General Elections - Opinion polls may get it wrong……..again!

In 2004 you had to be audacious to say that the Congress will come to power because anyone who even whispered this view ran the risk of being labeled as a political neophyte! Come 2009, things haven’t changed much, except for the fact that BJP is the one which finds itself in the corner this time around. As far as our media is concerned, the verdict is out, the Saffron brigade is not coming to power. The more intriguing question then is, who is ? Everybody from UPA to the N+1th front. As I write, news is out that Cheeranjivi is contemplating his own front, however he will have to do some homework before he attributes a number to it.

Come May16, 2009 and many of our revered political experts who are usually seen gassing on the idiot box and claim to have understood the “pulse” of the India voter may be found running for cover, just as they did five years ago when they did not even contemplate the possibility of Congress coming to power. Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation where nobody is giving the BJP even an outside chance of coming to power. However, I think the tide is now slowly swinging in favor of the BJP. I say this despite the fact that the BJP has been shown the door in Orissa by the suave Patnaik babu, in a manner which wasn’t so suave. Nitish Kumar is sitting on the fence, waiting for the drama to unfold, He will surely ask for his pound of flesh post polls. Our techie down south, (read Babu) has taken a U turn after his new found conscious wished to be Secular. Amidst all this chaos, BJP found its latest Hindutva hero in Varun Gandhi. He spills out more venom than the Black Mamba, reportedly the most venomous snake in the world. His speeches (coupled with the unwarranted media attention) may have done enough to disturb the secular fabric of this nation (again!).

In my view, what has tilted the tide in favor of the BJP, is really not about their own ingenuity, but has more to do with the fragmented focus of the Congress coupled with the preposterous ambitions of some old horses (read Pawar and Paswan) and some new ones too. In 2004 congress fought the election with a single point agenda to defeat the BJP, today they also have to worry about increasing their own landscape. The fallout of this dilemma is for all of us to see, Congress will now have to lock horns against its own ally in Bihar and there are no prizes for guessing who will benefit from this. In West Bengal, Congress has agreed to a humiliating seat sharing arrangement with “Maumta” so as to impinge maximum damage to the Left. The Jharkhand pact with the JMM has also fallen apart. Behenji couldn’t have been happier when she learnt that she will not have to fight the combined might of Mulayam-Congress in Uttar Pradesh. Down South, the Congress with have to face anti incumbency in Andhra Pradesh, where the competition has become extremely fierce after the emergence of PRJ. In Tamil Nadu the DMK is not expected to live upto its performance in the previous polls. In sum, worries in galore for the Congress and joy in abundance for BJP.

The final verdict will be out only on the 16th of May, but there will be no clear winners (or losers). The fence sitters (read Nitish Kumar, Mulayam Singh, Mayawati, Sharad Pawar, Jayalalitha, Chandrababu and Naveen Patnaik) will decide who returns to power. However, If the BJP significantly benefits from the Varun fiasco to emerge as the single largest party it may well turn out to be the case of “Operation successful, patient dead”.