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A mandate for change
India votes for a decisive government IT is a historic victory for Narendra Modi that surpasses all projections by opinion polls and political pundits. The Congress stands decimated. The large states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra apart from the current BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat have given Modi a massive mandate. Many BJP lightweights were swept to victory, riding the Modi wave that spread beyond the Hindi heartland - moving as far as the Northeast. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has offered to quit and his resignation may trigger similar demands in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Andhra Pradesh has voted for Chandrababu Naidu's TDP and the TRS that had agitated for and got Telangana. Only Tamil Nadu, Odisha, West Bengal and Kerala have managed to hold their own ground in the Modi tsunami. Punjab too has bucked the trend as it handed over four seats to the Aam Aadmi Party, saving the Congress from annihilation. It was essentially a vote against Akali-BJP misrule, but the choice of credible candidates helped AAP as the Congress, plagued by infighting, failed to cash in on anti-incumbency. AAP's disastrous performance in Delhi shows how swiftly the party has frittered away the public goodwill it had generated not long ago. Perhaps, the party got over-ambitious and spread itself too wide, too fast. Arvind Kejriwal's anti-corruption crusade and allegations of corporate funding against Modi did not resonate with the people. Modi had started early and single-mindedly spearheaded a well-conceived election campaign, using social media and gadgets to reach out to the maximum number. BJP and RSS workers worked like a team to orchestrate a presidential form of campaign, pitching a performer Modi against an inexperienced Rahul Gandhi, while the Congress muddled along, trying to make it a communalism-vs-secularism fight. The Congress had no effective communicator to match Modi. To choose between Modi and Rahul, the voters did not have to think twice. Yet it is not the end of the road for the Congress. The leadership will have to reinvent and re-energise the party, bring in fresh blood and shed the corrupt. Friday's verdict reflects how deep public disenchantment has been with the UPA whose leadership had inspired little hope. Yearning for change, people have solidly stood behind a national party led by a strong leader. They have reacted angrily to relentless price rise, persistent economic slowdown, non-governance, politics of freebies, appeasement of minorities and rampant corruption. The last two years saw the country's growth dip below 5 per cent. Job opportunities shrank. The Congress forgot reforms so essential to push growth and create jobs. Focusing on rights-based entitlements, it wooed the poor who were hit hard by price rise, which remained unmanageable and extracted a heavy political price. The Congress abandoned the assertive and demanding middle class, which had earlier benefited from a 9 per cent plus growth rate. The RTI law gave activists the power to dig out scams and messy governance as the media went to town with them. Women felt unsafe and demanded a functional government. The aspirational middle class, which in 2009 had pinned its hopes on Dr Manmohan Singh, turned to Narendra Modi, who held out the promise of growth, jobs and efficient governance. To domestic and global business houses Modi offered a re-play at the national level of the popular vibrant Gujarat model. The stock markets gave a resounding thumbs-up to Modi. Development requires peace and social harmony. Muslims and other minorities are apprehensive. Modi will have to reassure them as also his political opponents that he would not be vindictive. How Modi deals with the hardliners in the Sangh Parivar with their agenda of uniform civil code, Article 370 and the Ram temple in Ayodhya will be keenly watched. Faster growth also requires cordial relations with India's immediate neighbours as well as trade partners in other continents. India has achieved high global respect and position which any inward-looking Prime Minister cannot afford to roll back. Relations with Pakistan, China and the USA will test Modi's leadership. The euphoria over the massive win has its dangers, however. The challenge before Modi now is to live up to the expectations he has aroused. People are fed up with political fights over non-issues and want growth to accelerate, peace to prevail and society to stay free of riots. Modi starts with a huge advantage. With no coalitional pulls and pressures, he can pick the best available talent to run the government. He may have to fight the temptation to reward loyalists facing criminal cases. A clean-up cannot happen with tainted leaders at the helm. His opponents within the party have been silenced and may no longer be able to throw tantrums over posts or portfolios. Going by his belief in "minimum government, maximum governance", he may, and should, keep his government small.
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