India’s election is over and Indians were very clear. People are always saying that the Indian elections are unpredictable. I don’t think so. Indian people know what they want and it is the political analyst who cannot read their minds. In the last 3 elections Indian politics were dominated by caste and religious groups. Local parties had very strong influence in deciding who is coming to the power. Every body though that they were the next Prime Minister. We did not have clear leader until this election to tell the people to whom they are voting for.. It is not people’s mind is unpredictable, it is parties leadership and their PM candidate were unpredictable.
After independence, Prime Minister Candidates from Indian National Congress party ruled the country until 1977. Indira Gandhi was the Prime Ministers for three consecutive terms from 1966 to 1977. After 1977 the country started seeing Prime Ministers from a party other than Indian national congress. Janata party which came out of Indian national congress started ruling the country for next 3 years with two different Prime Ministers (Morarji Desai and Charan Singh).
Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister again after that and she was in power from 1980-1984. On October 31st 1984 she was assassinated by her own Sikh body guards, who were dissatisfied by her action at golden temple in Amritsar, Punjab. Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister followed by her mother’s assassination. He was in power from 1984-1990.
Followed by Rajiv Gandhi’s full term there were Prime Ministers, who came to power from the coalition of small and regional parties. They were V.P Singh from Janata Dal party (1989-1990) and Chandra Shekhar from Samjawadi Janata Party (1990-1991).
On May 21 1991 during the election campaign, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by LTTE in Tamilnadu, India. Following a sympathy wave due to Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, congress party came to power under leadership of Narashima Rao (1991- 96).
BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party), a Hindu conservative party was formed by Vajpayee and L.K Advani on 1980. On Dec 6th 1992 Babri Mosque was demolished by a group Hindu activist and parties lead by BJP. They were demanding that Babri Mosque was built on the place where Samrat Shri Ramachandra, an ancient King of India was born. BJP wanted to build a temple for Ram in that place after the demolition of Babri Mosque. That demolition fueled the hatred that was already there between Muslims and Hindus in India.
After a full term of government led by Narashima Rao (Congress party) congress was at a historic low at 1996 election, and a vast medley of regional parties and break-off factions dominated the hung parliament. Since there was no clear majority for single party to form the government, Indian President asked Vajpayee to form the government with support of other parties. He was a Prime Minister only for 13 days and he resigned when it became clear that he could not garner a majority.
Once again country saw 2 Prime Ministers from coalition of regional parties. They were Deva Gowda from Janata Dal (1996-97) and I K Gujaral from Janata Dal (1997-1998.)
People cannot find a party to give a stable government for them. They looked at BJP and decided to give a chance. BJP was campaigning that they are the one to save the country from Muslim extremists and to build a temple for Ram at Ayodhya on the location where the Babri Mosque was existed. BJP came to power under Vajpayee leadership (1998- 2004) but they never built anything at Ayodhya.
No leader in the country that the people can trust on.Meanwhile Sonia Gandhi was avoiding involving herself and her kids in the politics after her husband’s assassination (Rajiv Gandhi). She didn’t want to come to the politics but her husband’s party members were begging her to involve in politics.
Sonia Gandhi led United Progressive Alliance (led by congress party) to a surprise electoral victory on 2004 Indian election. Sonia Gandhi declined the opportunity to assume the office of Prime Minister after the 2004 election results and made Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister.
This election people saw a clear leadership under Sonia Gandhi. They are impressed with Sonia Gandhi’s leadership and Rahul Gandhi’s charisma. People gave big majority for Sonia Gandhi’s leadership and Manmohan Singh’s honesty. It is all about leadership on this election. People threw all the small regional parties out and trusted on congress party. This shows if we show a good leader to the people we can extinguish all the caste and religious party ideas in India. People also showed in this election that they found a leader for their future. It is Rahul Gandhi, son of Rajiv/Sonia Gandhi.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Superb round of the entire political scenario post independence.. Reg ur stand that people of India have clearly chosen Congress and chucked away extremist ideologies, I wish to differ by saying that our people are confused. Poor people may adopt communist iodeologies or do their best to throw away anti-poor perties. But urban population seems to work on the contrary.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue is security. People play hard on breach of security. Thats why BJP must have come to power under Vajpayee.
Some may feel its a cheap propoganda, getting to power by playing caste cards. But we must understand that a few castes could feel the pain because of capitalistic growth.
The key seams inclusive growth with nationalistic ideals. Congress has done its best given the political will it could exhibit in the last tenure. We have to wait and watch its moves in the days to come.