Lessons from the recent elections for those who wish to learn!!

Myths that were broken in the recent elections are aplenty. Some of them are: Media shape up the mind of people, caste and religious sentiments will play dividends, age will be a factor to attract voters, people don’t forget or forgive your past, individuals matter more than the party they belong etc.

First the media, that needs to report facts were very much off the mark and they even imagined that they can dictate the agenda, set priorities. Especially the visual media and more particularly the English channels: One of them in the beginning itself predicted that this time in UP, the worst losers would be the BJP and BSP. Congress would throw up a lot of surprise and SP would come to power. Having defined their theme they even went to the extent of giving undue publicity to Rahul, Priyanka and her children. Every sneeze was reported, they kept trail all through and in reality the coverage should be added to the expenses of the Congress party poll expenditure by the election commission.

All the media reported that BJP will lose Punjab and Uttarakhand went mum on Goa as also Manipur as it was not comfortable for them. Simultaneously all of them reported the negative side of these 2 states and deliberately suppressed the scams, unruly incidents in Goa, Manipur. However, barring Manipur that is totally an aberration. The innocent voter of our country proved all of them not only wrong but terribly off the mark. Will the 4th estate ever learn a lesson, No, they will not because they are part of a great agenda to portray truth as they perceive to be rather than the reality. Sooner then later they will perish for their own misdeeds.

Congress having lost its sensibilities and also its moorings long time ago was in a state of complete confusion and contradictions. They couldn’t take a stand on any issue. They couldn’t attack Mayawati for corruption since they were deeply mired with it at the Centre. They couldn’t talk of any development as none of the Congress Governments performed and hence they couldn’t present a clean image. Suddenly their ministers went berserk and brought up the quota issue to instigate the minorities and appease them which is what they were famous for, but this back fired including the election commission not approving of it and becoming a big controversy. Traditionally the Congress believed that the backwards, minorities and more particularly the Muslims are their support base and this got shattered inspite of best attempts to mislead and fool them. The so called `Vote banks’ got evaporated and the only saving grace was their last minute tie up with Ajit Singh’s party that too by an opportunistic bait of Central Cabinet berth to someone whose party was rightly termed as a `Taxi’ for hire at anytime and by anybody! Like father Chaudhry Charan Singh whose only ambition was to become the Prime Minister of India, Ajit Singh and his son too clamor for posts and have no scruples. They are the modern avatars of `Aya Ram Gaya Ram’ of Harayana.

Rahul toured Uttar Pradesh for the last 2 yrs and did several histrionics. Padayatra, agitation-arrests, going to houses to have meals with them which many social workers do as a routine, crocodile tears for farmers and also misquoted figures that actually hit back clearly was the sign that he was launching himself to become the Prime Ministerial choice of the Congress for the next hustings. He was single handedly projected as the heir apparent and also some in the bandwagon even stated this to please him and probably his mother. After all sycophants always are the most preferred choice of the family from `Indira is India’ days and nobody wants to be left behind.

So a lot of stakes was there for the `Youthful would be PM’ but nobody expected him to do so badly inspite of all this hype and hoopla. Compare this with his opponent Akhilesh Yadav, which is what India is all about. Simple, down to earth in appearance and also approach, who unlike his father was able to relate his party worker by name and touch a personal chord; whose campaigns were well attended. He shred the baggage of the Amar Singh-film Stars and also the huge industrial lobbies that funded the campaigns before. Mind you the wounded tiger in Amar Singh put up more than 360 candidates to counter his erstwhile party and their control but came a cropper with not 1 seat to his credit. Akhilesh also openly admitted the mistakes committed in the past of `Goonda Raj’. He united the party with a programme and also handled the campaign very well leading from front with humility. All these are the attributes that matter to the voter and they have expressed their support in abundance.

Then comes the factor of age, the tallest leader after Sri Atal Behari Vajpayee is Sri Lal Krishna Advani and nobody even close to him. Unfortunately he has such an image that everybody is envious about. So all the anti BJP persona do not take him on directly but attribute his inability due to age. As if Man Mohan Singh or for that matter many including Pranab Mukherjee, Sharad Pawar and many others are fittingly young. Yet this theory does the round quite often.

People of this country have seen through this game also and have responded beautifully, they have elected a 85 yr young Chief Minister in Punjab Parkash Singh Badal for the 2nd time that too with anti incumbency against him. A record of sorts was created. Still the media is unable to fathom the result. So all they could probably do is to suppress the importance and try to look askance.

The message and analysis that comes out clear from all this is that individuals how so ever powerful they may have cultivated an image will suffer if they lose contact with the masses, that the voter can no longer be taken for granted just because they belong to a particular community or caste.

False promises and appeasement will be understood easily and cannot help in getting votes so easily. Infighting and differences within the party will definitely be taboo and people will punish them as being opportunistic. Selfless party workers are the key to success and they must be inspired, nurtured and treated properly.

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