GenNext Politicos: Should the youth take over the affairs?

Jan 1. The previous year 2009 saw a major turnaround in the Indian political scenario. The most significant event being the 15th Lok Sabha Elections which gave the Grand Old Party of India, the Congress its highest number of seats since 1989 and enabled it to return to power for the second time in succession.


But the change which the nation witnessed was the role which the youth brigade played in deciding the political course during the elections. The young leaders, especially Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India's first political family smilingly stole the show as political stalwarts like L K Advani and Mayawati watched in utter silence. The tireless effort by Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders propelled the party to 206 seats as compared to 145 in the 2004 polls. The elections saw 79 MPs under 40 from all the parties altogether making their way to the symbol of India's largest democracy.


Now, talking about the youth, the Congress was able to use the youth factor successfully as compared to other parties. Though, almost all of the young MPs of the Congress belong to various dynasties , but it cannot be ruled out that the people, of whom 75% are below 40 , now prefer young, dynamic leaders instead of old leaders accused of caste ,religion and regional politics. Young Turks like Sachin Pilot, Jitin Prasada , Jyotiraditya Scindia ,Priya Dutt and many others were not only able to re-elect themselves to the 543 MPs strong House of the People but also managed to catch the voter's attention and support.

The upcoming decade might see a number of young , dynamic leaders shaping the outlook of the country. But the major concern is that almost all of the prominent young politicians have inherited their fathers legacy. As a result, many aspiring youth feel themselves handicapped due to the absence of any political background with them. Also because of the corruption and criminalisation of politics, the youth are reluctant to join the system.

At the end, it is left to the political parties to decide whom they want to give the responsibilty of running the country after them

Hard Days Ahead

Dec 15. It was May 2007, when Ku. Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj Party swept the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections,winning 206 out of 403 seats. The dalit czarina silenced all her critics by taking her party to majority for the first time,becoming the first majority party in the state since 1991.The social engineering agenda of the 52 year politician had reaped huge dividends as Mayawati became centre of all attention in the politics of India. Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party associates could never understand what had hit them.

Fast Forward,March 2009.Mayawati begins her campaign of becoming the first Dalit Prime Minister of India by initiating her Lok Sabha campaign.She fields 509 out of 543 candidates, most of whom are either rich industrialists or dreaded goons bailed out by the Chief Minister.Two months later, the results are declared. The Manmohan Singh led Indian National Congress wins 206 out of 545 Lok Sabha seats. But the even more shocking is the Congress romping home in UP, winning 21 out of 80 seats in the state.On the other hand ,BSP could just win 2 seats more than its previous tally of 18. The victory of Congress was widely attributed to Congress General Secratery Rahul Gandhi's vigorous campaign in the state.The Gandhi scion's visit to Dalit homes worked wonders as Congress made deep inroads into the BSP's Dalit votebank.

As the recent results of the bye-elections to the 11 assembly constituencies and a Lok Sabha seat is to be taken into account, BSP has won 9 out of 11 seats while the Congress has only won one seat of Lucknow West by Shyam Sharan Shukla. However , Congress won the crucial Firozabad Lok Sabha seat,with SP rebel Raj Babbar defeating Mulayam singh's daughter -in-law, Dimple. The win was crucial as Firozabad seat was vacated by Akhilesh Yadav ,as he had chosen to vacate it over Kannauj.

Now speaking about Mission 2012, BSP has managed to win 9 seats which indicates that the BSP has still not lost touch with its voters. On other hand,its main rival,the Samajwadi Party has shown a degradation both in terms of votes and seats.The Congress may have won 21 seats this time but the party has much to do before it can hope to pull of an upset in 2012 when the state goes for polls. No doubt the Congress leadership has been entrusted upon the responsibility to strengthen the party base in the state. Congress general secy. Rahul Gandhi has instructed its party workers to build up the party base in the state. The NSUI and Youth Congress wings have been instructed to recruit more youths to the party.

It is now left to be seen how much does the Congress succeed in rebuild itself in the journey towards winning back the state which was its stronghold.

Will he repeat it again.....??

Dec 15. Not less than a year is left when the state of Bihar goes on the electoral floors next year.Post Lalu, the state has batted a numerous eyelids more due to the 'sushasan' claimed by its ruler,Nitish Kumar.The 4 yr and 23 days old BJP-JD(U) government in the state which witnessed a 15 yr old 'jungle raj' by Lalu Yadav and his better half Rabri Devi led RJD government.The state voted for a change during the re-polls in November 2005,which ousted the RJD government out of power and installed JD(U) politician Nitish Kumar as the state's 31st Chief Minister. The JD(U)-BJP alliance then had bagged 147 seats as compared to RJD's tally of 65.

The 55 yr old Kumar began a journey towards his promise of transforming Bihar from a' jungle raj ' to a 'sushaasit pradesh'. this included a massive crackdown on the feisty politicians or the 'baahubalis', mostly fom the RJD. The Bihar government fell heavily on the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats ,who were unable to give up their old habits. The Chief Minister began to hold 'junta durbars' to listen to the grievance of the common people. The Nitish wave reaped rich dividends in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections when BJP-JD(U) combine bagged 32 out of the state's tally of 40.The JD(U) bagged 20 and BJP romped home with 12. On the other hand , it spelt doomsday for RJD and LJP,the other two parties in the state.While the once ruling RJD had its seats tally down from 22 to 04, LJP failed to win a single seat.The greatest shock was the defeat of LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, from his constituency Hajipur,which he had held it unbeaten since 1977.

However, the bye elections for 18 assembly seats concluded in September have yielded surprising results.the results have come as a shock to the ruling NDA government. JD(U) could win only 3 seats with its ally BJP win 2,while RJD-LJP alliance winning 8 out of 18 seats which had gone for bye-polls.The JD(U) has been riddled with inner party discontent as senior leaders like Digvijay Singh and George Fernandes have left the party due to what they have alleged as Nitish's 'dictatorship'.however,the bye elections shouldnt be taken so seriously as the Bihar government has won accolades from all over the state,and chances are there that he will repeat its victory again in 2010,when the state goes for the polls.

Maharashtra: Who gains from this linguistic chauvinism?

Nov 22.The ghost of lingual and regional chauvinism has raised his head again.And the habitat is the same,the financial capital of India,Mumbai.Ever since the attack on Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Azmi in the Assembly, the evil spirit of regional violence has woken up after barely a year.The perpetrator is the same,MNS chief Raj Thackeray.Barely a year ago, Raj's goons carried out a month long offensive against North Indians in Maharashtra. Raj's uncle,Shiv Sena supremo and 'parent' of the 'bhumiputra' agenda , Balasaheb Thackeray had indirectly supported the tirade against the migrants.In a bid to outdo his ambitious nephew,Balasaheb had launched a verbal tirade against the North Indians in his party newsletter,Saamna.

Who gains and who loses from this irrational violence?Well, there is nothing wise in violence. But the question still forces us to think.Is it the MNS,Shiv Sena or the state government who is using the MNS to cut the Marathi vote bank from the Sena.Whoever the gainer may be, the clear losers are those migrant workers who come to this "mayanagari" in search of a livelihood.Their mistake is just that they speak Hindi or their mother tongue.

This is not the first time Maharashtra has witnessed violence on regional grounds.If we go back to the 60's, similar onslaught was carried by the Sena who was in the nursery.That time the victims were the south Indians.The Sena cadre workers used to manhandle South Indians,vandalise South Indian restaurants, offices and other properties.This time , the victims are the north Indians from UP, Bihar and other Hindi speaking states.The Sena and MNS allege that the marathi manoos can never prosper unless these outsiders are thrown out of the state.

Now I would like to ask who has given the parties like the Sena to decide who shall reside and who shan't.According to the constitution of India, every Indian citizen has the right to reside and settle in any part of India.I would also like to question those people sitting in constitutionally elected people their unwillingness to protect the migrant's rights. Its high time when we stand up together to prevent such narrow minded people from being successful in their objectives.Otherwise, the day is not far away when our country is broken into several states on baseless grounds.

Maharashtra: Is it the end for the Sena

Nov 1. I am writing this post barely after two weeks when the Congress led Democratic Front won the Maharashtra Assembly Elections again,thus retaining Mantralaya for the third consecutive time. The Congress improved upon its tally of 69 in 2004 to 82 in this poll and gaining a golden opportunity to dictate over its coalition partner , the NCP. NCP lost 9 seats and bagged 62 seats as compared to 71 in the previous polls.

But the main loser was the Shiv Sena, the self proclaimed champion of the"marathi manoos" in the state.by its chief, Balasaheb Thackeray. Thackeray, who had played the bhumiputra or "sons of soil " card for four decades, was left clueless as he saw his rebel nephew Raj Thackeray's Maharashra Navnirman Sena playing spoilsport in the former's chances of returning to power again.The Sena lost 18 seats and its tally went down to 44 ,whereas its partner BJP lost 08 and bagged 46. Raj Thackeray's MNS bagged 13 seats , but should be credited for eating up a large chunk of Marathi votes from the Shiv Sena-BJP share.

Now talking about Sena's misery , the senior Thackeray must have underestimated Raj's ever increasing popularity among the Marathi voters. On the other hand,Raj fielded Marathi candidates in every constituency where Sena had fielded theirs. This ultimately led to the defeat of many Sena candidates resulting in the gains of both the Congress and the NCP.Thackeray's strategy of projecting his son Uddhav as the next chief minister failed miserably as the voters could not connect themselves with the heir to the throne of Maharashtra's biggest party.Unlike Raj,who has gained immense popularity among the voters which has led to the speculations that he will surely supercede his cousin and become an efficient player in the politics of the state.

Now talking about Raj, the rebellious nephew left no stone unturned to make his grand old uncle realize his mistake which the former committed 2 yrs ago which had led Raj to quit the Sena and form his MNS. The Shiv Sena lost plot miserably as it failed to make use of the opportunity to weaken Raj during his tirade against the North Indians.Instead the Sena made a half hearted attempt to garner Marathi votes by launching offensive against North Indians in its newsletter Saamna. As a result, it not only lost the Marathi votebank but also the North Indian voters who voted for the Congress to evict the Sena.

Before the 2004 elections, Bal tackeray had declared that he won't shave his beard unless Sena-BJP is voted back to power.Now after the 2009 debacle, it seems that the old tiger will have to remain another 5 years unshaven.

Diwali : Has it really become a festival of pomp and pollution?

Oct 17. I remember when i was very young , i used to eagerly wait for the festival of lights,Deepawali. The reason for this eagerness was to see the flower pots or "anar" sprouting upwards ,or chakri throwing out fire sparkles. Not to forget the rockets which used to shoot up like missiles into the sky. All this used to fascinate me a lot. Thats why I made sure that i got those crackers before the festival. I along with many of my friends used to enjoy bursting bombs,lighting sparkles and many more. While enjoying the illuminating crackers, we used to forget the children working in a place far away from our home in Tamil Nadu, known as Sivakasi, are working tirelessly for our pleasure. While putting their life and future at risk, many generations of laborours have been working in Sivakasi to ensure that the countrymen never fall short of crackers in any Diwali.

I wonder whether the festival of lights has become the festival of pomp and pollution. Yes, it has . In todays world, Diwali means exchanging precious gifts and bursting crackers which not only pollutes the atmosphere, but also symbolizes futile spending of money.

Sivakasi is a big industrial centre in the Virudhnagar district of Tamil Nadu and is also the fireworks hub of the country.This is because 90% of India’s fireworks are produced here. Most of the workers in the factory are educated and are thus employed with minimum wages. It is pathetic to see that most of the workers are children who work in hazardous conditions. Moreover ,while wasting huge amount of money, we never think of doing something for those labourers in the factory, who have the same right to get educated like us.

In the era where there is a lot of hue and cry about ozone depletion and global warning , shouldn’t we act as responsible citizens and stop the people from polluting the atmosphere.I know its foolish of me of giving sermons about environment protection.

Its high time when we realize the reason of the celebrations of Diwali as a symbol to mark the victory of good over evil. Instead of draining out huge sum of money and polluting Mother Earth,we can use this money to brighten someone’s life.

Can she pull off an upset in '11 Bengal Polls?

Mamta Banerjee: Very optimistic

The recent Lok Sabha elections in early in the month of May have led to the miserable defeat of the Left Front ,led by the Communist Party of India(Marxist).The Left were humiliated by the Congress-All India trinamool Congress in West Bengal,the state which the Left considered it as an unintruded fortress since 1977.The Trinamool wave created havoc in the Left cadres with Trinamool bagging 19 seats from previous tally of 1 in 2004.Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee is all set to compound the Left's miseries in the next Assembly plls scheduled in 2011.

The Congress and Trinamool agreed to contest elections together to combat the Left forces. Both the parties contested together on 41 out of 42 seats.While Congress won 4 seats out of 14 it contested,Trinamool bagged 19 out of 27.In contrast ,Left seat tally fell from 34 in 2004 to 15 in 2009. The Trinamool -Congress combo gained maximum advantage from the Nandigram and Singur issues. Many senior Left leaders lost in their constituencies like Mohammad Saleem of CPI(M) lost to Sudip Bandopadhyay of Trinamool in his Kolkata Uttar constituency,Lakshman Seth to Adhikari Suvendu of Trinamool from Tamluk ,Sujan Chakraborty to Kabir Suman of Trinamool from Jadavpur and many others.It may be noted that Mohammad Saleem had earlier won from the same constituency in 2004 elections.
It will be interesting to see whether the Left recuperates from the post electoral blues or fails to defend its fortress which it has held since 1977.