Deciphering the Indian Election & the
South Asian Message
Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury
Queerness of the Results
Interesting times indeed. Modi-fied BJP’s remarkable election campaign surely was fuelled by unprecedented sums of money, but more interestingly magnified by the logic of the first-past-the-post system — which converted a 12 percentage point difference in vote share with the Congress into a 600 per cent difference in seats (NDA with 335 seats, including 282 of BJP against UPA with 61 seats, including 44 of Congress). In the process, it has helped Modi banish, for all intents and purposes, the lingering shadows of a darker past. So detested was the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government and so terrible its record of governance that the party has justifiably suffered the worst defeat in its 129-year history.
South Asian Message
Interesting times indeed. Modi-fied BJP’s remarkable election campaign surely was fuelled by unprecedented sums of money, but more interestingly magnified by the logic of the first-past-the-post system — which converted a 12 percentage point difference in vote share with the Congress into a 600 per cent difference in seats (NDA with 335 seats, including 282 of BJP against UPA with 61 seats, including 44 of Congress). In the process, it has helped Modi banish, for all intents and purposes, the lingering shadows of a darker past. So detested was the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government and so terrible its record of governance that the party has justifiably suffered the worst defeat in its 129-year history.