The outgoing PM Manmohan Singh, keeping the tradition of ten years, has delivered his short farewell speech. The new PM is arriving in Delhi shortly and has broken the records of Singh within a day’s speech after his victory.
The Bhartiya Janata Party has achieved one of the most glorious triumphs in the history of independent India. And this win, undoubtedly, was scripted under the able leadership of its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The BJP alone has clinched 282 seats and as NDA its tally is 336.
This unprecedented victory is unquestionably the direct result of the strong upsurge in the popularity of Modi who, putting nation first, travelled across the length and breadth of the country to campaign and spread his ideas among the people.
With the BJP winning a majority on its own, a remarkable paradigm shift has clearly taken place in the trajectory of India’s parliamentary politics. It may or may not mark the end of coalition era but the party has surely broken the trend of the last few decades. Now the BJP is all set to come to power, free from the pressures of coalition politics, giving it unfettered space and scope to govern.
In its worst performance, the Congress party managed to win 44 seats, which was only seven seats more than J Jayalalithaa’s AiADMK which clinched 37 seats in her state Tamil Nadu and 10 ahead of Mamata Banerjee’s TMC which was victorious on 34 seats in West Bengal.
Interesting fact is that there will be no Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha for no party, including Congress, managed to achieve 10 percent of the total seats in the house (the figure of 55 seats). Although, the Lok Sabha never had an LoP prior to 1969, but one should remember that those were the days of Congress dominance in the political affairs of India.
The BJP consolidated its hold in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, leaving only a handful of seats to its opponents. It also engineered a decisive turnaround in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, made inroads into Assam and West Bengal, won the southern most seat in India, Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, and came a close second in nearby Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala.
The win in Uttar Pradesh, where BJP won 71 seats out of 80 and SP was limited to family seats of which Mulayam Singh Yadav has two seats and Mayawati’s BSP failed to even open an account, indicated clearly that the caste-arithmetic no longer applies to the Hindi hinterlands, that the people want development.
A new chapter has started in the Indian politics for the young has voted for a man who thrives on development, is misunderstood by many, is project as a divisive figure by the opponents and yet receives 34 percent of the Muslim votes.
The outgoing PM Manmohan Singh, keeping the tradition of ten years, has delivered his short farewell speech. The new PM is arriving in Delhi shortly and has broken the records of Singh within a day’s speech after his victory.
But the expectations are much higher than this. A new chapter in the political history of India has started. Achchhe din aane waale hain…
