media is all gong ho about the results in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh that can actually define the results of 2019 Lok Sabha Elections.  The specific wave that is getting built once again is the "20% Muslim" voters in Uttar Pradesh not getting a Muslim representative. How interesting it is that the Pseudo Literates and Pseudo Liberals of India are amazed on "How can BJP gain such a massive support in Uttar Pradesh when they didn't field a single Muslim candidate?" They totally overlook the major swing that BJP saw in the eastern state of Manipur where they won 21 seats starting from 0 from the last assembly elections.  Though this may not seem to be a swing in favor of BJP per say, but somewhere it may be a swing resounding the support for Nation's Government lead by Mr. Modi.

I am not sure how literate are the Pseudo Literates in the country that when they open their mouth, they can only talk about the religious divide. Incidentally, these Pseudo Literates try to impose that they are nations' voice. They forget that the News Channel where they think they are being invited and where they would spew their venom on caste and religion, doesn't have a viewership of 2% from where it was a leader. Indeed, I am talking about NDTV and the show that was hosted by Vikram Chandra.  I just watched it for 2 minutes in between my channel surfing and boom, all I could hear was religious divide. As I said, these Pseudo Literates seem to have forgotten that it was the Central Government that spoke about the honor of women including the Muslim Women and it was they who spoke against the inequality prevailing in the Muslim communities where women is treated more like a slave than a family member.  It was the voice against triple talaq that made the difference for the Muslim women who thought at last someone is taking their side.  It doesn't matter whether someone supporting them was Hindu or Muslim, for them it was someone who spoke about their dignity and that's what seems to have swung the votes of Muslim voters in favor of BJP and BJP won even those seats which were dominated by Muslim voters.

I am not sure how and and when these simple and easy to understand points would be learned by the Pseudo Literates and not sure when they would be able to rise above the Religion and Caste business.    Also, I am not sure when the 80% result swing could be seen with 4 out of 5 states voting for BJP, why are these pseudo liberals stuck only to results in one state?

Ah, and before I close this topic rather than stretching, I recalled the Behenji was so hurt that she point at the EVMs favoring BJP (were the EVMs also Religious?) and then The greatest comedian of our times picked up to be thrashed by the Judiciary

Author's Note: Interestingly, it so sounds that while conveying the probable cause of the vote swing, even I caused some communal divide. But, that is not what I intended to. 

Delhi Elections 2015 - Some Facts Some Speculations

Delhi election results have surprised a lot of people in the political circles including the politicians, the observers, the journalists and the various party supporters.  Every one of us must be thinking what is it that made BJP lose a vital seat of power and from where did the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to register the landslide victory?  It is certainly intriguing. Let us start with reviewing certain facts that would be needed to understand what the word politics is all about.

1. BJP bags 2.9 million votes winning 3 seats in State Assembly against 2.6 in 2014 General Elections when it won 7 Loksabha seats. An Increase of vote base by 300,000+
2. The percentile votes for BJP more or less hovered at the same as 2014 General Elections - 33%
3. AAP made a landslide of vote share with almost 54% votes bagging some 15% from Congress and another around 9% from Others
4. Congress was reduced to 0 with around 9.7% votes and 62 of its candidates had to surrender their Security Deposits. Only 8 could save it.
5. BSP and other parties were also reduced to 0 

Now looking at vote share patterns above, one can't say that BJP could not secure its vote bank.  They very well did that. If anyone has to understand the intent of BJP and Amit Shah in particular, they want a Congress Free India and they started that from Delhi.

So, now coming to the loss of Delhi as a state, how is BJP going to take it? Well, to that I hold the perspective that if BJP would have ever wanted Delhi, they would have simply gone for elections in Delhi before October 2014.  They would not have waited for so long, almost 8 months to say that.  Also, if they would have been serious about Delhi elections, they would have come out with a manifesto and declared the list of Candidate much before they actually did.  Moreover, they brought an all-together new face of Kiran Bedi as the CM candidate.  Would you all call these developments as Management Mistakes?  I wouldn't, i would rather call these as the Master Stroke from the Brilliant Strategist in Amit Shah.

Let's have a look at certain aspects to why Amit Shah would ever do that? Why would BJP not want Delhi - 

1. Delhi does not have the 100% status of state. It hangs there in between State and Union Territory
2. Delhi is impatient and the impatience of Delhi is unruly.  They want quick turnaround of the promises made.  The discontent and the unruly patience of Delhi can be well attributed to the 15 years of Congress regime (that's a separate topic and not something I want to elaborate here)
3. If it were BJP in center and BJP in Delhi as a "State", it would have been difficult for BJP to stand the pressure of Local Masses to fulfill the promises made
4. Delhi would have wanted more governance initiatives with involvement of Center and BJPs focus could have been distracted from the nation-wide campaign they want to run - "Congress Free India"
5. BJP state functionary is one of the most disobedient in Delhi

The gains for BJP and the future that they are carving out for themselves - 

1. BJP would be more focused on the destabilized Bihar where they would want better standing
2. BJP would be more concerned with securing more seats in the Upper House - Rajya Sabha from the Northern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (UP) and eastern state of West bengal
3. BJP would want to utilize Delhi as a case study to shore up AAP as the main rival than Congress, thus eliminating Congress from the National level
4. BJP would let AAP die its own death for not being able to fulfill the promises of Ample Water (there is a dependency on Haryana to that effect and Haryana has BJP Government. We may see Karnataka v/s Tamil Nadu case replicating sooner or later)
5. Law and Order in Delhi is controlled by Central Government, another area where AAP may get frustrated
6. Any Legislative Bill that needs to be presented in Delhi has to be routed through Home Ministry (the one card that BJP played last time with Jan Lokpal), another point where AAP may get frustrated

So a more indepth review of the scenario of Delhi would certainly provide the required parameters that would have been evaluated by BJP Think Tank before deciding to surrender Delhi.

However, BJP must not close their eye on their presumptions as the AAP 2.0 (as media coined the term) is quite smarter and sharper than before.  They may bend the rules of the game and may diplomatically arm twist to ensure that they are not blamed for the failure where they didn't have direct control on things.  Center from that perspective would have to be supportive to AAP in Delhi as AAP has done a better study of Delhi issues this time around. 

The time would be of Caution for BJP as AAP may  charge them with more vigor and zeal in Bihar, UP and Bengal for that matter. And am sure AAP is going to focus on Punjab too for that matter as that's where both Congress and BJP have faltered big time.

Time for Indian Politics to see a new era where it would be between BJP and AAP the conventional v/s Youth Politics and if AAP survives Delhi for full five years, the nation may be in for BIG surprises in coming time....