Wrong Lessons

Learning Wrong Lessons:

The recent elections in Gujarat have shattered the hopes of Congress party, especially its president Mrs.Sonia and her son and heir-apparent Mr.Rahul. Who will take the blame for the debacle? It was Mrs.Sonia all the way during the campaign for the elections. There was no local leader powerful enough to take on the all-powerful Modi. So it was simply Modi Vs Sonia in which Modi emerged triumphant. Will the Congress accept the fact that its leader CANNOT get votes for the party? Mr.Veerappa Moili is showing off his eloquence by stating that Modi had won "Not by Incident but By Accident". Moili Ji, do accidents happen at regular intervals of five years and do accidents are conducted by the Election Commission? Or are you alluding to the "Merchants of Death" Remark by your party president as the Accident?

Everybody is telling it is the “Merchants of Death” remark which defeated the Congress party. Nothing can be far from the truth. Remember all the exit polls were predicting that the BJP would lose in Saurashtra and South Gujarat and hold on to Central and North Gujarat. But the BJP did very badly in Central Gujarat, which was worst affected by the Post-Godhra riots. BJP lost in Godhra too. All this goes on to prove that the “Merchants of Death” remark did much good for the Congress Party in Central Gujarat, where it was able to wrest so many seats from the BJP.

It proves that where the people were affected by riots, whether it is Majority or Minority, they wanted a change and so they chose Congress and in areas which were less affected by the riots, the people voted for development. Obviously there was no caste factor in play, as all Political Pundits would like us to believe.

Political Pundits were the ones to be blamed for Casteism. They are ones who are analyzing the demographic profile and the caste influence and population and decide which caste will side with which party. But in reality, it never takes place like this. If caste influences an election, how could Mr.Vijayakanth, a novice to the politics, who had no organization to support, win at Vridhachalam, a predominantly Vanniyar (OBC) area supporting the PMK of Dr.Ramadoss, where even the established Dravidan parties are reluctant to contest? If a person can get the trust of the people, that is enough. NDTV predicted that there was a shift of around 8% of Patel votes away from the BJP during the first phase of polling in Saurashtra but the BJP went on to improve its previous tally.

Political Pundits and TV anchors, will you please stop predicting an election on the basis of caste?