India at the edge of dramatic change in political governance

 

The election results are out and what a victory! After about 2 decades of coalition politics, we have government with the leading party, BJP, having a majority by itself. The Congress party, the next largest party, has been decimated to less than 10% of the seats. Regional satraps have been side-lined if not cut to less than their original sizes. Hence this leads to the question whether “India is at the edge of dramatic change in political governance?”

Let’s look at some major trends from the 2014 elections:

a)     End of dynasty rule - The Congress party has been decimated to less than 50 seats and officially it cannot lay claim to the status of the opposition party. The vote against the Congress has essentially been a vote against the Gandhi family. Sonia and Rahul held the real power of the UPA government and had a hand in all the decisions and probably the scams too. The Gandhi – Nehru family right from Indira, Rajiv to Sonia / Rahul have ruled the country as their fiefdom. By adopting a neo- socialist approach to appeal to the mass vote banks they have won elections but hampered the growth of the country. Populist and unproductive themes like “Garibi Hatao” MNREGA. Food Security Bill, etc. have drained the exchequer with very little benefits. The basic objective was to keep the voters occupied with populist ideas but with no development. With the present election results, I am sure that most of the Indians, including many Congress members, also have seen the futility and limited utility of the “Nehru - Gandhi” name. Governance norms basically aim to avoid excessive power in a particular individual. The heavy defeat in the elections will hopefully ensure limited role for the Nehru - Gandhi family in the future.

b)    Winning platform of development and governance - Narendra Modi and the BJP fought the elections mainly on the plank of development and governance. It’s probably for the first time in the history of independent India that the winner has won on a plank mainly focussing on development and not on petty issues like caste, religion, etc. The people of the country, fed up with the dithering UPA government, the narrow petty minded parties like Communists, SP, BSP, etc. have given a resounding verdict for development. This verdict will hopefully ensure that development and governance will be the core features of all future political movements.

c)      Rise of new parties with a fresh perspective - Even though the AAP has won only 4 seats in the general elections, it has made its presence felt in many constituencies. In Delhi, AAP was placed second in all the seats and had a 32% vote share. In Varanasi, Arvind Kejriwal was placed second giving a good fight to Modi while Ashutosh was placed second in Chandni Chowk ahead of a heavyweight like Kapil Sibal. Even though AAP made a fool of itself in the Delhi Government, their plank of anti-corruption has caught the people`s eye. The people are prepared to look at a fresh approach breaking away from the dogmas of the past.

d)     Use of NOTA - The introduction of NOTA (none of the above candidates) garnered 1% of the votes i.e. about 6 lac votes. Infact in Nilgiris constituency where the corruption tainted former telecom minister A Raja stood, the 3^rd largest vote share, about 5% of the votes, was for NOTA. The message for the political parties is very clear – perform and nominate suitable candidates else, the people will not be constrained by the lack of choices in voting.

e)     Change in outlook of regional parties - Only 2 independent regional parties performed well viz. AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and TMC in Bengal. The AIADMK was benefited by scams, misrule and the infighting in the DMK while the TMC benefited by the declining fortunes of the Communists. Everybody is aware of the fact that the TMC hasn`t done anything in Bengal since it assumed power but yet got the votes shifting from the Communists. If TMC doesn`t shape up then the day isn`t far when the BJP or any other party with a development agenda will take over and similar is the case for the AIADMK. Without development the people will judge them very harshly. The other strong regional parties like SP, BSP, YSRCongress, have their political vote bases in some clusters. However they have been exposed to shifts in their political bases in cases of non – governance. A good example is the shift of some Muslim votes away from SP after Muzzafarnagar riots. Hence the message for regional parties is join the bandwagon for development lest be run over by others.

f)      Development over ideology – The 2014 election have shown that parties with ideology and no development agenda are relics of the past. The Communists are in the danger of getting extinct due to their dogmatic approach. To a large extent, Rahul Gandhi also didn`t have any concrete development agenda and his talk on ideological principles, as he mentioned in his famous interview on Times Now, actually hastened his defeat.

The 2014 election is a major milestone in the history of India. Hopefully, the verdict will move the country to a platform of development and governance uncluttered by narrow and petty considerations like caste, religion, etc.

Narendra Modi, the man who has a track record of development and governance in Gujarat, carries the hopes of all Indians as a leader who can lead India to a new world. The people, old and young, have given him a landslide victory to lead India. Let’s see whether “Acche Din Aane wale hain (Good days are about to come)!”