Turning Point

With every successive elections, Indian democracy is showing its maturity and coming of age. No longer can politicians get away with doling out cash and booze on the eve of polls, no longer will corruption be accepted, no longer will the people vote for mandir or masjid, and if you do not deliver growth and development, you can get out.

Results in the 4 key states (ignore Pondicherry for now) of TN, Assam, Kerela and West Bengal, with around 150m people involved in the exercise throw up some exciting new developments for the country, which cannot be ignored.

The Left has been decimated in WB by Didi's Trinamul Congress, and though it rallied in Kerela under Hindu votes, is without power any where in the country now. After the washout in the LS elections, which was attributed by the politburo to Karat's stand on the US Nuclear deal rather than a popular vote against the Left itself, this defeat clearly signals the end of the Left, and with the sex appeal of the Marxists on a major downturn, it remains to be seen if the Left ever recovers from here. Karat will have tough questions to answer to, especially since the only little success they have had recently is in Kerela, which can only be attributed to VS Achutanand, who Karat wanted out. Although it is unclear whether anyone will care enough to want to hear his answers!

The DMK is in deep trouble too. While anti-incumbency has always played a role in TN, it is the huge margin and 5/6th majority Amma got in TN that makes the difference. The people have clearly been disgusted by the 2G scam, and last minute attempts by the DMK to buy out voters fell flat. Amma isn't known to be generous to her rivals, and with the Congress facing tough questions over its stand on corruption, it will now feel emboldened to take on Raja, Kanimozhi and others in the 2G scam, to give it some breathing space in next year's polls. This can only be very bad news for Kani and her band of scamsters.

Assam showed that anti-incumbency is not a rule. Tarun Gogoi's huge vistory and hat-trick shows that when local leaders are allowed to focus on development, it pays back handsomely. Tarun joins other stalwarts like Modi and Nishit, who have learnt to drop communal and populist agendas and instead focus on real growth and development, and have been heavily rewarded. The Congress would do well to learn from Tarun and encourage more such leaders.

The Congress would be unsure of which side they find themselves on after this election. Good news for them in West Bengal, where Didi has welcomed the Congress in the government, and her need as CM to have a helpful center will buffer them a bit against her demands. In TN, they suffered heavy collateral damage because of the DMK, but there is always a of tying up with Amma, and the DMK's loss definitely frees the Congress to take strong action and redeem itself in the 2G scam. In Kerela, they have managed to win albeit by a thin majority, with the Left rallying well primarily due to VS Achutanand's clean image. Assam is great news, but the loss in Pondicherry will be disappointing.

However, Rahul Gandhi's experiments of intra-party democracy and focus on youth, most forcefully implemented in Kerela have bombed miserably, with most of his hand-picked "Amul babies" losing convincingly at the polls. For a 125 year old party, I guess it's too early to change!

Oh, and yes, the Congress lost even the security deposit in the Andhra (Kadapa) LS by-election to YSR's son Jagan Reddy who contested as a rebel and won by a margin of almost 6 lakh votes, and while one can attribute this to sympathy and dismiss it as a one-off, Jagan's next steps and rise in Andhra can be pretty scary for the Congress, which has a substantial number of MPs from Andhra at the center.

And finally, the BJP. The BJP who? In a 5 state election with over 150m voters involved, the BJP did not even have a shadow of relevance. Desperate times for the party, which finds itself increasingly ditched by its allies (now down to barely 5 from a one-time 22 in the NDA), irrelevant to voters, leaderless, and without an agenda except maybe the "sensational" piss-in-panipuri episodes in Thane!

With the Left front no longer viable, the BJP toothless, and the possibilities of a Third front becoming increasingly remote, the future elections are expected to be about the Congress, how it takes on regional parties, and the coalition it can cobble together at the center.

Irrespective of how the landscape changes from here on, corruption and populism has lost, development and sincerity has won, and Indian democracy comes through yet another election, a shining example to the rest of the world. Especially when in contrast to the mess around our boundaries!