Neha
JAMMU, May 17 : While the people gave a massive mandate to the BJP and its allies, they rejected most of the "secular parties". As for the Congress, it failed to open its account in states like Odisha, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Goa, Uttrakhand, Tripura, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Delhi. These states return to the Lok Sabha 176 members. It performed very poorly in West Bengal (4 out 42), Assam (3 out of 14), UP (2 out of 80), Haryana (1 out of 11), MP (2 out of 29), Maharashtra (4 out of 48), Punjab (3 out of 13), Bihar (3 out of 40) and Andhra Pradesh (2 out of 42), It performed slightly better in Kerala (7 out of 20) and Karnataka (9 out of 28) and in the Christian-dominated smaller states in the North East.
The vote share of the Congress, including its allies, is just about 28 per cent. The Congress won a paltry 44 seats, just 4 seats more than the AIDMK's tally. It will not be even recognised as main opposition party that is entitled to the office of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. In other words, the extremely angry Indian electorate reduced it to the status of a regional party not capable of playing any significant role in any of the states.
That the Congress, which was usurped by the Sonia Gandhi in 1989, was destined to suffer the worst ever defeat in its electoral history was a foregone conclusion. There is no need to catalogue here the reasons which culminated in the collapse of the Congress party, as these are too well-known. Suffice to say that it had alienated an overwhelming majority of the population by pursuing recklessly the policy of divide and misrule and policy of loot and plunder and by brazenly pandering to the minority communities, especially the Muslim community.
The story of the equally minority-appeaser, anti-majority community and casteist outfits like the Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Lalu Prashad Yadav, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Ajit Singh, the Janata Dal United (JDU) of Nitish Kumar and Shard Yadav, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of Arvind Kejriwal, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of Shard Pawar, the National Conference (NC) of Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, the Left parties, especially the CPI and the CPI-M, and similar other outfits was no different. The SP could win only 5 seat (all family members, including Mulayam Singh Yadav), as against its 2009 tally of 23 seats, the BSP zero, the RJD 4 seats, as against it 2009 tally of four seats, the JDU 2, as against its 2009 tally of 20, the RLD zerot, as against its 2009 tally of 4, the NC zero, as against its 2009 tally of three seats, the NCP 2 as against its 2009 tally of 8 seats, and the Left parties just eleven. The RJD, the RLD, the NCP and the NC are the pre-poll allies of the Congress and the SP and the BSP supported the UPA government to the hilt for ten long years. These parties, like the Congress, got what they deserved. Very significantly, the DMK of K Karunanidhi could not even open its account. It, like the RJD, the SP, the BSP, the NC, the NCP, the RLD and the JDU, were rejected contemptuously by the people. The message of the 2014 mandate is negative politics will not click any longer. |
