15564974 India Elections 2009 Newspaper Articles After Results

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    The triumph and the glory

    Pratap Bhanu Mehta Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at

    0155 hrs

    There are moments in the life of nations that are harbingers of

    deep changes. The Congress has achieved what even so many

    of its friends thought was unthinkable: not just a return to

    power, but a return with such aplomb. No amount of

    psephological quibbling can take away from this achievement.

    They put a lie to the proposition that this was not a national

    election, but a sum of state elections. The swing towards themacross large parts of the country is too significant to be

    dismissed as a conjuncture of lots of local factors. But this is

    also a moment where the nation is also entitled to some

    degree of self-congratulation. Small exceptions apart, this

    election represents a big defeat for the politics of

    opportunism, obfuscation and obscurantism. Those political

    forces that thought that mere political bargaining with others

    was a substitute for an electoral strategy have lost. Instead a

    message has been sent out, loud and clear, that playing

    spoiler, switching sides in order to pre-empt the peoples

    mandate, changing positions at the last minute are simply not

    on. Elections are fundamentally about comparative credibility,

    and those who were foolish enough to assume that mere

    words could hoodwink electorates have been cut to size. A

    large number of parties have been punished for this reasonand rightly so.

    This election is also an indicator that the era of votebank

    politics as we have known it is over. Parties that placed undue

    confidence in the fact that they had secure vote-bases

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    amongst particular political groups have been given a severe

    blow. For instance, Mayawati made the same mistake Lalu

    made in Bihar. She took the Dalit vote so much for granted

    that she felt even less compelled to deliver. She has not yet

    recognised that a functioning state, freed from the local

    political economy of extortion and violence, will be to her

    benefit in the long run. Lalus constituents gave him 15

    years; Mayawatis will give her even less. The Congress did

    extraordinarily well to step into the breach. The Muslim vote

    will show a similar trend; here is a group that also feels it now

    has choices, and this is a healthy sign for Indian politics. It is

    too soon to say that caste and identity have become irrelevant

    for politics. They may seem so because the policy agendas

    that came out of that politics are now deeply entrenched; yet

    its logic is also involuting, creating new coalitions as in Bihar.

    It is inevitable that there will be a search for new paradigms.

    But the post-Mandal age of identity votebanks is over.

    The standard thesis that Indian politics is centrist and

    moderate in its orientation also holds. The BJPs core

    dilemma is that the politics of polarisation can give it local

    victories, a Gujarat here, a Pilibhit there. But it cannot sustain a

    broad national presence. Its leadership has consistently failed

    to recognise this point. Indeed, aversion to a politics of

    polarisation may also explain the backlash against Mayawati.

    Hazari Prasad Dwivedi once wrote a remarkable sentence in

    the context of Indian culture that sums up our politics as well:bharat ka loknayak wahi ho sakta hai jo samanvaya kar sake.

    This was the core premise on which the Congress was built; it

    was punished when it departed from it. It may now be able to

    reoccupy that space.

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    The election has also complicated the dialectic of

    fragmentation. While smaller parties have played the spoiler in

    a few states, they have ended up reinforcing the space of

    national parties, as in the case of Maharashtra. The election

    also demonstrates the Indian electorates aversion to hubris.

    One of the most dramatic results is from West Bengal, where

    the Left has suffered a serious setback. Much ink will be spilt

    over the analysing of whether it was its opposition to

    Manmohan Singh or Nandigram that did it in. But the Left,

    particularly in Bengal, had acquired a sense of hubris that was

    overdue for a rebuff. This is also an era where two things are

    evident in voters responses to governance and

    development issues: on the one hand, their expectations are

    rising; they want a politics of hope, not resentment. On the

    other hand, they are exercising nuanced judgments, not

    instinctive anti-incumbency.

    But in the end nothing can take away from the fact that the

    Congresss strategy was hugely successful. Even his critics

    have to acknowledge that Dr Manmohan Singhs

    government seemed to be a safer pair of hands than any of

    the competitors. He can claim credit for the fact that this

    election was not taking place against the backdrop of deep

    discontentment; if anything, most people have more cash in

    their pockets. Agrarian growth has been impressive,

    procurement prices high, subsidies galore, government

    employees with cash in their pockets; and despite the recentslowdown, the continuous record of growth was a strong

    hand with which to go to the elections. Rahul Gandhi should

    rightly get the credit for laying the political foundations of this

    victory. But in end that could not have been possible, without

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    the fact that the government, for all its imperfections seemed

    more credible than all the rivals.

    Rahul Gandhis three gambits seem to have paid off

    handsomely. The first was the decision of the Congress to go

    it alone; if nothing else, this decision was a reiteration of its

    character as a special national party. And the timing for this

    was just right in UP. Second, and more subtly, in states like

    Punjab,

    Uttarakhand and even, to some extent, in Gujarat, the strategy

    of energising the Youth Congress and bringing an element of

    organisational vitality seems to have paid off. And finally, his

    own subtle strategy of positioning himself as an outsider

    to the system, a source of real, even if somewhat

    indeterminate newness seems a master stroke. There is no

    question that at the moment people see Congress as a party

    of the future, and he was able to embody that idea in all its

    concreteness. If outcomes were a consequence of

    predetermined logic, no politics would be necessary. Rahul

    Gandhi has demonstrated the dividends that risk-taking can

    have in politics: it can change the rules of the game. This is his

    moment. He has changed the rules of politics. The country will

    now look to him to change its horizons for the future.

    The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi

    The Easts beautiful sunrise

    Bibek Debroy Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at 0154

    hrs

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    Since 2004, the Left has held a disproportionately high

    importance in national policy-making, media bytes and

    coalition politics, while its ideology is reflects mindsets young

    India finds difficult to identify with. This is not to suggest

    there arent concerns about unbridled, unregulated market-

    based reforms, or uneven benefits from trickle-down for

    the poor, especially relevant in this period of downturn.

    However, that agenda has successfully been captured by the

    Congress. This leaves the Left with nothing but an

    obstructionist space to occupy be it on economic policy or

    external affairs, including specific issues like Indo-US relations

    and the nuclear deal. It is a space where the Left has rights but

    no responsibilities, where it is part of the government but is

    also outside it. Among several trends in these elections, that

    bluff has been called and the Left reduced to less than half the

    numbers it possessed in 2004. Barring a few seats elsewhere

    (including Tripura), the Left holds but Kerala and West Bengal

    and it has been decimated in both states.

    Opposition-type posturing doesnt work when one is the

    government, as in West Bengal. And nor, after more than

    three decades in power, can one blame the Centre for all

    ones travails. The progressive decline in West Bengals

    economic performance, both relative to other states and over

    time, has been documented. The initial growth momentum

    based on agriculture and land reforms petered out;

    deprivation in WBs worst-off districts is worse than that insome districts in Bihar and Orissa. In industrialisation and land

    acquisition, typified by Nandigram and Singur, there were

    genuine issues of compensation and non-transparent

    procedures, capitalised on by the Trinamool.

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    However, in both Delhi and West Bengal, the Left displayed an

    arrogance of power, blinded by the belief that Left bastions

    could not be stormed, especially since voting was never fair

    and clean, with electoral procedures subverted. Panchayat and

    municipal elections provided enough evidence this wasnt

    the case, but the Left underestimated the extent of

    disenchantment, or believed it could be suppressed. With the

    Congress- Trinamool tie-up, what is significant is not just the

    magnitude of the Lefts decline, but its loss in key

    constituencies like Tamluk, Jadavpur and Barrackpore,

    believed to be unassailable. The Sachar Committee

    documented the status of Muslims, reinforced by local

    developments too. The Muslim, ST and rural vote has now

    turned against the Left and it has been reduced to its original

    support base in the industrial-cum-trade union belt. 2009 was

    a semi-final; extrapolated, with the mahajot in place, the Left

    is certain to be dislodged in the finals, the assembly elections

    of 2011.

    Vote shares vary in individual constituencies. But on average,

    in local body elections, the Lefts vote share was 45 per cent,

    with 35 per cent for the Trinamool, 10 per cent for the

    Congress and 10 per cent for the BJP. 2009 should therefore

    have been touch-and-go. However, it wasnt, and the Left

    has been convincingly trounced. There was thus a swing away

    from the Left, particularly in rural Bengal. In urban Bengal,

    there was still cynicism about whether the Left could ever bedislodged, which is why prominent intellectuals preferred to

    sit on the fence rather than take sides.

    There remain question marks about the Trinamools

    governance agenda and about its co-opting of riff-raff to

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    counter the Left. But those are questions for the future. For

    the moment, proof that the Left can be bested will certainly

    snowball, reducing cynicism and fatalism among fence-sitters.

    Change in West Bengal will be believed to be feasible.

    Soul-searching and cleansing should be good for the Left too.

    Historically, it has been identified with honesty and integrity,

    traits increasingly absent in West Bengal. The Left in West

    Bengal has instead become identified with corruption, graft,

    criminalisation, violence and scant respect for the rule of law.

    Governance is non-existent and administration has yielded to

    party fiat.

    This is good neither for democracy, nor for West Bengal. 2009

    doesnt directly change the status quo, but shows it can be

    changed. High growth since 1991 has benefited India, but

    certain geographical regions remain deprived. Other than

    central India, these areas are to the east and Northeast. (Even

    MP, Bihar and Orissa have begun to change.) What sticks out

    like a sore thumb is West Bengal, critical to the Northeasts

    development too. Some indicators in that state are inferior to

    those in Bangladesh, suggesting possible reverse migration if

    these trends continue. For a state that was once supposed to

    think today what India thought tomorrow, this is nothing

    short of pathetic. Human and financial capital have fled.

    Unskilled and semi-skilled labour in west and north India now

    comes from northern West Bengal, not eastern UP or Bihar.The Lefts decimation should help change this. Overall, there

    is much for West Bengals voters and Indias citizens to

    celebrate.

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    Hands down

    Shekhar Gupta Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at 0249

    hrs

    There are winners and there are losers in any election. But this

    is one election India can feel particularly good about. Not only

    because its been one of our smoothest ever for which the

    Election Commission deserves the nations gratitude but

    also because it confirms the positive trends that some of us,

    incorrigible optimists, have been flagging for a while. This

    newspaper has argued that the politics of grievance, rooted inour complex past, is giving way to the politics of aspiration.

    Or, as Thomas Friedman puts it, the weight of dreams is

    turning out heavier than that of memories. This election,

    powered by 60 crore voters, shows our democracy is firmly on

    that virtuous curve.

    For, anybody who built a campaign on negativism, prejudice,

    victimhood and vengeance has been demolished. The voter

    has, in fact, been even less forgiving with victims of hubris,

    with those who loftily announce themselves as next Prime

    Ministers without being sure of even 40 seats; those who build

    their own statues; and those who with a fraction of seats in

    Parliament aspire to control the nations foreign and

    economic policies without, of course, being accountable for

    anything. The Indian voter has always rejected arrogance andpomposity but has sometimes been forgiving to those with

    whom she might have found affinity of caste, religion or

    ethnicity. By jettisoning even that, the voter has shown new

    maturity. This didnt happen overnight. Over the past five

    years, we saw the voter increasingly reject the spoilers, the

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    rent-seekers. This election reaffirms that trend and

    vindicates the faith in those who deliver.

    There are other shifts, some stunning, some subtle. This will

    be Indias first post-1991 secular government elected

    without any help from the Left and in spite of its bitter

    opposition. So the voter has also junked the idea that Indian

    secularism needs certificates of legitimacy from the Left. Or

    that, somehow, you had to be godless to be secular.

    Such a ringing endorsement of incumbency also busts the

    myth that an angry voter throws out everybody. A mature,

    aspirational one thinks coolly and rewards good performance.

    You see that across states: the Congress scripts a brilliant

    revival in Uttar Pradesh but has its poorest score for any state

    in next-door Bihar where Nitish Kumar runs its first decent

    government in three decades. Similarly, nobody is swayed so

    easily by abuse and innuendo, particularly when directed at a

    leader seen as decent, honest, modest and well-meaning. The

    BJP erred grievously in making a man like Dr Manmohan

    Singh the main target of its attack, for being weak and

    ineffectual, because it was contra-factual and the voter

    had the equanimity to judge that. On the contrary, in this

    environment of insecurity, with terror attacks and job losses,

    India has shown that it finds greater comfort with a leader,

    mature and understated.

    His party now stands by him and its leaders Sonia Gandhi and

    Rahul Gandhi have been wise extending to him the respect

    and trust he so richly deserves. Having risked his head on his

    instinct twice, on economic reforms in 1991 and the nuclear

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    deal in 2008, Dr Singh will now feel the burden of high

    expectations. This mandate is such it leaves you no excuses.

    A final word about L K Advani, one of the last of the great

    long marchers of our politics, who once again finds himself on

    the wrong side of history. He has shown admirable grace in

    defeat and can have the satisfaction that he played a key role

    in bringing to Indian politics something it needed so badly

    a centre of gravity which, as this newspaper has argued, can

    only be found if the Congress and the BJP together have at

    least 325-350 seats so that rent-seekers cant hold

    governance to ransom. That this figure has mostly beenachieved, that the Centre will now hold, is another reason why

    Verdict 2009 deserves applause.

    Why 2009 may be most

    startling verdict since 1977

    Vandita Mishra Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at 0224

    hrs

    New Delhi : The verdict of 2004 was also a huge surprise, but

    it left a puzzle in its wake. The final all-India seats and vote

    share for the major alliances showed how difficult it was to

    claim that the Congress and its allies had won a mandate to

    rule.

    While the Congress had improved its tally to 145, an

    improvement of 31 seats over its worst-ever performance in

    1999, its vote share actually fell by 1.9 percentage points

    between the two elections. Barring the National Front of 1989

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    and the United Front of 1996, no other party or alliance had

    come to power at the Centre with such a small share of the

    popular vote. Compared to the 35.88 per cent of the NDA, the

    UPA secured a tiny lead of half a percentage point at 36.53.

    The difference in vote share between the Congress and BJP

    was 4.28 percentage points in 2004 the Congress got 26.44

    per cent and the BJP 22.16 per cent.

    Verdict 2009 is more like the verdicts of 1977 and 1980. Like

    them, it is startling. But unlike the 2004 verdict, it is clear. The

    winner, Congress, has notched an estimated 10 percentage

    point lead over the loser, BJP.

    Since the 1990s, a theme of Indian politics has been the

    decline of the two main national parties, Congress and BJP,

    and the ascendance of regional players. In the run-up to this

    election, it was widely predicted that the Big Two would

    become less decisive to the final outcome than ever before.

    The 2009 results defy that expectation in at least two ways:

    One, the Congresss 2009 tally is the highest won by either

    the Congress or BJP at the Centre since 1991. Also, the

    combined vote share of the Congress and BJP, that had

    plunged from 56.68 per cent in 1991 to 48.16 in 2004, has

    again risen above the 50 per cent mark in 2009.

    Conventional wisdom has it that the Congress does better inthe rural areas while the BJP bests the Congress in the urban

    vote. This understanding was first dented by the 2004 results

    in which the Congress-led UPA won most of the big cities.

    According to CSDS data, of the 74 urban seats in the country,

    the UPA won 35 while the NDA won 21.

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    This trend reversal has been accentuated in the 2009 elections

    the Congress-led alliance has swept Mumbai, Delhi,

    Chennai, Kolkata indicating that a genuine shift in the

    support base of the major players is taking place.

    It used to be said that the road to Delhi passes through UP.

    But in the last decade and a half, national politics has pursued

    a trajectory that is separate from UP.

    The old adage may be coming true again. The Congress-led

    alliances big win in 2009 at Centre runs alongside the

    stunning u-turn the partys fortunes have taken in UP, a state

    in which it had been virtually knocked out of the reckoning

    since it lost power in 1989.

    Ever since the collapse of Congress dominance in 1989, the

    state of Uttar Pradesh became the site for the unfolding of

    three national-level political projects. Majorities were sought

    to be cobbled through Mandir, Mandal, and social

    engineering BSP-style. The 2009 results indicate that allthree projects may have been exhausted or domesticated or

    both.

    In successive elections in UP, a sharp seat-vote

    disproportionality a structural feature of the first-past-the-

    post system has been on display. For instance, in 1991, the

    BJP got 31.5 per cent of the vote and 221 seats. In the next

    election in 1993, the BJP improved its vote share to 33.3 percent but its seats came down to 177. The party further

    improved its vote share to 33.9 in 1996 and further reduced its

    seats to 175. More recently, in 2007, Mayawati got only 30.4

    per cent of the vote, yet won 206 seats, an absolute majority.

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    For the first time after 1991, the Congress performance shows

    a congruence in seat and vote shares. The party has doubled

    both in UP since the last parliamentary election in 2004.

    The Left has hit a historic low. Its best ever performance in

    the 2004 LS polls has been undone by its worst-ever

    performance now since 1977.

    Lalu Prasad Yadavs RJD has posted its worst-ever

    performance, with its tally being lower than the previous low

    of 1999. Also, for the first time the erstwhile king of Bihar, and

    torchbearer of Mandal politics in the countrys north, is likely

    to be out of power both in the state and at the Centre. If the

    Congress offers him a Cabinet berth, it will be more as

    graceful acknowledgement of past loyalty than tribute to his

    power to dictate terms.

    Ever since the fracturing of the polity after the collapse of

    Congress dominance in the 1990s, decisive verdicts have been

    associated with emotive issues. Yet, Campaign 2009, shorn ofany emotive charge, has delivered a scintillating national

    verdict.

    The Lefts fork

    The Indian Express Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at

    0148 hrsHubris causes the fatal error of judgment that leads to the fall.

    When the Left Front won 60 seats in 2004, did anybody tell its

    leaders that that fall begins at the zenith, from the very

    moment of over-reach? The Lefts best-ever performance is

    followed now by its worst-ever since 1977. While party

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    strengths in Kerala routinely oscillate, Bengal has been the

    Lefts impregnable fortress since then. On Fort Bengal now

    flies the Trinamools flag. In Kerala, its victory in 2004 has

    been almost reversed now.

    As the Left introspects, as Messrs Bardhan, Karat and Raja

    indicated it would, how should it apportion blame? By now, its

    central leadership doesnt need to be reminded there was

    always a price to pay for decisions made in the air-

    conditioned ivory tower, disregarding opinions of state units.

    True, troubles in the states must be factored into the Lefts

    spectacular collapse the CPM was mortally wounded byNandigram and Singur, the Kerala state government has been

    a darkly comic boxing match between two titans but, in

    each case, state units have been let down by central leaders

    whose doctrinaire intransigence has now forced the Left out in

    the cold. If the TC-Congress momentum picks up from here,

    after the 2011 assembly polls in Bengal, left parties might find

    themselves reduced to a last, tiny bastion of Tripura. Theyve

    just proved themselves capable, in real terms, of losing

    Bengal.

    That fissures are now appearing in the Left will not surprise

    those who recall how the Bengal CPM was unhappy with Karat

    bulldozing the Left out of supporting the UPA last year. After

    four-plus years of dictating terms, Karat chose that moment,

    and the nuclear deal, to erase the Lefts credibility. Had it notblackmailed and betrayed the UPA, thered perhaps have

    been no TC-Congress alliance to hammer the CPM. Somnath

    Chatterjee, whom the party expelled over the trust vote, has

    called for mature leadership and warned that narcissistic

    leaders wont take the Left anywhere, anymore. The Lefts

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    come to a fork in its path; it must now choose between

    irrelevance and reinvention.

    Now, reform

    The Financial Express

    Posted online: May 17, 2009 at 2249 hrs

    Election 2009 has probably delivered the best ever political

    context for economic reform. A reformist, economically

    literate and economically liberal Prime Minister is back with a

    hugely enhanced personal-political stature. His core economic

    policy team has gained in stature as well. Therefore,

    opposition from within the Congress to reforms will be muted.

    There will be no opposition from outsidethe communists

    are out of influence and out of reckoning. They will be back to

    organising ineffectual strikes protesting inevitable changes.

    Indeed, it is striking that the two leaders who targeted

    Manmohan Singh as an individual have both had a bad

    election: LK Advanis leadership is under severe scrutiny as

    the BJPs numbers sink to a new low and Prakash Karat must

    explain the vanishingly small returns to his ideological

    brinkmanship. Dr Singhs personal profile right now looks

    even more impressive when set against these twos troubles.

    The PM also has the advantage of post-result political

    analyses being free of false theories about voter preferences

    against reforms. The 2004 Congress victory was complicated

    by such a theory. No such fanciful reasoning is possible thistime. The substantive reasoning should be this: as Dr Singh

    will know better than most, the economy needs a few mood-

    and investment climate-changing policy initiatives quickly. The

    PM has the political capital to deliver this now.

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    Some of the errors of the last policymaking apparatus can and

    should be avoided this time. Economic ministries and the

    education ministry should have high-calibre candidates. We

    can be fairly sure about the finance ministryall post-1991

    FMs have been well chosen. But for other ministries, merit

    must be made to count now that the Congress is on a

    stronger wicket in the UPA, and within the Congress, the non-

    performing gerontocracy is on a weaker wicket. Ideally, the

    PMs right to veto all ministerial appointments should be

    reasserted; allies may get to pick their ministries after

    negotiations, but the allys nominee should have the PMs

    minimum confidence. Again, in coalition politics, there has

    rarely been a better time than this to test the acceptability of

    this very reasonable proposal. Dr Singhs toughening as a

    politician started with his stand and his winning gamble on

    the nuclear deal trust vote. Returning as an incumbenta rare

    thing at the national levelmakes him an even more

    formidable politician. The politician Dr Singh must now aid the

    economist Dr Singh.

    Yesterday once more

    UPAs victory gives Manmohan Singh the opportunity to

    serve a historic second term, and Congress has that rare thing

    in politics, a second chance

    Sunil Khilnani

    The demand in New Delhi for cars with opaque windows, and

    for large suitcases, has suddenly dropped. The extraordinarydecisive victory of the Congress-led United Progressive

    Alliance (UPA) now gives it the opportunity to form a

    government without the usual, tortuous machinationsand

    with the nearest approximation to an electoral mandate that

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    India has seen in 25 years. The victory asserts Manmohan

    Singhs personal authority at the heart of government, and it

    vindicates his decision last year to

    dispense with

    Sunil Khilnani

    dependence on the Left parties. He

    now has the opportunity to serve a

    historic second term, and Congress

    has that rare thing in politics, a

    second chance. After the UPA

    government came to power in

    2004, it squandereddespite some

    golden economic yearsmany

    opportunities to develop

    infrastructure, to improve primary and higher education, to

    pursue financial reforms, to provide basic health, and to work

    towards stabilizing the region. Today, with a global recession,

    a high-risk neighbourhood, and increasing inequality at home,

    the need for a stable, coherent national strategy is urgent.With 206 seats, Congress must now get serious about creating

    onefree this time of coalitional encumbrances, and of

    pressures from its mismatched ideological partners.

    Even before the results came in, there were reasons to feel

    good about this election. Inflammatory rhetoric of the sort

    peddled by Varun Gandhi was more swiftly rejected than

    might have been a few years ago, reported violence was fairly

    minimal, and 60% of registered voters turned out. Newly

    delimited constituencies to some extent restored value to the

    individual vote (especially for urban citizens). Improved public

    monitoring of candidates allowed us to know, for instance, by

    how much the 300 members (source: Association for

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    Democratic Reforms) in the outgoing Lok Sabha personally

    enriched themselves over the past five years, while ostensibly

    conducting the business of government. In historical and

    political terms, yesterdays results give two further reasons

    for optimism.

    In the 2004 election, Indias plural identity was in question,

    weakened by BJP rule. Today, we can be a little more

    confident about sustaining that plural identity. The seductions

    of identity politics held little attraction in this election, and its

    great practitionersL.K. Advani, Mayawatiemerged losers.

    Such politics of course remain potent and destructive in the

    lives of ordinary Indians, but their capacity to dictate national

    policy has at least for the moment been constrained.

    In the neighbourhood:

    A man walks with a

    boy through the Jalala

    refugee camp near

    Mardan, in north-west

    Pakistan, earlier thisweek. Pakistans

    army lifted its curfew

    in the battle-scarred Swat valley on Friday, allowing thousands

    to flee as troops prepared for street battles with Taliban

    militants entrenched in the valleys biggest town. What

    happens in Pakistan is our problem tooand we need a

    government willing to address it. Greg Baker / AP

    Second, the results provide a useful corrective to the defining

    political dynamic of the last two decades. That dynamic was

    not the consolidation of a national electoral identity centred

    around Hindutva, nor the transformative rise of lower caste

    parties. Rather, it was the marked empowerment of Indias

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    regional states, beginning in the 1990s with a surge in new

    voters and political parties. Since that time, the mantra has

    been that our national elections are in fact a series of local

    elections. Yet this idea distorts the relationship between local

    and national issues. Agrarian unrest in a third of the

    countrys districts, access to water in scores of them: When

    exactly does a local issue become a national one? The

    localization of our politics sometimes entrapped vital matters

    of national interest into constituency ghettos. Now, a secure

    national party should work to make such local realities the

    stuff of national policy.

    Still, one should not too hastily declare the 2009 election as

    marking a return to the dominance of national parties. After

    all, the two national parties have together gained less than 40

    seats more in the new Lok Sabha than they won in 2004

    hardly a decisive shift. Yet this election does represent at least

    a slowing of the politys headlong regionalization, at a

    crucial moment in our engagement with the globeand the

    Congress, with 29% of the vote share, can claim to haveplayed a real role this. In a world that is remarkably uncertain,

    one where China, the US and other states are capable of

    acting in response to crisis with far more coherent will than we

    possess, and where international developments impinge with

    startling rapidity on the lives of the poor, India is now

    potentially in a better position to act and react on behalf of its

    citizens.

    It is now up to the new Congress-led government to make its

    opportunities. It will need first to articulate clearly what it

    takes Indias interests to beand then to be prepared to

    uphold these, in the face of domestic and international

    challenge. Perhaps most immediately pressing are the

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    uncertainties of our region. No amount of economic

    diplomacy can help us to escape our geography. What

    happens in and to Pakistan, and to its west, matters hugely to

    Indias future. It is our problemand we need a government

    willing to address it. At home, we will need to think more

    expansively about the principles and forms of redistribution

    to be willing to move beyond the politics of reservations. And

    globally, we cannot pretend that questions of the human

    habitat are of secondary concern to us. We have to take a lead

    in international initiatives.

    In coming days, the Congress will claim that the voters have

    affirmed its policies and achievements of the last five years.

    Indeed the unusual arc of the election lends this argument

    some credence. The left and right lost, broadly speaking, as

    masses turned out for the status quo. But while the pundits

    have already begun ventriloquizing about what the public

    chose in national terms, MPs across the country campaigned

    on gutters, water connections, roads. Every election spawns its

    mythsusually ones far worse than an invented nationalsatisfaction. Now, if the Congress can bring the local to the

    nationalas it could in its heydayits new term might deliver

    more that its last one.

    Sunil Khilnani is author of The Idea of India (Penguin, 3rd ed.

    2003)

    The making of a miracle

    Despite the odds, Indias recent economic performance has

    been closer to being miraculous

    Eye on India | Nirvikar Singh

    In 1993, the World Bank published a study on the causes of

    the unprecedented high growth of eight East Asian

    economies. It was provocatively titled The East Asian Miracle,

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    and inspired reams of further analysis and commentary. In

    retrospect, perhaps the growth experience of these countries

    was not so miraculousthey followed reasonably good

    economic policies that encouraged trade and investment.

    Most of all, those of the eight that did best already had, or

    developed, good initial conditions: stable societies with

    relatively high levels of education and broad participation of

    the populations in the economic transformation. China, the

    East Asian giant that followed in the footsteps of the eight,

    fitted the pattern in many respects.

    Through this lens, Indias recent economic performance has

    been closer to being miraculous. Its economic reforms have

    been incomplete, its democratic government is often creaky

    and ineffective, and its society is riven by fault lines. Yet it

    came tantalizingly close to matching East Asian rates of

    growth for a few years. The real success, however, will come

    from sustaining growth of 8% or more over a couple of

    decades. With a new government about to come into power,

    it is tantalizing to think how close India is to this goal, if it canimplement some key policy reforms. The feasibility of reforms

    is always a challenge, but what would be an ideal set of

    national policy moves to make an Indian growth miracle?

    The feasibility of reforms is always a challenge, but what

    would be an ideal policy set to make an Indian growth

    miracle?

    First, strengthen local governments economically. Give them

    real fiscal capacity by allowing them to piggyback on some

    state and Central taxes, as well as increasing transfers to local

    governments. Compensate the states by also giving them new

    tax authority, including piggybacking on the national income

    tax. Let states and local governments be responsible for

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    raising their own revenue at the margin, to cover their

    marginal expenditures. Fiscal decentralization will improve the

    efficiency of government expenditures, and simply make

    substantive the political decentralization that has already

    taken place in India.

    Second, push state and local governments to do their most

    important job, of delivering basic health, education and safety

    to their citizens. One by one, leaders in Indias states, even

    now in Bihar, have been figuring out that their electorates care

    most about good government in this fundamental sense. The

    Union government needs to set broad outcome goals, make

    block grants, and let the states compete to serve their citizens.

    Mobility and media have changed fundamentally from the

    India of 20 years ago, so that they provide checks on sub-

    national governments, and the apparatus of planning and

    doling out earmarked money for various schemes has

    long since become obsolete.

    Third, overhaul macroeconomic management, including the

    mechanisms governing monetary and exchange rate policysetting. There is far too little transparency in these policies, so

    that economic actors are left guessing as to what might

    happen, rather than having a clear and openly stated set of

    policy rules that allow for rational planning of investment and

    allocation decisions. On top of this opaqueness, there are still

    dozens of discretionary or even conflicting controls and

    restrictions that hinder the workings of domestic and

    international financial markets. The previous government

    commissioned superb studies on financial sector reform, and

    the time has come to carry out the recommendations.

    Fourth, keep pruning away the thicket of rules and

    regulations that still make doing business in India (including

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    starting and stopping) unnecessarily cumbersome. Just as with

    the old licence raj, many of the controls favour large firms and

    politically connected incumbents. Politicians should realize

    that, just as with corporate income taxes, they can increase

    their take by growing the base of successful businesses. One

    sector where a limited number of domestic incumbents

    cannot keep up with demand is higher education. The logic of

    liberalization applies strongly to this sector, which has been

    strangled for decades by inefficient government controls.

    Allowing businesses to flourish across the whole economy will

    be crucial to generating the additional employment

    opportunities that Indias young population needs.

    Perhaps the true miracle will be if any of the above changes

    are actually implemented. But in any of these four areas, there

    is so much room for improvement that even piecemeal and

    incomplete reforms can yield growth dividends. What is

    interesting is that many politicians, technocrats and academics

    have been articulating an agenda for reform that can enhance

    growth as well as expand the set of its beneficiaries. Thegreatest resistance seems to come from an old elite, a

    combination of civil servants and members of the

    intelligentsia.

    My guess, though, is that the tide has turned. The last

    government distributed some of the benefits of growth to the

    rural hinterland, crudely and inefficiently, but still with an

    impact: People now widely understand the possibilities and

    benefits of growth.

    As a version of that coalition returns to power, it will be the

    first continuous decade of rule after a long time, and may yet

    make a miracle happen.

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    Nirvikar Singh is professor of economics at the University of

    California, Santa Cruz. Your comments are welcome at

    [email protected]

    After at least a month of wrenching uncertainty about the

    complexion of the new Union government, the people of India

    voted decisively. The result was an anticlimax: Fears of a

    muddled verdict were swept aside and one coalition, the

    United Progressive Alliance (UPA), has been given a clear

    mandate to govern. The question now is, what should it dowith its victory and what will it do?

    In that sense, the coming years will have the appearance of a

    laboratory experiment. The UPA has been in power for the

    past five years, will be so for the next five (barring the

    exceptional, of course). In these years, the coalition dumped

    economic reforms and imbibed populism. It served India

    badly, even if it had a role in securing a victory.

    Now, of course, the UPA has no crutches to cope with. For the

    Left is gone and the numbers are decisive in their own

    right. This is the first time since 1991 that the road to reforms

    is not obstructed by electoral concerns. As a result, the UPA

    should waste no time: It should quickly initiate reforms that

    have the potential to shift the growth gears of India. Moving

    the country from 7%-plus annual growth to the 9% trajectory

    requires three things.

    Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint

    One, India needs to abandon its

    framework of labour laws.

    Freeing the labour market by

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    permitting companies to hire and fire workers at will,

    especially in the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector,

    has the potential to ignite growth. The timing for this is

    propitious: As the world enters a weakening phase of

    recession, India can work hard to make inroads into global

    markets.

    Labour market flexibility is one condition that can give India a

    cost advantage that countries such as China, Bangladesh and

    Vietnam possess.

    Labour market flexibility, however, has more to it than mere

    cost competitiveness. It will open the doors for job creation

    something that can be a powerful engine of progress, if

    implemented. The political returns to such a move should not

    be underestimated.

    Two, the country badly needs to move towards a rule-based

    fiscal and monetary policy mix. The absence of such a rule-

    based system has ensured that the fruits of liberalizing foreign

    trade and product markets have not been reaped. A rule-

    based system will also complement labour market reforms.Until now, the governments fiscal policy interventions have

    been ad hoc and are usually in the wrong direction, leading to

    inflationary situations. As a result, when it comes to

    firefighting, monetary policy has the potential to kill growth.

    Once all markets have been liberalized, it becomes all the

    more important to follow a rule-based system. Interest rate

    fluctuations, to give one example, have the ability to kill SMEs:

    No amount of labour reforms can keep them alive in adverse

    economic conditions created by a bad monetary-fiscal policy

    mix.

    In one sense, the coming five years of UPA rule will have the

    appearance of a laboratory experiment

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    How should the government proceed in this direction? As a

    first step, the Union government can go back to the discipline

    of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. The

    more difficult task will be that of convincing other political

    parties about the need and utility of policy continuity on this

    front. If the UPA can move along these lines, the chances that

    the next government will follow suit will increase dramatically.

    The success of such a rule-based platform can ensure this.

    Once these reforms are initiated, an economic transition can

    begin. One may say that that is what has been happening for

    the last 18 years, isnt that sufficient time to move towards

    open markets? The answer is yes only in a partial sense: For in

    the absence of labour market flexibility, no transition to an

    open economy is complete.

    Which brings us to the most important part of these reforms:

    the creation of a social security net during the transition. The

    UPA does not have to begin creating a safety net de novo. It

    already has a template in the form of the National Rural

    Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Turning NREGS inthat direction, however, will require extensive rejigging. But

    that may be worth a try. The government can also try out new

    innovations, such as direct cash transfers to the needy. That

    has the potential to save administrative costs and also control

    corruption associated with programmes such as NREGS. This,

    however, will be a big challenge.

    Will the UPA execute these reforms? It is a hard question to

    answer. If one looks at the necessary conditions for these

    reforms, one can say yes. But a necessary condition is not the

    same as a sufficient condition. That sufficiency has to come

    from the political leadership. That is a big imponderable.

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    INDIA RETURNS TO THE GRAND OLD PARTY

    By Ashutosh Varshney

    Published: May 16 2009 17:56 | Last updated: May 16 2009

    17:56

    It is impossible to deny that all of us underestimated the

    resurgence of Indias Congress party. It is also equally clear

    that undaunted by soaring heat and a long and exhausting

    campaign, roughly 420 million voters have produced the bestpossible outcome for India in what was the largest election of

    world history.

    Multiple factors are always involved in producing a clear

    outcome in Indian elections, but these elections will be widely

    read as a moment of national redemption and renewal and a

    retreat, though not the end of, parochial political noise.

    EDITORSCHOICE

    CONGRESS ALLIANCE WINS INDIAN ELECTION-MAY-16

    G IDEON RACHMANS BLOG :THE CONGRESS PARTY SPRINGS A

    SURPRISE-MAY-17

    CONGRESS VICTORY BODES WELL FOR INVESTORS -MAY-16

    OPPOSITION SUPPORT COLLAPSES IN INDIAN VOTE-MAY-16

    RESULT IS OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE TIES WITH PAKISTAN -MAY-16

    JOHN ELLIOTT :B IG WIN FORCONGRESS-MAY-16

    Indias economic downturn and security dilemmas require

    political stability and national resolve. Whether that is why the

    electorate produced such an unexpected verdict in favor of

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    the Congress alliance remains unclear, but the election results

    will take India in that direction.

    The wisdom of the electorate is often congratulated for such

    results. Only with greater election statistics, which will come

    later, can we establish the existence of such wisdom. It is,

    however, beyond doubt that a rising power like India, located

    in a dangerous neighborhood, needs such luck. Both South

    Asia and the world will be a better place as a result.

    The victory of the Congress alliance needs to be put in

    historical perspective. Right since the birth of the Indian

    republic -- indeed, right since the freedom movement --

    Indias tallest leaders have always intuitively grasped what

    their greatest challenge was: how to stitch the nations

    diversities together.

    It was called nation-building to begin with. Of late, it has

    come to be viewed as giving the various groups a share in the

    power structure.

    Historically, more than any other political organization, the

    Congress party has understood the centrality of this task. In

    terms of language, it was always federal, incorporating the

    various regional diversities into its internal structure. In terms

    of religion, it sought to bring Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and

    Christians together.

    But in terms of castes within Hindu society, Indias divided

    majority community, the challenges have been unexpectedly

    formidable. The Congress sought to put the upper castes,

    middle castes and the ex-untouchable Dalits together, but

    sandwiched between the upper castes and Dalits and feeling

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    uncomfortable with both, the middle castes, the largest

    demographic category of Indian society, started leaving the

    Congress in the 1950s and 1960s.

    By the 1990s, the migration of middle castes from the

    Congress in much of Northern India was nearly complete. In

    two of Indias biggest states, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar,

    the Congress was decimated by the mid-1990s.

    Once the middle castes and later the Dalits formed their own

    political parties, Muslims and the upper Hindu castes also did

    not wish to back a losing horse. They left the Congress,

    making its hold over power in Delhi extremely shaky.

    Basically, UPs size is so huge that without substantial

    support in UP, it is extremely hard to form a stable

    government in Delhi.

    The electoral revival of the Congress party in UP is the biggest

    news of these elections. It means a return of substantial parts

    of the Muslim community and upper castes, in addition to

    some middle castes. It also signifies weakening of lower caste

    parties that had begun to worry even those, who supported

    the ideology of social justice and greater power for lower

    castes. Unlike the plebeian parties of Southern India, the lower

    caste parties of UP, and also the neighboring Bihar, had

    become passionate advocates of a rather coarse form of

    identity politics. Arguing that Robin Hoods correctedsocial injustices on the ground, they openly celebrated

    Robin Hoods, inducted them in large numbers in their

    parties, and gave them offices.

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    Identity politics came to overwhelm law and order,

    governance and policy seriousness. The shock delivered to

    such parties in Northern India in these elections almost

    certainly represents new citizen aspirations for governance

    and development, not simply an embrace of caste identity.

    The defeat of the Communists, especially in West Bengal, also

    represents a triumph of national purpose. During 2004-2008,

    Indias Communists were noted for their resistance to

    economic reforms and nuclear deal.

    It is one of the hidden transcripts of Indian politics that in

    West Bengal, the Communists also represented a regionalist

    aspiration. Right through the 20th century, Kolkata and Delhi

    had an uneasy relationship. Kolkata was the center of British

    India till 1912, when the capital moved to Delhi. Since then,

    Kolkata and Bengal in general have felt an increasing erosion

    of power.

    The victory of a Congress alliance in West Bengal bringsKolkata into the national mainstream for the first time in over

    three decades. Two of Indias historic cities -- Kolkata and

    Delhi -- will now have a much better conversation, a

    development worth applauding.

    Finally, these elections have boosted the fortunes of Rahul

    Gandhi as a national leader and deepened the anxieties of the

    BJP about its future. In a coming-of-age press conference twoweeks ago, Rahul Gandhi made two arguments with clarity

    and passion.

    First, economic growth, he said, is a necessary (though not a

    sufficient) condition for poverty removal. No politician of

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    consequence in Indias mass politics (as opposed to its elite

    politics) has made this argument openly on public stage for

    decades.

    Second, he argued that internal elections were a pre-requisite

    for the revival of the Congress party, especially in UP but also

    elsewhere. For more than three decades, the discipline of

    political science has had a professional consensus on this

    point. It is striking to see a rising political figure agree so

    much with what the intellectuals and researchers have been

    saying.

    The rise of the Congress in UP is mostly due to Rahul

    Gandhis efforts. Many of the national gains of the Congress

    will also be attributed to his electoral campaign.

    The Congress party now has a leader not only known in the

    country for the accident of his birth, but also one whose

    politics appear to be based on ideas and arguments. For a

    whole variety of reasons, combining mass appeal with seriousarguments has not been easy in Congress politics for a long

    time. The Congress also has other younger-generation leaders

    of promise.

    In contrast, the BJPs future appears to be very shaky. Its

    current leader is too old to have the energy to lead for long,

    and the next in line is Mr Modi, Chief Minister of the state of

    Gujarat. Mr Modi, a hero of Gujarat and of the right wing ofthe party, is a deeply divisive figure.

    In March 2002, he presided over the greatest massacre of

    Muslims in independent India. The BJPs future is unlikely to

    be bright, unless it gets rid of its anti-Muslim prejudice and

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    becomes a Tory or Republican-style right-of-centre party. If

    Mr. Modi takes over the leadership of the BJP, this historical

    challenge is likely to be more elusive than ever.

    The 2009 elections redeem a pluralist and inclusive view of

    India, defeating narrower visions. The elections also promise

    political stability. When the campaign began in March, it was

    hard to imagine such a benign outcome for the country, South

    Asian region and the international system.

    The author is professor of political science at Brown

    University. His books include Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life:

    Hindus and Muslims in India, and Midnights Diaspora.

    S INGH IS RE-KING

    By Suhel Seth

    Published: May 16 2009 17:56 | Last updated: May 16 2009

    17:56

    Singh is Kingwas a blockbuster Bollywood film of 2008. Very

    few ever dreamt it would be the most apt post-poll slogan in

    Indias parliamentary elections.

    Never has an Indian election been so bitter, so debased and

    deprived of real issues. Never was an election fought sans

    issues. Never was a general election in India witness to

    deplorable personal attacks, but the lesson has now been

    swiftly learnt.

    EDITORSCHOICE

    CONGRESS ALLIANCE WINS INDIAN ELECTION-MAY-16

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    CONGRESS VICTORY BODES WELL FOR INVESTORS -MAY-16

    VOTERS DENY H INDU NATIONALIST OPPOSITION -MAY-16

    RESULT IS OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE TIES WITH PAKISTAN -MAY-16

    JOHN ELLIOTT :B IG WIN FORCONGRESS-MAY-16

    ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY :INDIA RETURNS TO THE GRAND OLD PARTY -MAY-16

    Where the parties got it horribly wrong was while their leaders

    were aging, the voter was getting younger and it is no

    surprise that hatred lost to hope. And progress and principles

    triumphed.

    The return of the Congress-led UPA is going to be a welcome

    signal but not without enhanced expectations and this is what

    should worry Manmohan Singh, who after Indias revered

    statesman, Jawaharlal Nehru will be the only ever person to

    become prime minister of this country twice in a row,

    throwing anti-incumbency to the winds.

    But like most elections, this one too has many lessons

    embedded in it and one hopes that those who craft thedestinies of Indias politics will pay some heed.

    Lesson # 1: There is a bigger religion than being Hindu or a

    Muslim and that is the faith of the economy. People want

    food on their table; jobs to go to and a home to live in. Riots

    destroy, they never build. This is a lesson that every political

    party must learn because in some way religious appeasement

    exists across the entire political spectrum.

    Lesson # 2: Given the fact that 65 per cent of Indias voter

    base is between the ages of 18 and 35, is indicative of what an

    ideal political campaign must be. It must feed on issues

    pertaining to development and progress and not be

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    regressive in its thinking. I believe the logic of aligning

    youthful idealism with policies and manifestoes is never more

    critical than it is in todays times.

    Lesson # 3: The time for alibis and excuses during the tenure

    of a government doesnt ever bode well when it comes to

    getting re-elected. The fact that the Communists have been

    decimated in these elections is both good and ironic. Good

    because they were the stumbling blocks to any kind of

    economic reforms in the previous regime and ironic because

    the only cadre-based political party in India is now left

    shattered.

    Lesson # 4: You have to sense the pulse and not the idiom

    whilst preparing for elections. Security was thought of as a

    critical issues after the Mumbai attacks but I guess the BJP

    didnt realise, from its own understanding of Hinduism, that

    we as a nation, and not just Hindus, are pretty karmic about

    death. What we worry more about is not being blown up by a

    bomb but instead not having any means of subsistence.

    Lesson # 5: The nation has moved from regionalism to

    federalism and this is a tremendous signal of the maturity of

    the Indian voter. We are now seeing the return of the two

    major parties: the Congress and the BJP and the demise of

    regional factionalism and certainly the blackmail opportunities

    that were effectively the birthmark of these fringe parties.

    Lesson # 6: The great divide between Bharat (rural or poor

    India) and India will remain. But this divide is easily bridged

    when it comes to voting in a government at the centre. And

    this time round, we have seen that divide melt because the

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    aspirations of the people remain the same even though the

    definition ad intensity may vary.

    Lesson # 7: Politics is no longer the refuge of the scoundrel

    and perhaps for the first time, we saw professionals, either as

    independents or as party candidates fighting elections. This

    augurs well for a country that either elected dynasties or rank

    crooks. This is perhaps the most significant progressive signal

    from these elections. It is this that must now guide candidate

    selection of these political parties. The earlier concept of

    winnability is no longer cast in stone.

    I believe India has moved many steps forward with these

    elections. We will continue to have an honourable man at the

    helm of affairs. My only hope is that this time round

    Manmohan Singh is able to cleanse his cabinet of some of

    those corrupt ministers who were part of his earlier

    government.

    We will also see the emergence of Rahul Gandhi as a politicianwho thinks from his head rather than acts from the heart and

    the transformation of Manmohan Singh from a technocrat to

    a statesman.

    In many ways, a perfectly happy ending just like we have in

    our Bollywood films!

    Suhel Seth is managing partner of Counselage, a brandingand marketing consultancy.

    India chooses Congress

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    India voted decisively for continuity and stability in the

    general election to the 15th Lok Sabha, giving the Congress-

    led United Progressive Alliance another five-year term in

    office. In contrast to 2004, the UPA, with close to 260 of the

    total 543 seats, will not need the support of the Left parties,

    and should be able to get a comfortable majority with the

    backing of the Samajwadi Party, which emerged as the single

    largest party in Uttar Pradesh. In terms of seats, this is the best

    performance by the Congress since 1991, the last time the

    country saw a single-party, although minority, government.

    Verdict 2009 gives little scope for the smaller parties or

    groupings to engage in backroom negotiations to decide the

    shape of the next government. The Congress holds all the

    aces. The prime ministership will not be up for bargaining, as

    some of the smaller players were hoping. For President

    Pratibha Patil, the task on hand couldnt be simpler: there is

    no need to consult constitutional experts to decide on whom

    to invite to form the next government. Manmohan Singh, the

    declared candidate of the Congress and the automatic choicefor Prime Minister, could be the first Prime Minister since

    Indira Gandhi to have two full terms.

    The triumph of the Congress was actually an aggregation of

    specific successes across different States. The party retained

    its base in Andhra Pradesh; cut its losses in Madhya Pradesh;

    recovered lost ground in West Bengal, Kerala, and Rajasthan;

    and combined well with its allies in Maharashtra and TamilNadu. There was no one big surprise anywhere, but the party

    pulled out one small surprise after another across the regions

    of India. When it seemed to take the long view in Uttar

    Pradesh and Bihar and spurned alliance offers by regional

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    players, few predicted any immediate gains for the party. But

    now, one of the significant features of this election is surely

    the re-emergence of the Congress as a key player in Uttar

    Pradesh, Indias most populous state, where 80 seats are on

    offer. The same strategy did not work of course in Bihar,

    where the alliance of the Janata Dal(United) and the Bharatiya

    Janata Party rode on the good track record of Chief Minister

    Nitish Kumar. All the same, the Congress seems to have sown

    the seeds of its own resurgence by adopting a long-sighted

    strategy in the two key Hindi-speaking States.

    The principal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party,needed to expand beyond its core support base to get ahead

    of the Congress. This it was unable to do. In 2004, the BJP

    fared very well in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,

    Gujarat, and Karnataka the States where it is locked in a

    more or less direct fight with the Congress. To merely repeat

    that success would have been a considerable achievement.

    But this time, it lost badly in Rajasthan and yielded some

    ground in Madhya Pradesh. The successes in Gujarat,

    Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka could not compensate for the

    losses sustained in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. To have a

    realistic chance of forming the government, the BJP not only

    had to hold its ground in the Hindi belt; it also needed its

    allies to do well. While the JD(U) obliged in Bihar, the Shiv

    Sena disappointed in Maharashtra. The honours were more or

    less even in Punjab. But more importantly, potential post-pollallies such as the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana

    Rashtra Samiti in Andhra Pradesh and the All India Anna

    Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu did not do as well

    as they were expected to. And this came after the

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    demoralising loss of a long-time ally, the Biju Janata Dal, in

    Orissa. After reaching a plateau in the Hindi belt, the BJP

    needed to grow outside its traditional strongholds to really

    threaten the Congress. In recent years, its only success in this

    regard has been Karnataka. But in other States in the south,

    the party is far from being a player of any significance.

    Other than the BJP, the big loser in the current election is the

    Left. In both West Bengal and Kerala, the Left parties suffered

    severe reverses; if the loss in the southern State can be

    explained in terms of the customary swing of the pendulum,

    the failure to win a majority of seats in the eastern State is thefirst in more than three decades. This has meant that the Left

    parties will no longer be the influential force they were at the

    Centre between 2004 and 2008. Although they were not part

    of the UPA government, the Left parties helped shape a

    Common Minimum Programme and kept up pressure on the

    government to comply with it. Factional infighting in Kerala,

    and a strong oppositional, even if opportunistic, alliance in

    West Bengal, have succeeded in beating back the Left, which

    will need to do serious introspection on where it went wrong.

    In a tough contest, the UPA overcame not only the anti-

    incumbency factor, but also the shrill, communal campaign of

    the BJP. But the mandate must not be read as an unqualified

    endorsement of all that the UPA government did in the last

    five years. In many States, regional issues came into play. TheSri Lankan Tamil issue dominated campaign rhetoric in Tamil

    Nadu, but the voters rewarded neither those who advocated

    the cause of the LTTE nor those who blamed the humanitarian

    crisis in Sri Lanka on alleged complicity and inaction by the

    Central and State governments. In Bihar, the fight became a

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    virtual referendum on the performance of the Nitish Kumar-

    government after years of Lalu-Rabri rule. In Maharashtra, the

    split in the Shiv Sena engineered by Raj Thackeray seems to

    have played as big a role as the coming together of the

    Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress. India faces a

    number of internal and external challenges: in particular, the

    impact of the global economic slowdown, and the tensions

    and instability in the neighbourhood. The UPA must guard

    against complacency and must use this second innings to

    improve governance and respond effectively to the big

    challenges.

    VOTE FOR STABILITY ,SONIAS TRIUMPH

    May 17 2009

    The way the Congress Party, at the head of the UPA, has

    powered its way back to government is the stuff of legend.

    From July last year, when the parliamentary majority of the

    Manmohan Singh government had to be reconfirmed amid

    controversy and rancour in the light of withdrawal of support

    by the Communist-led group, the Left and the Hindu Right

    and their allies had acted in tandem although not

    necessarily by design to harass the Congress, its policies

    and its Prime Minister. The people have now spoken, reposing

    their trust in a party which has, surprising everyone, picked up

    support in regions where it had been relegated to the margins

    in recent decades. The Congress has gathered about 45 percent of the national vote share in contrast with approximately

    26 per cent for the BJP, underlining the difference in their

    respective popularity. There are glimpses in this impressive

    Congress victory of the famous win of 1971 when Indira

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    Gandhi had routed the Grand Alliance of the Opposition

    parties led by stalwarts. The clear storyline of this election is

    the ignominious defeat of the Left and the drubbing of the

    BJP-led Right. There can be no ambiguity that people are

    asking them probing questions about their role in national

    affairs. It should indeed be a surprise if the organisational

    structure of these formations does not feel the impact of this.

    In this election the Congress could only bank on the DMK and

    the Trinamul Congress as firm allies. The NCP has to be

    excluded from this list as it was in the habit of unleashing

    friendly fire in concert with the Left and the Third Front. As it

    happens, the Congress two rock-solid allies exceeded their

    own expectations and turned in impressive performances. The

    Trinamul Congress, led by the feisty Mamata Banerjee, has

    turned the politics of West Bengal on its head. In Tamil Nadu,

    the DMK has made a mockery of past trends and stupefied

    analysts and rivals who pointed to anti-incumbency. In Andhra

    Pradesh, the Congress beat back anti-incumbency to regain its

    clout in the state Assembly and won more seats in the LokSabha than in 2004. This is an extraordinary achievement. In

    the Congress scheme, there can be no two ways now that

    Rahul Gandhi is the man to watch, even as Manmohan Singh

    has led the government with deftness. Inveterate critics of the

    party and the Nehru-Gandhi family will be hard put to deny

    Mr Gandhis billing as a national leader of substance after his

    fashioning of the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar strategy of going it

    alone, and campaigning with maturity and lan across the

    country. His sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be

    remembered for the role she played in this election, her easy

    wavelength with the poor being the hallmark of her style.

    Outside the Congress and the UPA, two impressive politicians

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    stand out Bihars Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) leader who is

    with the BJP-led NDA, and Orissas Naveen Patnaik, who

    recently left the NDA to associate with the Third Front being

    self-righteously chaperoned by the Left. They are among the

    younger generation leaders that India may look to in future. In

    contrast, Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party appears to have

    rolled over without a fight, surprising even critics.

    With the Congress huge win comes huge responsibility. It

    has been a quarter century since the party ruling the Centre

    has been returned to power, and the Congress has come back

    with a vastly improved performance. The winning touch that

    Mrs Sonia Gandhi has shown enables her to seek to forge a

    politics of consensus with non-UPA parties, especially with the

    likes of Mr Patnaik and Mr Kumar. At the level of policy, the

    immediate attention must be on policies to fight back the

    economic downturn. Stimulating the infrastructure sector is

    critical even if the deficit cannot be reined in immediately. The

    situation in Indias neighbourhood is extremely worrying and

    needs a sure touch. At a difficult time, our people have votedfor stability.

    A VOTE FOR DECENCY AND DEVELOPMENT

    By By Shiv Visvanathan

    May 17 2009

    Everyone loves a winner. But the winner of this election is not

    the Congress, but the people. What came up clearly was the

    wisdom of the polity. While every pollster was discussing

    tactics, especially the instrumentality of alliances, the people

    of India gave a clear signal for strategy.

    The voter as a collective entity had two realistic options before

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    him. He could have created a hung Parliament, leaving every

    party foraging for votes. This would have brought down the

    politicians a peg or two instead of merely consuming it.

    Secondly, the voter could have given a clear message, which

    was not a clear-cut one. What we received was a vote for

    decency and development but the message came at several

    levels.

    Firstly, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) has

    been decimated in Kerala and Bengal. At a national level, the

    CPI(M) had played the dog in the manger and has been voted

    out for its negativism. At the regional level, it has been

    responsible for murder and rape.

    Anyway, it was a walking anachronism and deserved to be

    dumped. Yet one hopes that while the Left as a party has been

    voted out, the Left as an imagination should hopefully survive.

    This in fact is going to be one of the great challenges before

    the Congress. It will be called upon to create a new vocabulary

    of rights and justice, especially around the informal economy.

    This election has been a middle class lesson, a vote fordecency and development. The decency comes from the fact

    that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is out of Orissa. No party

    responsible for carnage deserves to survive and alarm bells

    rang at the right time for Naveen Patnaik to respond.

    The message is clearer in Lucknow where the electorate

    expects Page 3 to stay out of Page 1. The electorate has

    expressed its impatience with the Amar Singh kind of

    interventions whether around Jaya Prada or Sanjay Dutt. The

    same relief operated in West Bengal where the electorate,

    tired of the rape and murder, has un-loosened the self-

    imposed grip of the boa constrictor called the CPI(M).

    It is not that the BJP has done badly. It merely fell prey to its

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    favourite virus, complacency. One notices that the voter

    always punishes the Congress for arrogance and the BJP for

    complacency.

    This is an election that will say goodbye to a whole

    generation. One feels a touch of loss for L.K. Advani. But one

    accepts the logic of time. One must emphasise that the youth

    voted not for youth but for the party that struck the best

    balance between youth and experience. The Congress

    between Rahul Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh created that

    effect. In that sense, it was a vote for governance and not

    dynasty. It is not soft support but a reminder to the Congress

    that the millstone of CPI(M) politics is no longer there. It is a

    nudge to remind it about the reforms it has been lackadaisical

    about.

    The Left and BJP have to re-work their image. The BJP has to

    realise that Hinduism has rejected Hindutva. The Left has to

    create a more innovative idea of justice. Justice is not an egg

    hatched by the commissars of the party. In this context, Nitish

    Kumars victory is impressive. His victory shows how an ismcan still create a model of governance. Mr Nitish Kumar has

    created a time machine which has moved Bihar into

    modernity. In fact, Mamata Banerjee and Mr Nitish Kumar

    have created history, one negatively and the other positively.

    To expect Ms Banerjee to expand on her victory may be

    looking a gift-horse in the mouth.

    The real question is around the BJP. The era of Atal Behari

    Vajpayee and L.K. Advani is over and what it has left is a

    Narendra Modi attempting to bridge communalism and

    development. The question is can Mr Modis model of

    development be even more dangerous that his model of

    communal politics.

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    The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has been told something

    simple. As long as its politics follows a vision of inclusion, it

    will survive. It will succeed as long as it gives pride and dignity

    to marginals. But it must realise that narcissism is no

    substitute for human dignity and that monuments show little

    understanding of the politics of sacrifice.

    One must be clear that this election is a transitional one. It has

    emphasised decency because no grand vision was available. It

    has rejected archaisms especially if they were cantankerous,

    pompous or dogmatic. It is a gentle hint that the Congress

    must go back to retain the mentality of a coalition. But to say

    a new middle class imagination is emerging is to jump the

    gun. We still need new theories of justice, sustainability and

    plurality. No party has created this.

    The electorate has only created a space of clarity. It is also

    asking the Congress to complete the experiments it began.

    Can the Congress do for India what Mr Nitish Kumar did for

    Bihar? There is a rider. It is also asking the Congress to create

    a model of development without the traumas that Mr Modipromises to attach to it. This is the vote which rejects marginal

    opportunism, while asking for diversity. It is clear that it wants

    security but not one based on machismo. This election has no

    finality. It is more like an interval within a movie. The action

    will soon begin.

    Yet one should never see politics only in terms of the events

    that happen. There are players in the backstage. One of them

    is nature. Nature has been kind to India, to the Congress over

    the last few years. It is the moral luck of nature, expressed in

    the absence of major droughts that shaped the Congress

    victory. Secondly, the Congress can claim a stable economy

    undamaged by major recession. This too is actually an

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    achievement of the past, of a conservative economy, which is

    really a socialist hang over. Nature, history and the electorate

    have given a provisional yes to the Congress.

    * Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

    USE THIS HISTORIC VICTORY

    If the mandate of Elections 2009 tells us something loud and

    clear, it is this: governance pays.

    Even as the pundits furiously muttered, chattered and

    twittered, reaching a frightful crescendo as they played a

    strange version of Sudoku a day before Saturdays results,

    the people of India chose their government without help from

    pocket calculators. They have given a historic mandate for the

    UPA government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and its

    policies. At the same time, they have rejected the surreal,

    distasteful numberpolitik that had made strange, mutant

    political formations such an ominous prospect. This marks a

    return to old-fashioned parliamentary elections where the

    people and not hard-boiled demand-supply politics

    decide who will represent them in Parliament.

    The choices provided by the flotsam of the Third and Fourth

    Fronts have been exposed for what they always were: at best,

    professional nay-sayers; at worst, fly-by-night operators. But

    with the UPA now without albatrosses like the Left around its

    neck, we expect the Congress-led government to press its

    foot more firmly on the gas of reforms and take out forward-

    looking policies from the deep-freeze.

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    Does Verdict 2009 mark the end of Big Regiona-lism? Hardly.

    Nitish Kumars success in Patna is really a micro-version of

    Prime Minister Singhs in Delhi. Both have been rewarded by

    an electorate that has grown increasingly aware of the

    benefits of and the need for good boring

    governance. It is the regional politics in its most narrow avatar

    extreme identity politics that has been finally exposed

    for its overreach. A dozen tails will no longer be wagging the

    dog.

    Indias voters believe Mr Singhs government is the right

    one to take India forward in these unsteady times. It is now upto the new, unfettered, unhindered UPA government to show

    what it can do with our future.

    Marxist leader Prakash Karats dream of a Third front

    alternative to the Congress and the BJP has disappeared in

    smoke with the poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls of

    his two mercurial women warriors: Mayawati and Jayalalithaa.

    It was critical for both of them to deliver a sizeable chunk of

    seats to the Third Front kitty on the basis of which Karat could

    drive a hard bargain with the Congress in government

    formation. Their palpable failure to do so has made the Third

    Front collapse even before it could take off.

    In the case of Mayawati, there is little doubt that the biggest

    mistake she had made was to assume that the electoral

    template of the current Lok Sabha polls was the same as that

    of the 2007 Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh when she had the

    tail wind of a widespread Mulayam phobia across the state

    propelling her from behind. She had quite forgotten that two

    years later she herself was heading into some serious

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    turbulence relating to her poor record of governance. Not

    surprisingly, the formidable social alliance of Dalits, poor

    backwards, Muslims and Brahmins came apart at the edges

    without the anti-Mulayam glue to keep it together.

    There is also reason to believe that in her obsession to

    become Prime Minister, Mayawati stretched herself too thin

    across the country neglecting her only bastion, Uttar Pradesh.

    For instance she hardly addressed any public meetings in her

    home state till the penultimate stage of the election

    campaign, choosing instead to hold rallies in far-flung areas in

    southern and eastern India where she had no hope to pick upa single seat. She ended up ignoring her own turf which was

    being fast encroached by the Congress, which has resurrected

    itself in Uttar Pradesh.

    Jayalalithaa showed similar arrogance: she sought to steamroll

    her way back to power in Tamil Nadu. Much like Mayawati,

    the Tamil empress was over confident about her hold on the

    faithful and taking for granted the challenge posed by her

    opponents. A good example is the way she taunted the DMK

    and its central ally, the Congress, on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue

    disregarding the sensitive nature of the issue. It was this

    completely cynical approach to politics that allowed a panicky

    DMK to reorganise itself at the last moment and turn the

    tables on her.

    It may be tempting to read in the setbacks to Mayawati and

    Jayalalithaa and the astounding victory of the Congress as the

    end of the road for the Third Front and the diminishing of

    regional parties. But it should not be forgotten that the same

    Lok Sabha polls has also yielded victories for two regional

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    leaders and cms like Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik. The

    fact that in both states, purely regional planks have won over

    the supposedly superior national agendas of parties like the

    Congress and the BJP.

    Yet, it may be instructive to note the difference in style and

    substance of down to earth leaders like Nitish Kumar and

    Naveen Patnaik with the far more overtly ambitious Mayawati

    and Jayalalithaa. The cms of Bihar and Orissa have gone out of

    their way to play down personal ambition and project a

    certain degree of sub-nationalism that sought to connect to

    the local populace. In sharp contrast, the Dalit empress andthe Tamil amma appeared to putting forward themselves

    above the interests of the people.

    Clearly, the results of the Lok Sabha polls are a wake up call to

    both Mayawati and Jayalalithaa to not ignore basic political

    realities. Both have suffered many defeats before and

    achieved several victories. It should not be difficult for them to

    take the electoral debacle in their stride and prepare for fresh

    battle.

    As far as the prospects of the Third Front alternative is

    concerned, it may be unwise to entirely bury the idea,

    however, laughable it may be at the moment. Indian politics

    have shown a strange propensity to twist and turn in the past

    and it may not take long before regional parties are back in

    business.

    AJOY BOSE IS THE AUTHOR OF BEHENJI :APOLITICAL

    BIOGRAPHY OF MAYAWATI.

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    Congress won conclusively

    Swapan Dasgupta

    There is a facile explanation that many of those who neither anticipatednor wished for a Congress victory in the general election may fall back on.

    It goes something like this: the Congress and UPA surge was contributed

    by its spectacular successes in Kerala, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and

    Tamil Nadu where its principal opponent was either the Left or another

    constituent of the ramshackle Third Front. The implication is that the NDA

    by and large held its ground.

    Such an explanation would be an exercise in complete self-delusion. The

    harsh reality which should be obvious to all is that the Congress won thematch quite conclusively. The formal numbers may suggest that the pre-

    poll UPA will need som