Update: JD-U is wising up in Bihar and Jharkhand. As I mentioned before, unless BJP changes track, its fate in many other states will be like its fate in Orissa. Personally, I would like a proper national alternative to Congress. Thus I hope BJP will learn from its mistakes and take a hint from what its few allies like JD-U are saying.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

The JD(U) on Saturday launched an attack on BJP for facilitating Congress’s victory in the Lok Sabha polls by raising Hindutva issues rather than focusing on issues that had to do with the common man.

The party identified Varun Gandhi’s alleged hate speech and the sudden insertion of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the campaign frame as BJP’s two missteps which allowed Congress to corner victory when it ought to have been on the backfoot for issues like price rise and unemployment.

… The details of the discussion, however, were yet another reminder of the strain in the NDA alliance in Bihar, and reinforced the estimate that a resurgent JD(U), that under Nitish Kumar aspires to rule Bihar on its steam, could be chafing at the partnership with the BJP.

… JD(U) MP N K Singh’s interview where he emphasized that the party shared a commonality with the Congress on the issue of secularism.

The writing is clear for BJP. It can listen to its few remaining allies and become a real national alternative or put its head in the sand and write its own epitaph.

 

Following is an excerpt from an article in Expressbuzz.com.

After 26/11, it seemed like all of Mumbai had become one, rising above language and religious divides. Had the English media got it all wrong again? Five months later, 22 per cent of Mumbaikars voted for the same man who made his name by having helpless poor North Indians bashed up, supposedly to protect the interests of Marathi-speaking locals. Most of these voters would have otherwise voted for the Sena, another party driven by hate and violence. Together, MNS-Sena votes in Mumbai accounted for more than what the Congress-NCP combine got; the split in their vote led to the victory of the ‘secular’ Congress-NCP in the city (except for Priya Dutt, whose victory margin outstripped the vote tally of the MNS candidate).

After all the hullabaloo about the 1984 Sikh killings, the party universally alleged to have been associated with the killings got voted in. The Congress bagged a remarkable 57.11 per cent in Delhi. The party won in Punjab too, getting almost half the votes. And in Orissa, where Adivasis have been resisting POSCO and other corporate land-grabbers, the man who backed the latter has been given the state on a platter.

Where does all this leave those who have fought for the rule of law, for women’s rights, against the current savage pattern of development? Which of the new MPs will raise these issues in Parliament? The Young Turks? Their fathers never did; why would they? They owe their position to their surnames; in fact, they aren’t Young Turks at all. In Orissa, the BJP almost got wiped out; Abdul Madani fell flat in Kerala. But it’s difficult to accept that Bangalore and Mangalore’s voters ignored the barbaric assault on young women; that lakhs of Mumbaikars endorse Raj Thackeray’s goons.