Epic Elections

India has just concluded what is termed as epic elections by the western media though is very normal for Indians. In this blog I will first talk about some of my conclusions from the process of elections and then talk in detail about the the results, their analysis and impact.

Process

Electoral process in India has been improving by the year. These elections were held under unusual circumstances. Sri Lanka was highly unstable with Tamil violence, Pakistan was fighting its own war in the north west, Nepal government had fallen during the election and despite this instability in almost all countries it had no impact on India. This talks volumes about the strength of Indian democracy.

Election commission had full control over the process. About 400 million people casted their opinion during the elections with little problems in any part. Votes were kept locked in some parts for almost a month and with almost no insurgency or theft. All the votes were counted in one day with results on the same day. In my opinion this was one of the biggest management challenge in itself and election commission did a great job of managing it.

Evolution of Indian Democracy post 1991

In this election any party got a clear mandate almost after 15 years with a clear movement towards a two party system.

Post the death of Rajiv Gandhi Congress party did not have a leader and was breaking down. Before his death India was ironically a "democracy" but almost with a one party system. Break down in leadership of that single party created a chaos in India and a number of smaller parties emerged from the chaos and regional parties started gaining prominence. Indian democracy was in a state of flux trying to grapple with how it should shape itself. BJP gained prominence as the second party under the leadership of statesman Atal Bihari Vajpayee and provided an alternative stable government. However, state parties were still trying to figure out their role in the government. 2004 elections gave huge importance to left and while they got the seats they did not know what they had to do so we ended up having a confused government.

Analysis of result

2009 election was a almost a two party election in most of the states except UP. In almost every state Congress was fighting against another party. In the north against BJP while in the south against "Third front". Just by the virtue of having liberty of contesting in all parts on the country congress had the upper hand in the election right from the beginning. Thank fully people recognized that voting for third front will only bring instability so that got decimated. BJP had only a few strong states and it did well there but unfortunately those were too few states to make a strong impact. Clear impact of both these features was that Congress finally won decisive elections after 15 years.

2009 election also had a distinct character that it was a pro development election. States had major power and in most of the states where their was good governance people voted their parties back with thumping majority.

Weaknesses of BJP

BJP had two more problems, it lost complete control in some of the crucial northern states of Rajasthan, UP, Haryana, Punjab. to gain power it has to do much better there. And not having any presence in the south made it almost impossible for them to come to any kind of power. And rightly so, Delhi government should be run by all parts of India and not by representatives from only northern parts.


Impact

States have more power based on only and only development. It was a clear mandate chief ministers who have done well got seats and who have not done well got removed. In very large sense, with the exception of UP and Maharashtra, this was a clear signal.

Both third front (non left) and BJP will realize that they have a common opposition in the form of congress and as opposition they will need to come together to provide constructive suggestions (may be this is my wishful thinking).

Left will need to think if India still needs leftist or they should do what the world has done!

BSP, SP, RJD, only true casteist and communal parties, with no agenda, leaders who have positive developmental politics hopefully they will get decimated!