State Elections 2012 – Who is the real winner?

 State Elections 2012 - Who Is The Real Winner?

The state elections of 2012 that took place this week are finally over.  Five states went to polls and out of them, two (Punjab and Goa) clearly went in favor of the BJP.  One, Uttarakhand is tied very closely and could go either way.  Only Manipur gave the Congress something to smile about.  Uttar Pradesh once again brought back to power, a regional party and completely ignored the national parties.  BJP and Congress expectedly finished third and fourth respectively.

These state elections left the Congress party in a very bad shape.  For political parties, losing and winning elections is the part of the game, but the manner in which Congress lost the election cannot just be ignored and needs serious introspection by the congress top brass.

Let’s take Punjab first; they could not throw out the incumbent government of the Akalis even though Punjab has a history of replacing governments every 5 years.  In Goa, Congress was in power and were defeated convincingly by the BJP.  State of Congress is so unfriendly in Goa that a so-called right-wing Hindu party got votes from the Catholics of Goa.  The anger and frustration against the incumbent Congress was also evident from an unprecedented 82% voter turnout this time. The real Congress’ debacle came from UP, and this very much establishes the fact that something is horribly wrong with the Congress.  In UP, the party was unable to even save its bastion like Rai Bareli, Amethi, and Sultanpur.  Out of the 15 assembly seats from these areas, it could only manage to win just 2.

Congress itself is to blame for this poor showing.  Today the party is behaving like an arrogant fat cat that drinks milk with closed eyes and roars if you interrupt.  Several corruption scams came up during its regime.  Instead of dealing corruption head on, they tried to defame those who were fighting for corruption.  The way they handled Baba Ramdev and Team Anna and the whole Lokpal episode has not gone down well.  Every time you can close your eyes like a cat when you steal the milk, but you cannot fool the people all the time.  Corruption may not be as big an issue as an inflation or governance, but it nags with the subconscious mind of an average voter.  Congress has failed to acknowledge the fact that it is seriously tainted and needs immediate corrective steps.  An arrogant Congress drank bad milk and now is complaining of stomach ache and may fall very sick if not treated immediately.  They should immediately consider demands of the civil society of an effective Lokpal and come out clean against corruption in order to change its image.  Another reason for the poor performance is the lack of trust of the people in Congress.  After many attempts to woo the Muslim voters, the party has failed to convince them. It needs to correct this trust deficit.

The BJP, on the other hand, may find solace that it has done pretty well by grabbing Goa from the Congress party and keeping Punjab in its belt, but BJP too is crippled with several issues like lack of strong leadership in the center and lack of rural presence.  Mr. Advani has a very low visibility and appeal among the masses.  Mr. Modi is not acceptable to many political parties.  The second-line leadership is extremely talented and deserves to come forward, but needs direction from the RSS.  The magical spurt in BJP’s tally when counting began in UP and then the sudden slowdown demonstrates the BJP is largely a party with an urban presence.  It needs to touch base with the rural masses in order to improve its tally.  How can a national party in India do well if it has a low-rural base?

There are a few winners of this election like election commission, but the real winner of this election is the voter who once again managed to establish that he is supreme by voting out corrupt and arrogant governments.  Rahul Gandhi might have lost the election, but he has won many hearts.  Also, winners are well-educated, fluent, English-speaking candidates from UP. They are refreshingly new faces which bring hope for UP and make us believe that India is changing.