Assembly elections prior to the Loksabha elections are
always important. It gives a trailer of how general elections are going to look
like. It does not just show the picture of those states but also gives an
overview of the mood country is in. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and
Delhi gave a clear mandate that they prefer Bhartiya Janata Party over Congress
(I). 70% seats are won by BJP and
congress got only 20% seats. This is a clear victory by BJP. BJP is going to
form a govt in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh with clear majority.
Delhi’s result showed an excellent debut by AAP (Aam Aadmi
Party). A party which is just few months old, took on two national parties and
came out with more than 30% of votes and is second largest party. Many ridicule them by saying, “char aadmi ki
party”, but people have voted them with hips and bounce. This is a historical
moment, not only in Indian Politics but also in World’s Politics. It showed
that there is nothing impossible and people can bring the change if they want
it.
Congress though has clearly lost in all states. However
positive point for congress is that they have lost only few % of overall votes.
Although results are showing major decline, if percentage of votes are considered,
congress still got huge amount of votes. Swing in all states is somewhere
around 2 to 3%. Chattisgarh, they lost few seats with a margin of less than 5%
of votes. So there is a still hope for congress to do better if they listen to
the people’s voice. One of the major mistake that Congress did was not
announcing their chief minister candidature in Madhya Pradesh. Sonia Gandhi have
realized that mistake and indicated that for general election, they must
declare their Prime Minister candidate.
BJP must have found relief for hanging on to Chattisgarh
which at one point seemed like going to Congress way due to sympathy vote. BJP
must be happy seeing Rajasthan result but now comes a very critical stage,
where they must not make any mistake in 3-4 months in Rajasthan. They
desparately need 20+ seats from Rajasthan as they do not have much presence in
Southern part of India. Also, BJP must realize that how Vasundara Raje and
Narenra Modi campaiging in Rajasthan has worked. They must bring back Yedurappa
if they want major votes in Karnataka. Couple of days back, Namo met Udhav
Thackrey to make sure, all is well in Maharashtra for BJP-Shiv Sena alliance.
NAMO’s focus for next few months will be around Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and
hence he needs to quickly wrap up Maharashtra-Karanataka with U.Thackrey and
Yedurappa.
Madhya Pradesh’s result were expected for BJP due to
excellence governance by chief minister Shivraj Chauhan. Also the fact that Uma
Bharati joined back BJP in Madhya Pradesh, assured increase of 20-30 seats.
Victory in MP also means that if NAMO card back fires from BJP in 2014 general
elections than BJP already have the second string ready for 2019. Shivraj
Chauhan has shown great capability to be a national leader and he will be the
big name to recon with in coming years.
Delhi is going to be the hot spot for few days. Since BJP
needs only 4 seats to form the govt some sort of horse trading will take place.
Although Dr.Harshwardan (BJP’s chief minister candidate) has indicated that BJP
would not like to do such things and are happy to sit in opposition, but
general logic says, there will be few attempts. AAP has already indicated that
there are folks from BJP calling for it but it will interesting to see what
actually happens in few days. Both BJP and AAP’s credibility will go down if
such things do happen and both parties will be aware of it. If re-elections
takes place, both BJP and AAP will have an advantage and voters will consider
either of them more compare to Congress or other candidates.
Questions though remain on how AAP will be able to handle
many scenarios in politics. Do they have experience to handle capital city’s
problems from all corners? Can they successfully deliver major events such as
Commonwealth? Considering their in-experience will they be able to remain
united for 5 long years? It is one thing to get the votes and it is another
thing to actually run the government. Yes, it is a brilliant start from them,
but can they hang on and actually deliver what they promise? There are question
marks for them, but at this moment, they must celebrate because this has
changed the Politics of India and probably World.
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