Lok Sabha 2009

Singh is King again as Congress wins over 200 seats. Not even the congress expected this kind of mandate. Congress allies also did well, especially Trinamool Congress which won the Battle of Bengal against the Left Front. NCP and DMK the other UPA allies did pretty good as well.

BJP did worse than 2004. In 2004 difference between BJP and Congress was about 6 seats. This time around it is 80 due to a much better result for the Congress in Rajasthan, Andhra, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarkhand and most importantly UP.

My 2 cents of analysis on the BJP defeat. It seems that the BJP never did come out of their denial after the 2004 polls. Creating and exploiting short term volatile religious situations in Kandhmal, Amarnath, Pilibhit and Ram Setu did not seem to have gone well with the polity. They really lacked a sincere approach and a clear way forward. They never looked like the party with a differnce as in 1998. As the opposition party their flip-flop on the nuclear deal and their hotch potch stance cost them a lot of credibility in the minds of the people.

So what about multi sector reforms in the new UPA government? Kamal Nath said that he prefers calling it streamlining of issues and not reforms. His ally DMK member Maran said this is not a good time for privatization because of diminished market value. Is this an indication of things to come? Vir Sanghvi said on NDTV that R&S do not believe in the trickle down effect of the growth resulting from market reforms and that this is government is no agent of the CII. Shekhar Gupta seemingly summed it by saying that no government is 100% while giving a Don Bradman analogy. However Dalal street seems to be content with the fact that the verdict is not fractured.

One final comment. It seems Barkha Dutt is getting increasingly annoying on NDTV. One gets a feeling she has become a limelight hogger than a serious journalistic analyzer. She seems to bask in glory when some senior politician calls her Barkhaji. The constant interrupting of guest speakers is something else that needs to be pointed out to her. Perhaps she could learn a thing or two from Prannoy Roy and Vikram Chandra.