#ls14

We are in midst of the poll season in India. We need to choose our leaders, many of us think its a difficult choice. But is it? For starters, lets try and get some facts in perspective. The country needs to elect a new central government for the next 5 years to rule India.

We elect 543 MP's each representing a geographical constituency and the halfway mark for Lok Sabha is 272. The winning combination needs to have at least 272 MPs, otherwise its a recipe for an unstable government. So when we give a verdict, we should be decisive and try and not waste our vote in giving a fractured mandate. 

What are the issues we should be voting on for the Lok Sabha? What is the primary job of the MP? Is it his responsibility to be taking care that the streets are clean every morning OR that he/she makes the laws and policies which affect the larger issues India as a country needs to address. Besides, don't we have Municipal Corporations, Zila Parishads, Gram Panchayats for various other purposes. There is a reason why we elect Parliament.

Besides the Prime Minister we have the "Big Four" ministries of the central government : Home, Finance, External Affairs and Defence. The important question what we should be asking ourselves is what kind of people do we want in these ministries? Won't the performance in these ministries define our next government? So which party/formation can give us the capable people?

There are 5 big and small formations/ contenders for the government in 2014:

BJP led NDA

Congress led UPA

Third Front (led by Left Parties?)

Regional Front (Trinamool? Biju Janta Dal? Samajwadi Party? BSP? AIADMK? DMK? and the list goes on..)

Aam Aadmi Party

Now realistically, the current trends namely opinion polls (reliability?), News media (biased?) and general opinion of our peers tends to make this a battle between BJP led by Narendra Modi and the rest. However controversial that maybe, this seems to be the case in all probability.

Now, we need to be clear whether we want to vote for a party which will be in the opposition or for a party which will be more likely to form the government. Also, we may prefer to choose an option which can go either way. But we must try and find out where they may possibly end up. 

Let's go through these options:

Indian National Congress or its suffixed variants have won the following elections or have finished as the largest party in the following elections in India: 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1971, 1980, 1984, 1989, 1991, 2004 and 2009.  The party also imposed a 2 year long "Emergency" in 1975-77 after which it lost its first election since independence. In total Congress has ruled India for 56 years since Independence. Of these, for 39 years it was a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Last 10 years, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi was the so called "Super PM" wielding the remote control of a PM who chose not to contest Lok Sabha, twice.

In 2014, Rahul Gandhi, the undeclared PM contender seems to be the one leading the Congress campaign and the sitting PM is nowhere to be seen. What does this say about Congress' confidence in their PM and his achievements? If we were to choose the Congress this election, Rahul Gandhi, the family scion, who has participated in only one debate in the parliament, moved no bills and has held no position in any form of government will become the PM. On what basis does he deserve our vote?

Historically, Third Front has been propped up by support from Congress ( thrice) or by BJP (once) and has never managed to last full 5 years. We have had 4 third front prime ministers in the 4 years they have collectively ruled the centre, which is excluding 1977-80 where most of the present day  third front, some regional parties and BJP's earlier avatar BJS merged to form the Janta Party which ruled for 3 years and also collapsed, despite having a clear majority on its own, due to infighting.

So, they have a history of bickering amongst themselves with no clear leader. Also, numerically it is a far fetched dream for this front to get their best performances ever and achieve a figure of even 150. So this option can't come to power without Congress or BJP.

Regional Front is a novel idea for the parties which don't like to be with the Third Front this time. Most of the parties like Trinamool Congress (Mamata), Janata Dal United (Nitish Kumar), Samajwadi Party (Mulayam & Akhilesh Yadav), Bahujan Samaj Party (Mayawati), DMK (Karunanidhi), AIADMK (Jayalalitha) are opponents of each other in their respective states and have been in the past with NDA or UPA.

Some of these parties may end up taking pole position in their states but only get a maximum of 100 seats in a viable combination. They are thus, at best, called the King-maker group; who will be likely to hold any contender to New Delhi to ransom or make deals to defer CBI from carrying out corruption investigations cases and have a destabilising influence, which undermines the power of the Central government to do any good.

There is also an option of the Aam Aadmi Party which may hope to get at its best estimate 20-30 seats or maybe as low as 10. The facts stand that they have received support from Congress to form their first state government in Delhi Legislature, after finishing 2nd in the state polls, but its leader deliberately resigned in 49 days over a bill pushed in an unconstitutional manner.

On the basis of numbers in Lok Sabha, they are clearly the least likely formation to form the government and thus most likely to be an opposition party but if Congress has the numbers, it may even support them in a tacit way. This is a possibility, coming from their history with Congress. Just like the UP regional parties SP and BSP, who without joining UPA-2 ensured that the minority UPA-2 government didn't collapse.

Then, there is the option of Bharatiya Janata Party/NDA led by Narendra Modi. NDA is the only formation which has completed a full term by a non-Congress government during 1999-2004. BJP is the only significant Indian political party which can fit the "centre-right" political party bracket. All other parties mentioned above are self-professed left-leaning in policies. Traditionally, right of centre parties, the world over focus on liberal economic policies, strong on national security and are nationalist in beliefs. Right of Centre parties are more popular in richer, more developed countries and question that has always been asked in Indian context is if a right-of-centre party can be a party of governance in a poor, developing country like India, where it may be popular for the larger public to be seen as providing subsidies and income redistribution for political reasons.

Mr. Modi is a controversial figure for his opponents and evokes extensive admiration from his supporters, thus deemed to be a polarising figure. He is the target of all opponents personally for his alleged role in 2002 riots. Narendra Modi, who contested and won his first election on 25th February 2002, has been elected thrice over with 2/3rd majorities as Chief Minister of Gujarat. Though, he doesn't come from a dynasty but he has a "taint" of communal riots emanating when on 27th February,2002, 58 Hindus returning in train from pilgrimage were killed by a muslim mob. In retaliation, there were clashes from 27th February, 2002 till 2 March, 2002. The state government was reported to have called in the army and asked all help from neighbouring states (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra all ruled by Congress, which they refused).

Letter from Gujarat Govt. requesting forces from Digvijay Singh's Madhya Pradesh Govt.

Reply by MP govt. refusing to provide forces.

The riots were contained in 3 days but according to various figures 900-2000- people lost their lives with a substantial number being muslims. Gujarat government is alleged to have allowed rioters a free hand for 3 days and there have been various cases, with some of them being monitored by Supreme Court of India and Narendra Modi was found to be innocent with lack of any implicating evidence against him. Since 2002, there have been no riots in Gujarat and in history of Independent India, no other riot has been so publicised or seen relatively speedy justice dispensed by courts and guilty being convicted.

Gujarat, though always known for its enterprising nature, has seen significant development under Modi since 2002 and BJP has showcased the state as the development model which can be achieved in India.

After considering these options, who do we think can handle best the issues India faces today: low economic growth in last 5 years, jobless growth during last 10 years resulting in unemployment of large masses, divisions on basis of caste and identity, challenges on the external front like unprovoked aggressions from China and Pakistan, situation India will face as US forces withdraw from Afghanistan, Maoist- Naxal violence. Who do we think is best placed to handle these issues?  

Narendra Modi led BJP/NDA or 5 more years of Rahul Gandhi led Congress/UPA. Do we vote to stop a person, thus casting a negative vote or do we cast a positive vote and vote for stability? Haven't we seen enough of UPA, do we want instability with unviable 3rd, regional fronts? If you want to vote for AAP, it seems quite likely an option for a minor opposition party. Its most likely to be sharing opposition benches with 3rd or regional front if they still exist after the elections or working along with the Congress, which may not be probable but cannot necessarily be ruled out, after all there is the Delhi experience.