2009 Poll Prospects And Alignments

[Guest]

On Rediff: Congress may have an ace up its sleeve

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But that is not the viewpoint of the CW -- conventional wisdom. CW thinks that it is only a matter of time before Mayawati herself is prime minister, as she builds this coalition across the nation. Let me see, Dalits are 16 per cent of the population, Muslims 13 per cent, upper caste about 21 per cent. That is half the votes without counting the fact that men are 52 per cent, women 48 per cent. Irony again, but this is what the Congress had thought for at least a 100 years.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But that is not the viewpoint of the CW -- conventional wisdom. CW thinks that it is only a matter of time before Mayawati herself is prime minister, as she builds this coalition across the nation. Let me see, Dalits are 16 per cent of the population, Muslims 13 per cent, upper caste about 21 per cent. That is half the votes without counting the fact that men are 52 per cent, women 48 per cent. Irony again, but this is what the Congress had thought for at least a 100 years.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->If elections were held today, would Congress depart significantly from 140-plus seats? Unlikely. But as every election since 1996 has shown (and there have been four), the era of coalition governments means that the winner is one with the better political partners. And Mayawati will lose more than gain by going with the NDA; she has no choice but to politically ally herself with the Congress, and both know it.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The BJP will have to find another Vajpayee, i.e. a pragmatic person who believes religion belongs in the privacy of homes. Until it does so, the Congress can hope to muddle along, and who knows, help bring about an economic reform or two. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->