This is a 3-part series of post election thoughts. At the India, Maharashtra and Pune level. You can find the remaining parts here.

Long post. Not the best structed post, this is just a conglomeration of thoughts.

Irrespective of whom you voted for, I think the Indian voter can feel happy about himself. In fact, he should be.

The positives according to me were the ouster of people like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Mayawati. Without a clear nationalist agenda, such individuals are harmful at the center (apart from hordes of other reasons). The Left too has enough reasons to sulk, and rightly so.

More than being masterful or brilliant as most experts are suggesting, I believe all the Congress had to do was not shoot itself in the foot. Everyone around them took care of that. The Congress was in a scenario where a batsman faces Agarkar. All you have to do is defend the wood, he takes care of the rest. In that respect, the Congress did well. Still better was their tactic of going alone in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Their alliances were truly strategic. For some reason, everyone now claims this idea was the brainchild of Rahulbaba. Child, maybe, but adopted for sure. 

Strangely, while I know all the issues that the BJP, Left and other parties fought on, I cannot think of any issues that the Congress fought on. This just reinforces what I stated earlier.

As for finding the common thread or reason or pattern of the mandate in an election where more than half a billion people voted, I think the idea itself is quite stupid, unless you are a 24 hour news channel, without anything else to telecast. But to each his own.

Personally, I am quite glad that the third and further fronts have been rejected, not because they belonged to alternate fronts, but because of local issues in most cases. Politics is best when bipolar. Too many cooks do not help stability or policy-making. Still worse, most of the alternate fronts have no nationalist agenda, like I mentioned earlier. They are like a dog chasing a car, the dog wouldn’t know what to do if it did manage to catch up with the car.

As for the BJP, I don’t think the Varun Gandhi factor went against them in a statistically significant way. They did not change much from 2004, it is just that the Congress won more, eating the pie that belonged to the Left and SP. But I do hope that the BJP rethinks its ideologies. Atleast for this, I hope bloggers and new channels keep reiterating that the BJP lost out owing to the Varun Gandhi factor. But as an Indian, we deserve a better BJP for a better Congress and vice versa.

From the BJP’s point of view, I can understand how this could be a catch-22 situation. They cannot alienate their ideologies, neither can they embrace them whole heartedly. They have been carefully treading a middle path, and quite successfully with Vajpayee at the helm, but I am not sure anyone else can do it as well. So it is high time they draw a visible line. Visible to the electorate that is.

Still worse is their problem of choosing a leader for the next election. No one can talk development like Modi, but the name Modi is enough to scare away potential and existing allies. He has 5 years to rebuild the bridge to the voters, so better if they bring him to the forefront as soon as possible giving him ample time to do so. The ghost of Godhra is going to haunt him forever, and we must hold it against him. But as people, I do not think it is incorrect to be selfish ourselves when it comes to development. To his credit, I think he has stayed away from Hindutva for a reasonable amount of time now. Whatever the case, bring him on sooner.

I sincerely hope Rahul Gandhi takes up some portfolio this time around. I do not want him in the PM’s chair with no executive experience. While I am not a big fan of nepotism, the fact remains that he is going to be the PM someday soon, whether you like it or not. The least everyone can do is help him be a better PM.

While people are speculating that Rahul may occupy the PM’s chair halfway through this term, I personally do not think this will happen. Rahul as PM is bigger than an ace. It would take a really stupid person to unfold this card at a non-election time.

That said, the Congress has remarkably reinvented itself in the last 10 years, with many new faces coming in. The BJP is just growing older. This is one huge plus point of dynasty politics, how much ever you hate it.

Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were the faces of Congress, while L.K. Advani was the face of the BJP. Story summarized.

I hope the losers go back to the drawing board, while the winners go back to work without the Left, SP and Lalu to meddle in its affairs.  It is high time the reformists in the Congress wake up and realize they still exist.

As for the new channels, heartiest congratulations to everyone for having predicted the results correctly. So what if you said 220 and the Congress got 261. You have a right to say you were right. Freedom of speech you see. Although to give an analogy, it is like saying you knew someone was gay because you said he had a good fashion sense. Get the point ? I can harp on about channels, but I don’t want to tread that road.

Lastly, the voter. We have shrewed politicians, veteran leaders, 24 hour news channels, high-end softwares, huge data sets, research teams, predictions and yelling anchors.

But you, the voter, should have the last laugh. No one can ever have a freakin’ clue of what you are upto.