Indian Elections

The elections in India are over.The people of India are known to throw up surprises and they have lived upto their reputation.It now appears that the people of India have accepted inefficiency,corruption,price raise,inflation,failure to tackle terrorism and a host of other issues as a way of life and has voted congress as the single largest party. A new Government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh has assumed office.The Congress party for the first time in 25 years has been able to get more than 200 seats on its own and hence has been able to ward off demands from its allies for plum Cabinet posts.However the ditherings in the first few days by Karunanidhi and Mamta Banerjee did create some panic.However the assurance of support by SP, BSP and a couple of other small parties ensured that the two leaders realised that the blackmailing tactics will not work and hence accepted whatever was given.Mamta Di of course got Railways.

One of the sour note in the cabinet formation has been that the caste equations have been given lot of weightage.The so called secular face of congress has meant that Farooq Abdullah has got into the cabinet.Such appeasement mars the quality of people heading the ministries.Mr Vilas Deshmukh who was deemed unfit to be the CM of Maharashtra comes to the Union Cabinet.The reason for shifting Mr Kamal Nath from Commerce to Surface Transport is not clear.He has paid the price for being too vocal in meetings abroad.Mr Raja who had troubled times at Communications what with the Spectrum scandal et al is continued whereas a talented individual like Mr Maran is wasted in the Textiles Ministry.

The loyalty to Sonia Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi have been the yardstisk for inclusion of congress MP's.The inclusion of Mr Kharge is not at all understood.Karnataka which gave just 6 MP's has walked away with lot of ministerial berths.The intention seems to be to cut TN to size.The representation of AP in the ministry also is a sore point.People in Congress are lamenting the fact that Rahul has not joined the ministry.They as well as the entire nation know that he and Sonia will call the shots and Manmohan is just a PM in name.I pity Dr Singh.Even for allocation of portfolios in the ministry,he has to take concurrence of these two.

All said and done we need to give this ministry some time to prove itself.I am an incorrigible optimist but the choice of many ministers and the portfolios allocated to them makes me wonder whether I should continue with my optimism.Let us hope and pray for the best.