The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has all the reason to celebrate, not just for winning hands down in strife-ridden Assam, enhancing its tally in West Bengal and opening its account in Kerala, but chiefly for inching towards achieving its 2014 slogan, Congress-mukt Bharat. The Congress is edged out, humbled and trampled under feet across all the four states.
The Communists would win if they fight the Congress: case in point is Kerala. The Communists would lose , if they fight in alliance with the Congress: case in point is West Bengal.
The Congress was inflicted with a crushing defeat and thrown out of power in Kerala and Assam. The DMK, which went to polls in alliance with the Congress, could not wrest power from the iron lady Jayalalithaa. Moral of the story: Congress is injurious to progress.
People weighed the pros and the cons, and eschewed the party that conned them for several years.
Why Jayajalithaa retained power
Tamil Nadu scripted a new history by re electing the party in power for the first time in several years after the demise of Purachi Talaivar MG Ramachandran.
Usually, the Tamil Nadu voters enthrone the parties alternately, election after election. Interestingly, corruption and conviction did not bother the elector. Corruption hasn’t been seen as a poll issue by the people, says Sriram Karri, analyst, journalist and author of best-seller
‘An Autobiography of a Mad Nation’.
If anything, the short stint of ‘Amma’ in the solitary confinement at Parappana Agrahara central prison generated sympathy for her in leading the pack.
The nonagenarian Karunanidhi couldn’t realize his dream of ruling the Fort St. George. DMDK lost the election and also its face and the hero, Vijayakant, who does the impossible things on the silver screen, turned out to be a political clown. Neither there is mother in a motherboard, nor were there votes in the voting machines.
The people, though mandated Jayalalithaa to rule them without bothering much about the anti-incumbency, wanted Karunanidhi to oppose any anti-people act of the government tooth and nail by electing the DMK as formidable opposition. The general practice in Tamil Nadu is that the ruling party gets a brute majority and the opposition is nearly decimated.
This time the verdict was over balanced. The mouthwatering platitudes to entice the electors by both parties couldn’t cut much ice but the conviction of the Tamil parties in implementing them isn’t doubted ever. Precisely, this caused the revolving door jinx in Tamil Nadu.
The 93-year-young VS Achuthanandan led a spirited battle against Chief Minister Oomen Chandy and his UDF.
Corruption charges worked against the UDF and the Keralites turned the revolving door once again.
Didi emerges stronger
Sharada scam, intolerance towards remarks against her, Jadhavpur University controversy, and the numerous other issues could not totter the political paragon of virtues Mamata Benarjee in West Bengal even by an inch. The Congress tally which is more than its alliance partner CPM only indicates how weak the Communists are. The triumph of ‘didi’ has put her far ahead of every other party, proving a point that Mamata is on a moral Everest.
Tarun Gogoi ended his 15-year unhindered rule, conceding defeat to the BJP in Assam. The BJP too will use this opportunity to wriggle itself out of the anathema of being a traditional baiter of North Eastern states. Karri says if you go to an enemy’s house thrice, you would naturally develop affinity and an eventual friendship leading to a bondage. The BJP will now eye power in other North Eastern states too. The longest serving president of the Grand Old Party, Sonia Gandhi, to her credit, has the acclaim of leading it from the front to take it to a dizzier height and also losing grip over it that led to a free fall from the point of no return.
What The BJP should know, instead of basking in the afterglow of its Assam victory and the rout of the Congress across, is that it could not touch the powerful regional forces like the Trinamool, the DMK, the AIADMK, the LDF and the UDF even with a bargepole.
Mehbuba Mufti, Akilesh Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, Navin Patnaik, Chandrababu Naidu, K Chandrashekhar Rao, Jayalalithaa, VS Achutanandan and, of course, Siddaramaiah (of the Congress) do not belong to the BJP and the saffron brigade doesn’t control more than one-third of the territory of India politically.
Every election is a lesson to the loser as well as the winner. Kudos to the common Indian voter.