Friday, May 16, 2014

2014 Elections: A laudable landmark

After failing miserably to predict the results correctly for general elections in 2004 and 2009, the exit polls of 2014 have done creditably in their assessment. If anything, they have underestimated the rout that the Congress party would face. Sonia Gandhi has expressed an inane opinion, "Congress did not get support of the people". If she had expected the people to support Congress, it would have meant that she grossly misunderstood the mood of the people.

Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have won their respective seats. This is in a way strange because the Gandhis are responsible for the Congress debacle nation-wide. The Grand Old Party lost miserably because of pervasive corruption that probably originated and terminated in the Gandhi family and the party's pathological obsession with denigration of Narendra Modi. Modi has exhibited a Vaali-like quality that made him stronger with every attempt of the Congress to malign him. In the Ramayana epic, Vaali was gifted with the boon that he would acquire half the power of any opponent, a boon that made it impossible for anyone to defeat him. Rama had to kill him from behind in order not to activate the latter's boon.

People rejoice in Congress' sorrow because its leaders like Kapil Sibal, Mani Shankar Aiyer and Salman Khurshid personified nothing but arrogance. It is fitting that all these leaders lost. Victory of Shashi Tharoor is a disgrace to Thiruvananthapuram.

The once-redoubtable DMK has bitten dust and drawn a blank. Defeat of A.Raja of telecom infame is surprising because of his personal popularity in Nilgiris. Dayanidhi Maran has lost in Chennai Central. People aware of his nefarious role in looting departmental wealth are bound to rejoice. The ever-smart Karunanidhi has congratulated Modi on his remarkable performance.

One statistic that stands out in this election is that the Congress won fewer seats in the country than the BJP won in Uttar Pradesh alone. BJP needs to be smart enough to understand what corruption and arrogance can do to a party.

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