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ShareModi's triumph was not only predictable but I (surely among many others) predicted it in back in November. The Congress has been absent from Gujarat for decades and relied on BJP splits to win.
In the event, it failed because its campaign relied on Togadia's help to select seats for BJP dissidents. Secularism took a backseat at the grass roots level and only Sonia Gandhi (perhaps ignorant of the campaign her party had been fighting) upped the ante with her 'maut ke saudagar' speech. But reminding people of the 2002 riots five years later, during which Congress had ignored Gujarat, did not help.
Many 'right-minded' people are shocked. After the Gujarat results were announced, I predicted that Narendra Modi will be India's PM after Advani and my friend Ashis Nandy who was on the panel with me said he had rather be dead by then.
I wish him a long life but I am afraid his wish will not be fulfilled. Advani will be PM as soon as UPA dares call an election and as he is in his 80s, the successor within the NDA's first term will be Modi.
Prakash Karat said that the two big dangers were imperialism and communalism. This explains why Congress will not win the next election. CPM's anti-imperialism (anti-USA) policy has rendered the UPA government rudderless.
Manmohan Singh's proudest achievement was the Indo-US nuclear deal. Indian diplomats had screwed the best deal any country has got out of the USA. Manmohan Singh should have signed up with China to win Karat's love.
But it is the second plank which is even hollower. All secular means is seeking Muslim votes. Once elections are over, Muslims go back in the neglected issues bag.
West Bengal has failed to improve the condition of Muslims for the last 30 years. So what if a few Muslims get shot in Nandigram by CPM cadre? At least they are secular!
Then at the first whiff of protest from the mullahs, it abandoned Taslima Nasreen; how much more secularist can you get? Even Lalu and Mulayam favour mullah control and not modernising movements among Muslims.
The truth is that communalism is a false issue. The issue is the Rule of Law. There is also the endemic failure to tackle education and health for the poorest.
We need policies which provide education effectively either via the public sector or by paying the private sector to do it. It is the neglect of primary and secondary education to the rural and urban people of all castes and all religions which keeps people poor. Asking for Mandal style reservations is creamy layer clientelism.
Modi will get ahead because he has the reputation for being clean and efficient when it comes to delivery. His communal record of 2002 will not be wiped away but for a party in power which denied Sikhs justice for 23 years and is still avoiding the implementation of Srikrishna report into the 1993 Muslim massacre in Mumbai, it is hypocritical to go on about 2002.
Let all these cases be judged and punishment meted out to whoever is still alive. People can see the hypocrisy in singling out Modi; not because he is not guilty but because Congress also has blood on its hands.
Indian voters discount these pogroms. The party in power unleashes popular fury when it suits it and escapes justice. Someday India will have Rule of Law and every citizen no matter how high or low or whatever his/her religion will get justice.
Congress has had 60 years to establish Rule of Law; instead it instituted Rule of Executive Power and other parties have learnt the lesson (hence Nandigram). Indian civil society will have to fight the fight. It should not be distracted by false claims of secularism.
The results of 2004 election were read incorrectly. It was said to be a vote against liberal economic policies. But the outcome was due to NDA coalition partners' losses and not of India Shining. Congress came to power and failed to attack the economic roots of poverty.
The 9 per cent growth is the private sector's achievement, not UPA's. It has wasted the last three and a half years on expensive subsidies and failed to push reform of labour markets or the financial sector.
Now it is paralysed until it calls the next election. People will not once again fall for the secularist or even the anti-imperialist nonsense. They will demand efficient delivery of development. They will recall that the NDA government did not do too badly. It will vote Advani (and Modi as well). Don't tell me I did not warn you.
The writer is an economist and a Labour peer.
