So much do we hate to write about Politics here, but our Political Class have come to believe that quest for growth and the need for equity are mutually exclusive. It has escaped eminent attention that without growth there will be only poverty to distribute.
The Deadlock over the Coal Scam continues in the Parliament with Dr. Manmohan Singh having no signs of guilt and sticks to his arrogance which has given nothing but High Fiscal Deficit, Inflation and poor GDP Growth. Sr Political & Economics analyst, Shankkar Aiyar gives reasons on why the Congress Govt will fall that will lead to Midterm polls.
If elections are forced to be held at the end of the year – which seems unlikely – it could counter the heavy artillery Congress will deploy in Gujarat with anti-incumbency of the Centre. It would thus achieve two objectives with one campaign – return of BJP in Gujarat with the projection of Narendra Modi as a contender for PM without stating it in as many words. Even if elections are held in mid-2013 –a more likely scenario – the timing would be in its favour.
As in the money markets, success in politics is determined by timing and opportunity costs. If the Congress manages to stretch its reign to the end of its tenure, it will be best placed. By then Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Naveen Patnaik in Orissa, the Badal regime in Punjab, Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal would enter the period of disgruntlement. The anti-incumbency at the state level will help – so the theory goes – counter the anti-incumbency of the states. It is important to note that these states ruled by the regional parties account for nearly 200 seats in the Lok Sabha.
For the BJP it is best that the elections are held earlier. First and foremost the taint of corruption will be fresh in the minds of the voters. A recent poll by a news channel has found that a whopping 54 per cent of the 30,000 people surveyed believed the Congress to be corrupt while all other parties share the rest of the pie.
The flush of support that Samajwadi Party got from voters will sustain for a year and will help curtail the Congress, which currently has 22 seats in UP. Ditto with Punjab. In Andhra Pradesh, which delivered 31 of 42 seats in 2009 to the Congress, the party is in tatters. In West Bengal Mamata is yet popular among the voting classes and will curtail the Left and force the Congress to tag along. In Tamil Nadu the DMK – which is in alliance with the Congress and added 18 to the UPA kitty – is yet to recover from the defeat in assembly polls and the 2G arrests.
The game-plan is to bring down the Congress from its 206 and push up the BJP tally from 114. The worst case scenario for the BJP is that the Congress led UPA will be voted out of power. The best-case scenario – the BJP hopes for — is that it could overtake the Congress as the single largest party. There is the definite possibility of a risotto regime led by one of the many regional chieftains coming to power. It could be 1996 again but that will be followed by the gains of 1998.