{"id":297,"date":"2019-04-20T12:21:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-20T12:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/?p=297"},"modified":"2019-05-22T12:07:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T12:07:49","slug":"will-2019-witness-dynasty-liability-congress-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/will-2019-witness-dynasty-liability-congress-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Will 2019 Witness the Dynasty as a Liability on the Congress Party?"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/strong>he first two rounds of the voting for the 2019 General Elections are over.\u00a0 What are the early trends?\u00a0 What are the initial lessons?<\/p>\n

A comparison of three campaigns<\/strong><\/p>\n

The BJP\/ NDA campaign is focussed.\u00a0 It sets the agenda.\u00a0 There is clarity about the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi.\u00a0 There appears to be a strong groundswell in his favour.\u00a0 The campaign focusses on major achievements of the past five years, particularly relating to strengthening the poor and the middle-class, a clean Government and a special emphasis on national security.\u00a0 The alliance is coherent and the issues being projected are focussed.<\/p>\n

Based on fake issues, the key thrust of what the Congress was building up in the last one year, has cracked up. \u00a0They are now concentrating on a new scheme declared in their manifesto which is cutting no ice with people.\u00a0 The entire reliance on the members of the first family to deliver a sustainable campaign is proving to be a non-starter.\u00a0 Wherever the contest is primarily between the BJP and the Congress, the BJP is comfortably placed.<\/p>\n

The regional parties in West Bengal and Odisha may be in for a major surprise.\u00a0 The Left parties did badly in 2014.\u00a0 If at all, their parliamentary strength will weaken further.\u00a0 The regional parties will do well only in regions where the BJP still lacks major strength.<\/p>\n

However, a major factor for a large part of the electorate, Prime Minister Modi appears to be the obvious choice.\u00a0 This is particularly true in the case of voters below 35 years of age.\u00a0 \u2018My vote is for Modi\u2019 is the general refrain from the ground.<\/p>\n

The NDA is running a positive campaign.\u00a0 It looks at an India without poverty and which gives a much better quality of life to its people.\u00a0 The Congress and the regional parties concentrate on only removing one man \u2013 Narendra Modi.\u00a0 Where the incumbent\u2019s acceptability is at 70%, they are whipping up a non-existent anti-incumbency.<\/p>\n

The state of some caste based and dynastic parties<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Congress is seeing some of its traditional bright faces deserting the party.\u00a0 Are these desertions only because of particular incident or do they reflect a larger disillusionment with the leadership?\u00a0 When mindsets are feudal, dynasties survive.\u00a0 Dynasties also survive when they are charismatic and have an ability to deliver.\u00a0 A lot of supporters accept subjugation because of the ability of the dynasty to put them in positons.\u00a0 What happens to dynasties when the feudal mindsets change and nations become more aspirational?\u00a0 The socio-economic profile of India is moving up the growth ladder.\u00a0 It may be difficult for a country with this socio-economic profile to accept dynasties.\u00a0 If the Congress\u2019s dynast has only an ability to deliver 44 seats or 60 seats in Parliament, what then is the incentive for conventional Congressmen to bear humiliation of subjecting themselves to a dynast?\u00a0 Ultimately, in dynastic parties one has to accept political slavery.\u00a0 These Congressmen today look at a party like the BJP where men and women of talent have a huge opportunity to move up, both in Party, legislatures and Governments.\u00a0 The two Prime Ministers which BJP gave to India, namely, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Shri Narendra Modi, were by a mile the tallest politicians of their generation.\u00a0 Today, this can happen in merit based parties, not in dynastic parties.\u00a0 A relevant question with this changing socio-economic profile of India is \u2013 \u201cAre dynasties an asset for a party or are they a liability?\u201d\u00a0 Unquestionably, the present generation of dynast has become a liability rather than an asset for the Congress Party.<\/p>\n

A similar situation arises with regard to the caste based parties.\u00a0 This INLD has cracked up.\u00a0 BSP got zero in the Lok Sabha Elections in 2014 and 19 seats in the Assembly Elections.\u00a0 The SP could only retain seats for its family members in the 2014 elections.\u00a0 The RJD was down to two seats.\u00a0 Thus, the changing socio-economic profile of India is no longer conducive to caste based parties perpetuating indefinitely. \u00a0The sun will slowly but surely come down on that era.\u00a0 Another important trend which is visible is that wherever national parties lack strength, the vacuum was filled up by strong regional parties.\u00a0 The BJP, which was a Party of the North, expanded to Central and Western India, and has now captured a large part of the political space in the East.\u00a0 To that extent, it has already consumed some of the space which was occupied by the regional parties of Bengal, Odisha, Assam and North-East.\u00a0 It is already lead player in the South in Karnataka.\u00a0 This election will witness BJP as a co-equal in Kerala.\u00a0 The unprecedented turnout at the Prime Minister\u2019s Thiruvananthapuram rally on the 18th of April, would leave many scratching their heads for a reanalysis.\u00a0\u00a0 The BJP has the ability to fight and occupy more political space from the regional parties is already visible.\u00a0 The Congress inherently lacks that instinct.<\/p>\n

The direction of 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The direction of 2019 General Election is clear.\u00a0 The centre-stage is occupied by the BJP.\u00a0 Both in terms of agenda setting and leadership, the Congress is failing to make any impact.\u00a0 Regional parties are putting up a fight.\u00a0 Their agenda is mostly State based.\u00a0 The national vision in their leaders is lacking.\u00a0 The country doesn\u2019t trust them to form a coherent, stable and long-lasting coalition.\u00a0 Can a federal front be trusted with an effective management of national security?<\/p>\n

How does this election convert it into Parliamentary seats?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The momentum is clearly with the BJP and the Prime Minister Modi.\u00a0 In terms of national leadership contest for a Prime Ministerial election, it is almost becoming a one horse race.\u00a0 There is nobody else measuring up to Prime Minister Modi\u2019s level of capacity and acceptability.<\/p>\n

Is history going to witness something wholly unprecedented?\u00a0 Are we going to witness the rejection of caste based and dynastic parties?\u00a0 And will aspirational India make a harsh judgement on electing a merit based leadership?\u00a0 This may well be the case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first two rounds of the voting for the 2019 General Elections are over.\u00a0 What are the early trends?\u00a0 What are the initial lessons? A comparison of three campaigns The BJP\/ NDA campaign is focussed.\u00a0 It sets the agenda.\u00a0 There is clarity about the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi.\u00a0 There appears to be a strong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[254,37,253,251,252],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-congress-party","tag-dynasty","tag-liability","tag-will-2019","tag-witness"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}