Viswanathan K's Thoughts

One Nation, One Election. ONOE. It can be evaluated from two different angles: (1) how it would work, and (2) whether it is a good/bad idea. Let us look at both. ~~   The “how it could work” question raises several questions from an implementation perspective only (not from a desirablity/undesirability angle).   One , since both state and national legislatures are elected for 5 years, how can they be made to synchronize? Would we need to cut short some and extend others so that the next cycle synchronizes? The answer to that lies in constitutional amendments for exactly that purpose (extend and cut short so they get synchronized to get the new system started).   Two , such changes require agreement not just in parliament but also from the majority of states. In any political environment, the probability of getting any such consensus across states is remote, at the best of times.   Three , even if such a change could be made, what happens if a sta...

What is it that the (former) Ashoka University assistant professor, Sabyasachi Das , did that stirred up such a storm? He did a rigorous analysis of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in his paper, “Democratic Backsliding in the World's Largest Democracy ” . But what exactly did the paper say/find?   Yogendra Yadav wrote this excellent piece describing what that paper said (and equally important, what it did not say). First, this wasn’t an economist writing about politics. Rather, this was a statistical analysis of certain patterns Das found. As with many things in statistics, it cannot prove something; but it sure can raise valid suspicions . Das himself admits as much in the paper: “The tests are, however, not proofs of fraud, nor does it suggest that manipulation was widespread.”   Second, since this is a purely statistical analysis, it does not get into topics like EVM tampering – one needs to prove that happened, just throwing accusations is pointless. Instead, ...

There are many like Gopalkrishna Gandhi who cry foul that the BJP managed to win an absolute majority of seats with just 31% of the vote. In the age of data and the Internet, you will surely find someone who crunches the numbers differently. Like R. Jagannathan . He reminds us that the BJP fought as part of an alliance, which means that it didn’t contest all 545 seats. In fact, it only contested 428 seats on its own. Raju Limbachiya says that the vote share of the BJP in those 428 seats it contested is 40%. Or if you see the vote share of the NDA, it comes to 38.2%. Jagannathan provides context for these numbers: “In multi-party systems in the west no party usually crosses a 40 percent vote share; as for the gold standard of mandates – a 50-percent-plus vote – it happens only in two-party races.” In any case, as Jay Mazoomdaar says : “It is one thing to oppose the politics of Modi-led BJP; quite another to question its decisive mandate…(as is being done by the) many o...

In the end, the exit polls were wrong: It wasn't the NDA that scraped past the half way mark, it was the BJP that single handedly got the majority! The absolute majority has robbed the media of the usual next stage of an election: who will align with whom? What will they demand in return? What impact will it have on a cohesive agenda to govern? All moot points now. We don't need to suffer your blackmail tactics, amma and didi . To those who bemoan the rise of the “communal” leader, Harsh Pant has the answer : “(Narendar) Modi is a product of contemporary India, where the secular versus communal binary, while important, is no longer the be all and end all of politics.” Besides, let's face it: we have had a communal party in power for most of the period since 1984 anyway: the Congress killed 3000 Sikhs in 1984. While Bal Thackeray made the remote control model of governance (in)famous at a state level, madam and baba took it to the next level, the national leve...

Salman Khurshid seems to be copying the kinds of things that Digvijay Singh says. And why not? After all, Digvijay Singh is considered to be the heir-in-waiting’s mentor, so Khurshid may be trying to send out signals that he is of the same mindset as the Prince and his mentor. For future growth prospects. First Khurshid announces he supports reservations for Muslims within the OBC quota while the election code of conduct is in effect . In case you wondered, no, that’s not considered communalism. And no, the election code doesn’t apply to Khurshid because he went on to repeat his reservations statements even after the Election Commission had censured him. Then the man showed how delusional he is by saying he’d continue to stand for the reservation-within-reservation issue even if the EC hanged him. Hanged him? Hey Khurshid, we don’t even hang Ajmal Kasab in this country, but we’re to believe that the EC may hang you for a violation of the code of conduct? Besides, the EC doesn’t h...