The vanquished takes spoils home

Shiban Khaibri
In fact , in simple parlance in any battle, the results are a victory for one side and vanquishing for the other ,while the victor takes everything home , the vanquished , on the other hand takes home the ”best ” spoils of the battle. The elections to the respective assemblies of five states , in particular those of Uttar Pradesh , how much importance it carried from numerous angles hardly needs any particular emphasis. Out of the five states that went to seek people’s mandate, in four states the BJP is forming its government. Before an analysis of these elections is made , let it be unequivocally asserted that Prime minister Narendra Modi has emerged yet again a mascot of development and innovative thinking , new ideas and also for how opportunities can be found in adversaries. Rivals stand greatly distressed due to definite win of the BJP as Modi defies history to all triumph. The vote has been against the habitual ”Andoolanjeevis ” who have been cut to their size. No ”Khela Hobe” could happen in UP where its protagonist had arrived here with all hopes. However, it is to be noted with great interest that Arvind Kejriwal has repeated ” a ” Delhi in Punjab too , which can be termed as being like a ”tsunami” , taking the maximum benefit from out of the Congress mess and confusion as also its aimless policies and strategies pursued in Punjab. Most importantly, in respect of Uttar Pradesh , many things , equations stitched, rhetoric put forward, promises made, incumbent government pilloried on imagined or exaggerated premise and the like have not only flattened but crashed to pieces. Much hyped and from all sides vastly supported and motivated to get prolonged and stretched, at least up to the UP Assembly elections , so called Kissan agitation against three Agrarian reform Laws has very miserably failed in its mission of that nature . Parts of Western UP, where its leaders especially much ambitious Tikait, who toiled hard for the specific purpose , expected a rout of BJP has , on the contrary , performed exceptionally better there.
Lakhimpuri Kheri in Eastern UP, where an unfortunate incident took place in respect of eight precious innocent lives including four farmers, three BJP workers and a driver losing their lives and the opposition parties expecting a rout of BJP in that district has topsy-turvey all such calculations and voted instead for the BJP. Tikait expectedly shall take some time to come to terms with how people of UP including the ”suffering” farmers voted and rejected him , not supporting his type of agitation. Yes, BJP has swept UP polls , it has swept Uttrakhand polls, Manipur and Goa too are going into the kitty of the BJP. Punjab has never been an exclusive easy cake for the BJP unless with a poll alliance with traditional parties like Shrimoni Akali Dal and , therefore, had neither high stakes there nor expectations of forming a government on its own , however, alliance with the Captain’s Punjab Lok Congress Party too did not work . The fact that the ”treatment ” meted out to the veteran Captain by his Congress Party for which he sincerely and faithfully worked, has boomeranged into the ”Grand Old Party” in virtually getting swept out of Punjab by winning just 17 seats out of the total of 117 seats . Unbelievably, the veteran and experienced S. Parkash Singh Badal has lost the election as also Sukhbir Singh Badal . Bhagwant Mann , the designated Chief Minister has to run a sensitive and an important border state which requires hard work and only hard work.
Again, since not only national but even international gaze with lot of interest was there on UP polls where new records have been built and old ones rendered infructuous. Anti-incumbency jinx has been broken , polarisation card , cast equations, M & Y factor have all been rejected ab-initio by the people returning the BJP with 270 seats , Yogi winning with over a lakh votes in Gorakhpur and thus confined to the archives of academic interests pledges , combinations, equations and strategies of ”rivals” against the BJP. Drawing Room experts’ ”considered opinions” and predictions on the contrary have become now political jokes. A political epitaph can seriously be considered to be written on the performance of Congress doing a miserable 2 in the UP. One time most powerful and twice having ruled the state, BSP has virtually been decimated to a shocking figure of 1 . Its committed voters have split and voted for the BJP, the SP and others , a moment of serious introspection for Mayawati Ji. Owasi must learn enough lessons from the UP poll results where patriotic Muslims by and large did not buy his narrative and did not vote for his policies or for his style of campaigning and listing of priorities. It is high time he reviewed the policies of his party All India Majlis-e- Itihad-ul- Muslameen.
People want development and only development and have sharp memories of how, when , and who helped them. There may have been some lacunae in handling Carona pandemic crisis but calling upon people not to go in for ”BJP vaccination and wait till we form the government wherein we will provide free vaccination” if would have materialised, just thinking about the possible unbelievably horrendous consequences of loss of lives and all round confusion makes one petrified and with lot of spine chilling . Vaccinating over 177 crore Indians as per latest reports, is a national achievement of pride and it is shocking that not a word of appreciation from any opposition quarter in India is forthcoming there-for. That speaks for the third wave of the virus fortunately not making its impact the way the first two waves did . Whole of the international community is noting how India could manage such a dreaded pandemic better than most of the advanced countries could.
Communalism, hate politics, caste politics, spreading manufactured fears of intolerance and dividing people, regional politics, misleading COVID politics, frequently coming on roads to create troubles and problems, rhetoric like of SP candidate of 6 months’ no transfer of UP employees to have ”settlement of accounts with UP administration” first of all, immediately after coming to power etc have all been rubbished, rejected, repudiated and dismissed by the voters. Therefore, voters have scripted the importance of development, good governance , better delivery mechanism, better law and order position and more transparency coupled with corruption free political system. The opposition political parties , therefore, shall have to change their strategies accordingly , of course exercising the right to constructive criticism lavishly. In short, again , Policies for the poor, better distribution of food items, direct transfer benefit and no commissions or cut money, LPG connections, rural electrification, toilets in each and every rural household, pension to the old and disabled, successful Mudra Yojna of providing credit sans formalities of guarantees and collateral securities and tightening the noose around the criminals , gangsters and hoodlums etc have got huge dividends , 2.3% vote share more, for the BJP in UP as compared to 2017. However, winning four states out of five should give enough strength to the BJP for working more relentlessly for the betterment of the people and making the country another super power . At the same time, the proverbial ”Spare the vanquished and subdue the proud” must be scrupulously followed by the AAP after the spectacular win in Punjab and work for a better and prosperous Punjab with better understanding and co-operation with the centre.