Indian election, 2004

Mr. Mahfuz Anam's front page commentary "India is truly shining, now", Rubab Abdullah's "Congress wins", Molla Mohammad Shaheen's "BJP's debacle" and Nazrul Islam Rizvi's "Lessons to learn" are all one could see in the 17th May publication. To start with, on the editor' front-page commentary "India is truly shining, now", what we Indians can say is that India was always shining. It's a country of 5,000-year-old civilisation, a land of sun, sand, snow and sea with the snow-covered Himalayan ranges stretching fifteen hundred miles from North to East and some 4200 miles of luscious and sandy beaches line along the South. Its soul is rich with the verses from Veda, Upanishad, its humbleness conquer with the Buddha's massage of non-violence, its intelligence sweeps the IT world, from science to literature, music to art, fashion to recipe, eternity to spirituality. India's presence in great human society was perceptible in the past, it is much more credible now and it will be more pronounced in the coming years.

It is really naïve to say that the Congress has won the election. They have secured only 145 seats out of a total of 543 seats, as against the BJP's 137 seats. The Congress led front secured 216 seats against the BJP led NDA's 188 seats. The Congress has been routed out from MP, Rajastan, Punjub, Karnataka and Orissa. It has miniscule present in Bihar, West Bengal & Uttar Pradesh.(only 15 seats out of 162 seats). So no way can we call it a Congress win.

The BJP's debacle both as leader of NDA and individually is felt very much in UP, Bihar and West Bengal. The BJP lost almost 38 seats individually & as an NDA partner 62 seats. With this 62 seats for the NDA or 38 seats for the BJP, it would be 175 seats for the BJP and 250 seats for the NDA which most of the pre-poll and exit poll surveys predicted for the NDA and the BJP.

And election to these three states (Bihar, UP, West Bengal) is fought on different ideologies and style than the rest of India.

In West Bengal it is communism, in Bihar and UP it is cast, religion, money and muscle.

The real issue of development, job, progress etc. is thrown in the back burner. The other reason for the BJP's debacle is lower voter turnout. The urban / middle / upper middle class / richer section of the society, where the BJP's presence is stronger than any other party, do not vote en block like communists, Muslims and schedule cast Hindus do. However, in democracy it is number that matters. Since the Congress has the numbers by any means, it has the right to rule.