Lok Sabha poll projection too speculative
By Harihar Swarup
A poll survey has visualized if the Lok Sabha elections are held now, the NDA will form the government, edging out the ruling UPA. There are clear indications that elections will not be held now or anytime before the scheduled time that is May, 2014. Therefore, the whole exercise of hazarding guess is infructuous. What is more important is a series of coming elections in the states in 2013. The outcome of these electionS will set the tone for the Lok Sabha poll.
The election is due in Jharkhand in July followed by Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, all ruled by the BJP and the Congress-ruled Delhi. If Sheila Dikshit wins in Delhi, it will create a record. No Chief Minister, except Jyoti Basu, has won for a record fourth time. Judging by the good work Sheila Dikshit has done, it will not be a surprise if she wins for the fourth time. It is no exaggeration to say that she has changed the face of Delhi.
Initial reports indicated that the BJP is all set to oust the Congress under the leadership of Vasundhara Raje but later reports disclosed that Ashok Ghelot has recovered much of the lost ground. Few popular schemes quietly launched by him have started yielding results. Still nobody can predict the exact situation in the run up to election. There is, no doubt, that Ghelot Government suffers from anti-incumbency factor.
The public welfare schemes launched by the Ghelot government includes– CM’s food security programme, ensuring free food to those below poverty line, free medical help, free maternity care, free medical aid for animals, interest free loans to Kisans for their crops, free education to children and rural road development programme.
Few know that Ashok Ghelot is a magician which he inherited from his ancestors. His rivals feel that he may whip out some magical trick to mesmerize the people to vote for the Congress.
From all accounts, the BJP is much better placed in Madhya Pradesh . The Congress is in disarray and it has yet to zero in on a tall leader to lead the party’s poll campaign . The only leader of stature is Digvijaya Singh who is not interested in going back to state politics but he will have an important role to play in the upcoming election.
Despite all the claims made by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan of a clean leader, his rule has not been corruption free. A section of the BJP leadership wanted to project him as the Prime Ministerial candidate but could not make any headway. His only plus point is that the Congress is ill-prepared to face the BJP challenge. It will, however, not be an easy sail for Chouhan.
If the year 2012 was bleak for the Congress, which continued to be besieged by an avalanche of scams and anti-graft agitation – 2013 looks equally grim. The Congress-led UPA government at the Centre had managed to bridge governance deficit to some extent by finally pushing FDI in multi-brand retail, kick-starting the landmark direct benefits transfer scheme and hanging of the 26/11 accused Ajmal Kasab. But the year ahead is strewn with thorns when important states go to polls.
There are also question mark about the Congress party’s ability to leverage political capital out of schemes such as direct benefits transfer and food security. The cash transfer scheme may not prove to be the “game changer” that it has touted to be. In the absence of logistics and necessary infrastructure, it may take more than a year to implement the scheme in all the 600-odd districts across the country.
The food security Bill is also stuck. Even if the government manages to pass it, experts say it could take more than a year for the benefit to percolate down. Another worry for the Congress is that the canny state satraps such as Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Chattisgarh CM Raman Singh, MP’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar are cloning the food security scheme through the public distribution system in their states, taking sheen out of the central scheme. (IPA)