Lets begin with the basic stats
UPA :262
INC 206
DMK 18
OTHERS 38
NDA : 159
BJP 116
JD(U) 20
OTHERS 23
THRD FRNT : 66
BSP 21
LEFT 22
BJD 14
OTHERS 9
4th FRONT : 56
SP 22
ADMK 9
OTHERS 25
The major change observed in the voting patterns from the general election of 2004 is that the Congress has made serious inroads into the vote banks of the so called third front and fourth front parties rather than BJP(even though it has strengthened its presence in BJP strongholds).
The 2004 general election saw the BJP garnering 138 seats while Left ,SP,RJD,BSP and other 3rd/4th front parties won 60,39,21 & 17 seats repectively making their total 137.In the 2009 election the BJP's total has reduced to around 116 ,mainly due to inroads made by Congress in Rajasthan & Madhya Pradesh.The major change is in the total seats garnered by Left,SP,RJD
,BSP which dropped from a majestic 137 to around 70 with RJD not even being in the picture.It is precisely this fall of around 60 votes that has landed into the UPA kitty.
,BSP which dropped from a majestic 137 to around 70 with RJD not even being in the picture.It is precisely this fall of around 60 votes that has landed into the UPA kitty.
The Major states reponsible for this landslide victory for the UPA are UP, Rajasthan,West Bengal,Kerala & Andhra Pradesh.The Stratergic alliance by congress with NCP in Maharashtra & with DMK in tamilnadu also helped in winning crucial seats. Let me put in a small note as to what happened in each of the above mentioned states which tilted the 2009 general election in congress party's favour.
Uttar Pradesh
1. The Extensive Campaign by Rahul Gandhi played a important role in congress improving its hold over the region.He toured almost the entire of UP unlike earlier campiangns which were restricted to in & around the congress strongholds of Amethi and Rae bareili .His stress on Youth playing a more important role in politics found many takers .
2.The electorate sick of Mayawati's misrule had no option but to go for congress as there was nothing done by SP in recent times which would have shifted the votes to them .
3. Mayawatis Prime minister ambitions and her neglect of state affairs in favour of her roadmap to the PM office proved disastarous
Rajasthan
The anti incumbency factor failed to hurt the congress here as they won a good number of seats.
1.The last ditch effort by BJP to make Narendra Modi to campaign in Rajasthan backfired.Modi's aggressive speeches against the minority communities developed a sense of insecurity among the Muslim voters ( a sizeable number) who voted against BJP. BJP should have moved slowly in a liberal state like Rajasthan.
2. BJP's campaign was mostly based on anti terrorism and they projected it as an attack against a community .The electorate saw terrorism as a war against a nation and attributed it to pakistan. As history has shown during crisis people rally around the government .They saw the BJP move as a step towards weaking the govt and hence may have voted against them
West Bengal
1.The governments handling of mysterious death of Rizwanur Rehman turned the muslims in the urban belt away.
2.The Sachar commitee report which stated that the Left had done nothing for development of Bengal for last 32 years alienated a lot of hardcore traditional Leftist voters.
3.The forcidble land acquisitions at singur and nandirgram further alienated muslims who form a major part of rural farmers and are usually a Left votebank.
4.Finally the arrognance of the CPM and the firebrand politics of mamta banerjee delivered the final blow to left.
Kerala
1. The LDF which had a resoundig victory in the 2006 state assembly elections lost out mainly because of the infighting between the CPI[M] State secretary Pinarayi VIjayan and theChiefMinsiter V.S.Achutanandan.Pinarayi Vijayan is infamous for his close relations with unscrupulous Industrialists and Real estate Mafia.The electorate which had voted LDF to a resounding victory were tired with infighting and decided to serve the ruling party a warning.
2.The ploy of parading Abdul Nasser in a public meetings of LDF with an aim of garnering the muslim votes backfired.Abdul nasir is considered to be still connected to jihadists and his presence might have consolidated the hindu votes against the LDF.
Andhra Pradesh
1. YSR is undoubtedly the star in this important state.Inspite of the rampant corruption in the goverment his schemes and its implementation in rural areas were greatly appreciated.Even though the government werent upto the mark the electorate were satisfied with its performance and didnt want to risk bringing TDP to power as TDP had many a times given false promises.
2.Chiranjeevi's PRP inspite of its initial charisma and rumoured promises to take in only graduates ended up with TDP rebels & failed to live upto people's expectation
3. The lack of a quality opposition would have made people to vote for the incumbent.
Irrespective of the the local reasons mentioned above which might have affected the election a moor change observed in this election is the electorate rose above the petty politics of caste and regional issues and the kept the big picture in mind .The demise of the regional parties in some regions clearly pointed to the fact.The electorate has given a decisive verdict to the UPA now it is upto them to deliever on its promises & bring about radical changes.Let hope it is a sign of better things to come.
For more statistics visit http://in.webdunia.com/Hindi/election/electionmap.htm
For more statistics visit http://in.webdunia.com/Hindi/election/electionmap.htm
nice compilation, maneesh. its hard to find such unbiased info, all tabulated so well at one place. its after long that a clear verdict in support of development has come out of indian populace. a clear dissent for mayawati and left, and acceptance for pro-development modi and nitish kumar goes on to support it.
ReplyDeletecaution: i am staunch BJP supporter. In my view, BJP is the best thing that happened to India since independence. I firmly believe in RSS, hindutva, and cause to save hinduism and yes I am hindu fundamentalist if you wnat to use the favourite phrase of Secular Media. So my comments here might be a bit explosive! So I wouldnt mind even if you remove my comment!
ReplyDelete1) "The Extensive Campaign by Rahul Gandhi played a important role in congress improving its hold over the region."
Rahul Gandhi mostly talks BS. I wonder what kind of lump of unconnected nuerons are there inside his skull. The only reason why UP turn around happened was because Mayawati didnt deliver and the upper castes especially Brahmins voted to congress because lack of hardliner leadership, who can call a spade a spade from BJP.
2) "The last ditch effort by BJP to make Narendra Modi to campaign in Rajasthan backfired.Modi's aggressive speeches against the minority communities developed a sense of insecurity among the Muslim voters ( a sizeable number) who voted against BJP. BJP should have moved slowly in a liberal state like Rajasthan."
Modi never made any comments against any community. Even Varun's speech never mentioned any community, thats why he was accquitted. We will rest that for later. Modi simply spoke on aspects of development and security. Search as much as you can all over the news archives, you wouldnt find one comment against any community by him. I bet because if he did, it would have been made a big news headline by the media. And you are mistaken to call Rajasthan a liberal state. Rajasthan is not a liberal state but is a state affected by terrorism. I tell you, dont be surprised if Taliban enter India in coming few years' time through Rajasthan.
"BJP's campaign was mostly based on anti terrorism and they projected it as an attack against a community .The electorate saw terrorism as a war against a nation and attributed it to pakistan."
This statement has to be viewed at different levels. One - national level. We all know that terrorism is being encaurgaed by Bangaldesh, Pakistan and China is helping Pakistan to keep us off development track. If you are not yet informed about this, I suggest your read the altest book by Arun Shourie. So, if arresting terrorism needs tough stands with Pakistan, so be it. Second - ideological level. You cannot fight pak and bangla sposored terrorism if you can fight it at ideological level because these countries formed on the very basis of muslim ideologicy. And tell me one thing. Why is Indian Muslim afraid if BJP says that they are going to give strong reply to pak sponsored terrorism?
3)"Irrespective of the the local reasons mentioned above which might have affected the election a moor change observed in this election is the electorate rose above the petty politics of caste and regional issues and the kept the big picture in mind .The demise of the regional parties in some regions clearly pointed to the fact."
Demise of regional parties hasnt yet happened. This is just a defeat. Their demise can happen only after a few more of such mandates. This election didnt rise above caste also. Caste is still a big player. It will remain so until reservations go.
I can only say that Congress scathed through because of teflon coating called Manmohan Singh. Last time around this blue turban sworn in, he had plenty of money at his disposal, price rise was in control, borders were in good control, savings were high and infrastructure was being developed smoothly. This govt simply couldnt maintain momentum. For instance, did u know that between 2004-2006, only 14 kms of the golden quadrilateral was completed? Well, you should file a RTI if you are interested to find out! This time around the govt hasnt got anythin good to start with. Reeling prices, falling shares (yeah I know today it rose, i guess you understand stock markets fluctuations. we wil have to wait and see. it could be unhealty one), pathetically slow development in infrastructure and so on. Manmohan might be a good economist but he being oxford educated, he has imbibed the psuedo-liberalist principles and makes pathetic statements like these -
"muslims have first right on all resources in india"
"When I look at the record of Advani, all I can discover is the prominent role he played in the destruction of Babri Masjid. What else has he done afterwards as a politician for national welfare?" For one thing, when Manmohan was lavishing on the lawns of Oxford and camebridge, Advani was fighting the after-effects of Partition hiding, writing phamplets. During emergency when Manmohan was in univ of delhi, advani was sent to jail by the lady gandhi of the time! Manmohan ought to know the efforts of veteran leader like advani and his contributions in signing expedition treaties with various countries (including some islamic republics) during 1997-2004. Well who cares? All we ask for are waivers and free stuff, right!
I as a hindu am worried, very worried.
First of all thanks for reading the entire post sarma.The following would be my views
ReplyDelete1.Mayawati losing her upper caste votes were owing to her experiment where she tried to take in a lot of people of brahmin caste too woo voters.Her social engineering campaign failed.The electorate could have chosen either BJP or Congress..But the extensive campaigning and charisma of rahul Gandhi & is clean image (very uncharactertic of UP)may hve influenced them
2.Rajasthan being liberal state was pointed to prove the fact that people were not orthodox and were progress minded and it any no way says that it is free of terrorism.Narendra Modi was the wrong man to be campaigned in a state like Rajasthan , a hardliner like him would never be succesful in Rajasthan(liberal).His comments though werent direct ,marginalized the Muslim community as a whole.The following example is taken from TOI ...(not very concrete example ,I wanted to show the kind of indirect marginalisation done )
TOI
Sample this: in Ajmer, which is known the world over for the 12th century dargah of Khwaja Garib Nawaz, Modi said he was proud to be in the land of Brahma. He was referring to the Brahma temple in Pushkar some 12 km away. Even liberal Muslims were reportedly offended by his blatant omission.
3.The last point is utter nonsense.It makes no sense to disrespect somebody if he was eduacted in the lush lawns of oxford or whatever.Advani might have done a lot ,fought a lot,rebuilt india after partition etc etc,but that doesnt mean manmohans contributions arent significant.Both contributed in their own way and needs to be respected.To ridicule manmohan in that way was a last ditch attempt to get brownie points for BJP.
4.The Babri masjid u say was the only mistake.This "only mistake" decision was not taken in a blink of an eye ,it was a planned event.To just sum it up as one mistake is a futile attempt to cover up for a utterly wrong decision taken just for vested interests.
@nagpal Thanx for the appreciation man :)
ReplyDeleteI dont want to get into a debate with you on this because you seem to be one of them liberal secularists. But tell me one thing "is it a crime in india to feel proud of being a son of brahma/vishnu/siva?". Why should a mulsim feel offended if some one says "mera bharat mera maa durga samaan hain"? Is it something wrong? On the top of it, a muslim by the law of his holy book cant say "mera hindustan, mera allah samaan hain!". Ask any muslim, he is denied any rights to say that. Infact it is a sin to say allah is equal or lesser than something/someone. TOI is supposed to report that it is offensive but tell me seriously, is it offensive? Even I am proud of being from the land of Ram, land of Shiva. How is this offensive? Muslims in india have been conditioned by 50 years of congress liberal secular talk to feel offensive even at the slightest blink of hindutva. The faster they come out of this and start taking things in right perspective the better for them as well as india.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Manmohan, BJP never scores brownie points. You seem to have forgotten the famous cheesy talk Manmohan did "Mr. Bush India loves you!" No sir, we dont! Show me one such brownie sixer by Advani, Vajpayee or NaMo. What Manmohan said about advani was offensive. When partition hit India strongly, Manmohan was not even in India. Advani and his friends/relatives were badly affected by partition and know what partition means. Partition might mean a million lives to Manmohan, but according to Advani, it is lives of Millions of families and friends. he was literally thrown out of sindh by pakistani islamists. Just read preface of My Country My Life to get an idea of what paritition meant to him. Even now Manmohan is a weak PM. he cant act without his madam's consent.
I never said Babri was a mistake. I suggest you read more on Babri. I shall provide you links if you want. But then I guess you would too busy with Football. Ayodhya mandir is a hindu right. Period. Thanks to Sardar Patel, india saw ressurection of Somnath. I am least hopeful of the PM sardar ji to give me my right. Likewise Mathura is my right and Kasi is also my right. You would never understand fuh-get-it! Even in my hometown we have a big mosque whose outer walls clearly deptict venugopala swamy's greatness. Yes it was 15the century temple built by Raja Raja Narendra for his daily prayers. There are more than 3000 such temples across India. Muslims would have shown how much they repspect other traditions in india only if they had let Ayodhya go. And babri is not even being used as a place of worship. This govt had the audacity to say "Ram never existed". I am sure Rama Sethu is going to go. All I can do is pray Rama to prevent it because the people of country left it to govt whether it stays or not.
Read my new post. I hope you have seen today's papers. Even before new government sworn in, we had a terror attack in hyd killing a homeguard and seriously injuring constable. This is the way terrorists are welcoming the new govt. Very nice no!
I would probably want to end this debate stating that Muslims are bound to feel offensive as they are in minority.Being in Majority it is our duty to make them feel that they are as much a part of the society and not make statements establishing links between religion and patriotism.I still vehemently oppose ur comparison of Advani and manmohan in context of the Independence struggle.I respect your difference in opinion but will forever oppose it .
ReplyDeleteSorry that I dragged this one too long. I gave you the warning before too. I didnt comment on this, because I knew you wouldnt be open to think otherwise. However, let me close this with this:L
ReplyDeleteYour statement that "Muslims are bound to feel offensive as they are in minority." doesnt hold water.
Minority and majority debate should be placed on the level of who did how much for the country rather than how much majority did for minority. Tax payers money is going to all the minority upliftment programmes, while majority community is getting a rough deal! If we have been trying to uplift minorities since 50 years, why is it that old city of hyd is still the same old tacky place as it was long time ago? Simple, congress is not committed to its upliftment. Did you know that India Today's survey says that 81 percent of Muslims in Gujarat feel safer today?
I am glad you put an end to this debate. At the same time, I hope my comments invoke your interest in finding truth. You might vehemently oppose me but then what is the use of all the education if one is not in a position to debate and deduct logical conclusions looking at facts. Minority community feels threatened you say, but the population of minority is increasing with every census. Why? If they feel threatened how come we have the first deputy prime as a mulsim, several muslim presidents, several muslims speakers and deputy speakers of various assemblies and parliament houses? Even US didnt have black president until today! In that way indian muslims are way better off. In my view, muslim minority is threatened is an oxymoron. Howcome jains are not threatened? How come parsis are not threatened? How come only muslims and christians are? Did you know that the way parsi population is declining, they would loose rights to call themselves citizens very soon? ABV identified this in 2002 and suggested that special programmesbe declared so their population grows which would keep their culture alive?
Well, the secular sick talk might pay off because of the media, but practically, it doesnt because secularism by current definition calls for liberalism and liberalism calls for over looking at wrong doings of so-called threatened minority section. In a democracy, saying that one particular (though a minority) has first right on all resources in the country is akin to intellectually abusing the majority! If you have 100 bucks of tax being paid by population, and you have 80 percent of one community and 20 percent of one community, 80 bucks should nbe spent for what the former wants and 20 bucks should be spent on the other community. Is this arithmetic wrong? If it is, then what human values are we talking about?
I am sorry to have broken your secular norms but my argument is simple - if a hindu feels proud of vedas, of siva, vishnu, ramayan or any other philosophy given by hinduism then it is not anti-national. NaMo is a proud bharateeya and he is proud of his cultural heritage and so am I like many others across the world. If this makes muslims uncomfortable, so be it! Since muslims feel uncomfortable, I wont say I am not proud of my country and that it doestn matter if my values are not taken care of and I expect my leaders to do the same. If they do it, then it is because of vote bank interest obly! Being a indian is not being a hindu, but being a hindu is certainly equal to being an indian! Utthistha Bharata!
Just to give a view point on minority-majority divide:
ReplyDeletehttp://satyameva-jayate.org/2009/05/14/rethink-on-majority-minorities/