Indian election

Moreover, it is also sort of a routine exercise for the neighbouring country to welcome any change of government in its neighbourhood. Though your editorial more or less follows an expected line, but you could not suppress your undertone of happiness at the exit of the Hindu nationalist party, BJP and allies.

As per your analysis, the exit of the BJP is because of:

1. The BJP's "slightly saffronised" electoral campaign strategy didn't pay the desired dividend, because it didn't match with its playing of the Hindutva card during its actual incumbency (That is BJP shifted its Hindutva ideology during the campaign ) 2. The unsettling effect of the Gujarat carnage on Hindu-Muslim equation, the BJP's position on the highly sensitive Ayodhya mosque-temple tangle, the party's failure to distance itself from the extremist philosophy of the RSS, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, and the changes made in the history text books impacted negatively on the BJP's fortunes beyond its hard core vote banks. ( That is BJP has been ousted for its strong, extremist Hindutva ideology by non- hardcore, non-Hindutava voters)

What you have failed to realise is that in 1996, 1998 and 1999 the BJP had won 162, 182 & 180 seats against the Congress' 139, 139 & 140 seats. In those years, the BJP had entirely focused her Hindutava agenda/Ram Temple in Ayodhya in the election campaign . So it is baseless that the party's connections with the fundamentalists caused its downfall.

It may be otherwise, the BJP's soft Hindutva, appeasing Muslims, may have caused the party dearly this time.

Finally, in the last election no party got the mandate to rule the country. The magic figure of 273 will be a distant dream for any particular party in Indian politics for years to come.

The real king-maker in Indian politics will be those who can play with the minds of Dalits, Muslims and the poor.