Results of General Elections 2009

On 16th May, 2009, all those who cared for India’s future followed with anxiety, the unfolding of results of the general elections. Most of us in the campus were glued to live streaming of the results whenever possible and really missed India. I was very happy when the Congress returned to power once again (Technically its UPA but practically it is the Congress which has won). The results reinforced my belief in our political system and most importantly, in our electorate.

What exactly do the results signify? Contrary to the belief in the world media that the Indian voters are gullible because of the extreme poverty and lack of education, these voters have proved that they are politically much wiser and can exercise their right to vote quite sensibly.
World media also like to believe that India is not worthy of democratic system. The whole process of elections is an eye-opener to these people. Can you imagine such kind of mega-elections taking place anywhere else in the world with such meagre resources? The numbers themselves are scary. 714 million voters; 0.8 million polling booths, 0.828 million booth level officers and total deployment of 7-8 million people for successful conduction of general elections. All of this with a meagre budget of, believe it or not, USD 4 Million and a staff of 300 people. The elections were conducted with minimum (almost nil) complaints of rigging. Now, look around the world and you will realise how the elections are rigged all over the world. Remember George Bush’s election in his first term?

Who are the biggest losers? Undoubtedly, it’s the NDA and the left parties. NDA, for the fact that, the Indian voters again chose stability and continuance of policies over hate politics and the lack of any clear development agenda and the left parties for the fact that they tried to reverse the development cycle.

NDA simply couldn’t get majority because people silently watched their hypocrisies on the matters of national security, development agenda and knew exactly what happened to BJP’s earlier promises. Hate politics cannot be a road to power in India. The sooner BJP realises this, the better it is for them. India will never tolerate communalism because of its accommodative culture. Even at the height of BJP hype, the party could never win a majority of vote share. It was basically a smart election management.

The left parties couldn’t properly assess the aspirations of the growing middle class in India and took a U-turn in almost all the important issues close to urban India. Even the people in the left’s bastions of West Bengal and Kerala have voted for a change.
The maturity of Indian voters is most evident in the way they have elected their MPs. The voters saw in the last term how the regional parties arm-twisted Congress on important issues and hence denied most of the regional parties including LJP, RJD, SP, BSP and NCP. However, the voters understand the importance of a strong opposition party and NDA with 157 seats is no weak opposition.

For an Indian who generally believes that nothing positive happens in India, the results of the general elections 2009 offer a welcome change. Long live Indian democracy.