Election in five states is over and the result is open to all. This is first time BJP has contested election after JNU and BEEF controversy. Success has blessed them in Assam only due to heavy ante incumbency wave from mass voters who probably desired for a change;and all other four states the ruling national party has practically had to search their face among the crowd of Regional supremacy. Even in Assam they could not qualify for absolute majority without the help of regional allies. If we take an analysis of voting tend and patterns of mandate given by voters we will notice that it is the regional parties who played the lead role in this election in almost all states. If we go for the equations, we notice the under noted statistics
There is no BJP resurgence! What happened in Kerala was Congress playing the soft Hindutva card and failing miserably. In Assam their hubris did them in.
If we see from this chart barring Assam BJP could hardly manage 4( four) seats in all other states. INC could manage a meager 115 (one hundred fifteen) seats together in all states out of total 698 seats. This clearly blows the trumpet of regional parties all over. Again , interestingly in this assembly election 2016 West Bengal alone registered number of voters opted for NOTA to an astonishingly high of 829903 and in all other states this figure totaled to 1198946 which clearly establishes the mindset of voters and is also a fact of anxiety.
If Congress has to reemerge as a political force of any kind to reckon with, it has to shed its Brahmanical, nationalist politics of the freedom movement and reinvent itself as a truly secular political party, standing up for the dalit-adivasi-bahujans and minorities. It also has to send the Chicago boys packing to where they come from, and listen to the developmental aspirations of the people from the grass root level. That means, it has to let go off neo-liberal model of growth/development and stand up with people who are struggling for their lives and livelihoods by protecting what is left of the environment.
In West Bengal, although there was an ante incumbency cry from leftist and its allies INC could not cash the opportunity because of good governance from Mamata led TMC Government for last five years. They have comparatively done much better work for the state since they started in 2011. They have constructed more roads, more hospitals, in rural areas and spent a huge sum of Rs 20000 Crores under various scheme for rural development. They have given Cycles to all school going children under 'Kanyashree' project and gave a fillip towards better PDS system. They gave rice and dal @ Rs 2/- per kg to BPL people. Contrarily, in Tamilnadu, Amma had better opportunity towards this and she gave, moped, mobile phone etc to rural and under privileged class and en cashed the opportunity in right time to convert this into vote in her favour. In Kerala, ruling INC has suffered the same ante incumbency wave and lost to left party. I told earlier that INC tried to play the Hindutva card to win over the mind of voters but,that became became boomerang to them and lost the poll.
In Assam, the election manifesto regarding the status of Hindu Bengali given by BJP may be hard for them to attain. Especially, the promises they made to Hindu Bengali voters towards citizenship may find hard resistance from its ally AGP who are critically against such move. Rather they will pressurize ruling BJP to stick on Assam Accord 1985 and all Bengali entered in Assam after 25th March 1971 have to deported. AGP president Atul Borah already expressed this in a meeting at Dispur yesterday. This means a fresh wave of anguish will grow among Bengali community who perhaps voted BJP for better governance and security. More detention camp may come for them and list of 'D' voter may go longer. Their faith on BJP will be absolutely shattered and their status may stay at square one. This anxiety may always remain in the mind of Bengali Hindus for days to come.
