The Election Results - An Analysis and my views

Yes, the Indian Voters who have bothered to go out and vote have finally decided and rightfully so that they want a stable Government at the Centre to steer the country over the next five years especially in the troubled times being faced by the Economy. The Congress Party has emerged as the single largest and the UPA as the single largest pre poll alliance with almost commanding a majority of its own. What to the results mean and how do they translate can be summed up as follows-

1 The Congress Party has regained lost ground especially and significantly in the State of UP where they were totally annihilated in the previous elections.

2 The BJP has lost some of its sheen, is down but certainly not out.

3 The Regional Parties such as the RJD, HVP, AIADMK, PMK, MDMK, TDP,TRS,SAD etc have been completely marginalised and will have no significant role to play at the moment in National Politics. The SP and the BSP do have a reasonable presence in terms of seats but have become insignificant players as the stability of the Government does not depend on their support or otherwise.

4 The Left and their communist idealogy has taken a severe beating and the loss in West Bengal which was considered their impregnable fortress are ominous signs that their influence in the voters minds of West Bengal and Kerala is waning which is in my opinion the best thing to have happened to this Country. The Bluff of the Communists as being the torch bearers of the working class has been called as they have exposed themselves by opposing progressive economic policies. Communism has been on the decline the world over especially in progressive economies and we all should work towards ensuring its extinction in India.

5 The popular notion gaining ground that the Hindutva leaning of the BJP has eroded its vote base is fallacious as the BJP has done reasonably well and in fact increased its vote share in a few states where it is in Power and even in Coastal Karnataka (inspite of the Ram Sena playing havoc with its extremist views) the party has swept all the seats. This is an indication that you need not be apologetic about your idealogy if you want to retain or increase your vote base. Another case to point is the victory of Varun Gandhi by almost a margin of One Lakh Votes inspite of his so called hate speech where the Hindus seem to have voted for him with a vengeance. The talk doing the rounds that projecting Narendra Modi as a future PM was a monumental blunder is only a campaign to dent the popularity and larger than life image of Modi who has repeatedly proved the polsters and their opinion and exit polls wrong. Its is only the aggressive economic policies and rightist leaning of Modi which could resurrect the image of the BJP and the party in my opinion needs to cultivate many more Modi's across the country to get its cadres rejuvenated.

6 The Congress may have won this time but projecting their victory as that of Rahul Gandhi's is what will cost it dear in the years to come as there are many more meritorious and deserving youngsters in the Congress who are forced to play second fiddle only because they do have the Gandhi tag attached to them and the frustration arising out of the subservience expected from the highly educated lot to the Gandhi Family may boil and spill over at some point of time.

7 An analysis of the Election results would show that the UPA won because of better alliance management skills whereas the NDA lost because of its rift with the BJD in Orissa and the shifting of the Trinamool to the UPA fold.

8 A demoralising aspect of the demographic profile of the present Lok Sabha shows that the average age of the MP is 62 which demonstrates the fact that youngsters are not coming to the fore and taking to politics as a full time vocation. The Union Cabinet predominantly consists of old Congress bigwigs and loyalists with an average age of 66 and a few youngsters have been accomodated as Ministers of State with a few first time MP's like Shashi Tharoor finding a place.

9 Last but not the least the silver lining in the dark economic clouds for the business community and the Service Sector is the exit of Mr P Chidambaram from the Finance Ministry and i fervently hope and pray that his shadow would not loom large over Sri Pranab Mukherjee's dimunitive frame thereby paving the way for the removal of taxes such as FBT and reduction in rates of Service Tax.

For me personally the Election Results are a dampener as my cherished desire of seeing a BJP led Government would have to wait probably for five more years but the optimistic streak in me believes that this election was only the semi final and the final in the year 2014 would have a Government led by the likes of Narendra Modi or the man himself steering the country forward. I live with that hope like thousands of other Indians some of them openly and others discretely.