Did India really vote for Dr.Manmohan Singh?

On the evening of May 16th, we heard that Dr. Manmohan Singh has been given a thumping victory by the Indian electorate. The Congress Party alone managed to get 206 seats while the principal opposition party Bharatiya Janata Party just managed 122 seats. The Left front which managed to pull the strings in the previous managed to get just 26 seats.

The whole media hailed that Dr. Singh has been able to defeat both the right and left wing politics in the country. On the day of the election results we saw more smiles among the famous anchors in this country than even from some of the congress men.

But the larger question is how Dr. Singh could win the elections despite having a poor record on terrorism, and so not even attempting to contest the elections. It is not a big deal to find answer to this simple question because this country was ruled by a mere 10 Englishmen from a small bungalow from Calcutta for 200 years. We believe we can be ruled by anybody or any one. If not then what rationale could it be explained that just that a person born in one particular family could be deemed to rule this country for ever. It is not a democracy but aristocracy

All this huge talk of India having young politicians and ministers are at best hogwash. None of the politicians who are so called the young faces of India are from an ordinary, poor or even middle-class family. They had their ancestors serving the British loyally, their fathers and grand-fathers obeying the orders of the Congress high command and not it is their turn to follow the ritual to bright, young Rahul Gandhi so forth and so on.

In my opinion this is a big victory of Indian democracy, we can give a big fist to it. No matter, how much the media may try its level best to portray Rahul Gandhi as a savior of India’ youth and the neo-sycophants as a reflections of modern India, the facts remain brutally true that these young faces don’t even ever dare to visit the slums near their Lutyens bungalow. One glaring example is how a poor widow residing nearby 16 Tugalq Crescent Road could have seen the Yuvaraj of Indian politics, Rahul Gandhi for five years.

However, the larger question remains on who is responsible for this. I will say India didn’t vote for Manmohan Singh but rather the BJP FAILED to talk in the language of the masses.

It failed to detect and envisage the failures of the United Progressive Government. Now, there is no way a post-mortem could correct the flaws, but rather a better sensitive approach from the BJP will save this nations from further ruins. First it needs a lesson or two about learning economics. It is a practical suggestion. The UPA government’s huge spending on stimulus package can have long-term implications on Indian economy. At present, though the GDP growth is 6.7% despite the global recession, the fiscal deficit is increasingly possessing huge demands on the Indian public. Right now, the fiscal deficit is 12% and it is set to increase with more stimulus package in the upcoming budget.

The BJP needs to make the people understand the long-term implications of growing fiscal deficit. For that it needs to make economy its first line of attack on the UPA government. It will be better if it could borrow a phase from the famous Bill Clinton’s 1992 elections rhetoric “It is economy stupid, “Not only that it needs to borrow a phase or a catch-line from the former United States President but rather bring to focus on how he made the reeling Democrats to win back the elections after a political obscurity for nearly two decades.

The BJP needs to emulate the style and functioning of the charisma involved with Bill Clinton to attract the voters into its fold by usually not losing focus on real issues such as economy and national security.

In a recent book named False Economy written by  the famous World Editor of the Financial Times, Alan Beattie “ The way countries develop is as much a function of the choices made by ruling elites as it is of markets or natural resources, “ In this context, Alan Beattie cities the example of Argentina a serial debt defaulter.

As a responsible opposition, the BJP needs to learn and teach the example of Argentina’s failure to the India people and forget for the time being on how the Indian judiciary failed in Argentina’s court to extradite a famous an Italian businessman!!.

internationalreporter.com or Balaji Chandramohan