The Verdict
Ten days after the verdict in favor of NDA in Election 2014, I would like to say that I am surprised, at the scale of the victory achieved by the NDA. However, my views on NaMo remain unchanged. Electoral legitimacy cannot make one change ones view about a person. However, there is hope for each and every person including Narendra Modi. His actions rather than utterances will be under close scrutiny.
For starters an optimist like me cannot despair at the complete defeat of good in this mahabharat, but as they say the battle is lost but the war has begun. This is a war to rescue the soul of India and to win this war even a handful of crusaders is enough. The fallacy of the system first past the post leads to this skewed result. I am quoting from stats from an article by P. Sainath.
Nationally, the BJP got 31 per cent of the vote and 282 seats. The Congress got 19.3 per cent of the vote and 44 seats. As Siddharth Varadarajan writes, that’s a 12 per cent difference in votes, but an over 500 per cent difference in seats.
The power of money in this election is unprecedented, the law which allows parties expenditure to be not clubbed with candidate helped. A media owned and controlled by corporates who was the next messiah for them gave disproportionate coverage to Modi and every speech was covered live at all times, in fact timed to influence voters on voting day where campaigning had ended. The unwillingness of media to ask inconvenient questions and of Modi to debate real issues was the hall mark of this election. Whereas he justifiably criticized congress for vote bank politics and celebration of poverty, Modi cleverly used his hench men to divide and polarize voters and project a mask of development and modernism. Modi is a image and a perception created to cash in on the bankruptcy of his opponents.
Honestly, UPA and NDA are tools in the hands of corporate interests and will loot and plunder Idia and hand over lollipops to the rich, resulting an accelerated inequality set in motion by the ex PM in his avatar as the FM. Modi's past will haunt him till he regrets it and reaches out to those who have suffered in his regime.
We have lived through and overcome Indira Gandhi's emergency, we will overcome these days too.
For starters an optimist like me cannot despair at the complete defeat of good in this mahabharat, but as they say the battle is lost but the war has begun. This is a war to rescue the soul of India and to win this war even a handful of crusaders is enough. The fallacy of the system first past the post leads to this skewed result. I am quoting from stats from an article by P. Sainath.
Nationally, the BJP got 31 per cent of the vote and 282 seats. The Congress got 19.3 per cent of the vote and 44 seats. As Siddharth Varadarajan writes, that’s a 12 per cent difference in votes, but an over 500 per cent difference in seats.
In UP, the BSP got nearly 20 per cent of the votes and zero seats. The Congress in that state got less than 8 per cent of the vote but won two seats. The Samajwadi Party got 2.6 per cent more than the BSP and got five seats. The BJP got just over 42 per cent of the vote - and close to 90 per cent of the seats.
In Seemandhra, the difference between the TDP-BJP front and the YSRCP in the Lok Sabha polls was barely 2 per cent. The combine however got twice the number of seats the YSRCP did.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK got 23.6 per cent of the vote - and bagged zero seats. The BJP-led five-party alliance got 18.6 per cent but bagged two seats. There were five-cornered fights in many places. That is, the AIADMK, the DMK, the BJP-led alliance, the Congress and the Left. Ultimately, the AIADMK took all but two of the 39 seats with 44 per cent of the vote.
In West Bengal, the Left Front got nearly 30 percent of the vote and just two seats. The Congress got less than 10 per cent but took four. The Trinamool Congress got 40 per cent of the vote, but 80 per cent of the seats, winning 34 of the 42 in the state.
Do these kinds of waves hold much water? Some 60 per cent of Indians who voted did not favour the BJP and its allies.
Is it time to consider bringing in some degree of proportional representation? Perhaps, for a start, by placing a third of Lok Sabha seats under PR while the rest remain in the first-past-the-post system. We’d be able to compare the outcomes.
So for my critics and gloating NaMo bhaktas 60% of voting Indians have rejected NDA. And remember only 66% of the eligible voters voted. However, this happens in every election. The underlying current of this election is a rejection of Congress, therefore in straight fights where the BJP was pitted in a contest against Congress it won, but in places where there were many parties like UP the division of votes worked in its favor.The power of money in this election is unprecedented, the law which allows parties expenditure to be not clubbed with candidate helped. A media owned and controlled by corporates who was the next messiah for them gave disproportionate coverage to Modi and every speech was covered live at all times, in fact timed to influence voters on voting day where campaigning had ended. The unwillingness of media to ask inconvenient questions and of Modi to debate real issues was the hall mark of this election. Whereas he justifiably criticized congress for vote bank politics and celebration of poverty, Modi cleverly used his hench men to divide and polarize voters and project a mask of development and modernism. Modi is a image and a perception created to cash in on the bankruptcy of his opponents.
Honestly, UPA and NDA are tools in the hands of corporate interests and will loot and plunder Idia and hand over lollipops to the rich, resulting an accelerated inequality set in motion by the ex PM in his avatar as the FM. Modi's past will haunt him till he regrets it and reaches out to those who have suffered in his regime.
We have lived through and overcome Indira Gandhi's emergency, we will overcome these days too.
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