BJP whining

All this is true. But it would not have affected Naidu because President's rule meant the central rule with the BJP at the helm. The only difference might have been that Naidu would not have had the trappings of a chief minister. In any case, his power was already curbed once the assembly was dissolved. Unfortunately, this was a selfish way of looking at things. A person who had brought Andhra Pradesh on the world map could not be so shortsighted when it came to personal power. He blamed the Election Commission. He had dissolved the assembly many months before the end of its tenure because he wanted to cash in on the sympathy wave that was sweeping across the state following an attempt on his life by the People's War Group at Tirupathi. The Election Commission did not oblige him by holding an early poll. With the lapse of time, the sympathy factor disappeared.

These facts have come to the fore because of Naidu's rout in Andhra Pradesh and Vajpayee's miserable showing in the Lok Sabha election. What would have happened if the centre and the state had gone to the polls in October when the elections were actually due?

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This is a hypothetical question. But both the NDA and Naidu's Telugu Desam may not have done as badly as they have now. In Andhra Pradesh the BJP has not secured even a single seat in the Lok Sabha. While talking on hypothetical situations, I may mention that the DMK would have been part of the NDA. But the BJP -- more so Advani -- pushed DMK chief Karunanidhi out because he was thought to be "not Hindu" enough. The Hindu Munnani, the RSS inthe south, dictated Vajpayee and he, although against joining hands with Jayalalitha, caved in. The result is that both the BJP and Jayalalitha's AIADMK have been wiped out in Tamil Nadu.

That the Hindu elements are a force to reckon with was also seen in UP. Their weight led to the summoning of Narendra Modi, the butcher of Gujarat, for campaigning. He is a red rag not only for the

minorities but also for most of the educated middle class. Even in his own state, he has slipped. It means that at last even the Gujarati conscience has pricked. Is it because of the Supreme Court's judgment which compared him with Nero?

Where does the BJP go from here? Sushma Swaraj has said in an interview that whether or not the party would go back to the hard-line depended on the post-poll analysis. But the RSS spokesman has complained that the party's reverse was because it did not pursue the Hindutva line. He said that they, the RSS, would have to "intervene."

However, it would be a mistake to pick up the discarded clothes because some fresh air had begun blowing in the BJP. If it were to reopen the wounds of bias and prejudice, it would bleed still further. The party must realise that India's ethos is pluralism; it should have learnt the lesson by now. Not even reaching a figure of 200 in the 545-member Lok Sabha is no performance by any standard. NDA which began with a high-profile campaign of 'India Shining,' gave it up halfway through. It realised that the unemployed and the poor, particularly in the rural areas, felt more irritated. How could the slogan -- L.K. Advani once took pride in owning it from an advertisement -- work in a country where every fifth person -- as many as 20 crore -- according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation is "undernourished"?

If the slogan of 'India Shining' was raised to submerge the local issues and caste and religious considerations, it failed miserably. In all the 28 states where the Lok Sabha elections were held what was common were bijli, sadak and pani. Otherwise, there were different issues in different states because each one of them is bigger than the size of any European country.

Gradually, the economic issues took the shape of personalities and ultimately it came to Vajpayee versus Sonia Gandhi. It appears that the electorate preferred the latter. The stigma of being a 'foreigner' did not matter. My impression is that the BJP overdid it and, at some stage, the sympathy factor worked in her favour. Even the Bofors scandal raised by the party had no effect. It was a case of flogging the dead horse. As for Vajpayee, he has suffered in stature because the BJP's entire poll campaign was built around his personality.

Now that the elections are over, I want to go back to the second exit poll held on April 26. The share market crashed and the Sensex came tumbling down by 213 points. The estimated loss was somewhere around Rs 55,000 crore. The fall had never been so steep since the 9/11 attacks. Sebi has all the records of who sold their shares and who bought them. I want it to make the information public. My hunch is that some pattern will be discernible -- the pattern that may expose the parties behind the manipulation. Was the crash stage-managed after the exit poll on April 20 had shown the rise of Sensex by 72 points?

I would not suspect the fudging of exit polls. But it is too serious a matter to be left at that. It may turn out to be another scam. There has to be an inquiry to know who brought about the fall of such a magnitude. Pollsters and television pundits are a means, not the end. Strange, the biggest losers are said to be the public sector undertakings and banks, both financed by the people of India.

This takes me to the utility of exit polls. That they are held in America and the UK is no reason why they should be held in India. In those countries, elections are a one-day affair. Exit polls do not matter because the time difference between their finding and the results is only that of a few hours. But India has span of several days to cover the process. In this election, the first vote was cast on April 20 and the last one on May 10. But three weeks are too long a period.

Will the change in government affect India-Pakistan relations? I do not think so because what Vajpayee was doing had the nation's will behind it. Narasimha Rao has rightly said in an interview: "Everybody will be in agreement with any effort by India for close Indo-Pak relations. Are there any two opinions? It doesn't matter which leader."

My main worry is over the talks the centre has initiated with the Hurriyat leaders. Since people like Ghulam Nabi Azad are opposed to any talks with them, there may be a cooling off situation. It will be a tragedy if it happens that way.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.