The people of India have spoken and they have shown the world, Democracy Rocks. High Five to all those with the indelible ink on your middle/index fingers!
But some people you can't keep out. They may be out of touch with reality, but with their excellent flair for words, fancy degrees and penchant for covering their asses, they still ply their trade as though nothing happened. No I'm not talking about the MBA's responsible for the recession...I'm talking about the GREAT INDIAN MEDIA
Not one, repeat not one, of this elite, shameless tribe got their prediction right on who would garner how many seats. Thank God the Election Commission cut down those opinion/exit polls. Imagine, the waste of investor money in the hands of these imbeciles in recessionary times. I'm not going to single out any single media person/outlet, as they have all proven to be equally incompetent. Now that we are done with the pre-election incompetency, let's get to the post election, "covering their ass" bit.
Today you have them propounding numerous theories as to why the Congress did so well - Rahul Gandhi, Dr. Manmohan Singh, NREGA etc etc
a] Rahul Gandhi - Ain't these the same tribe who were panning his naivete in trying to send out feelers to Nitish Kumar, Jayalalithaa and the Left. Goes to show, Rahul himself wasn't sure they wud do well but atleast he was game enough to try.
b] Dr. Manmohan Singh - Apparently the press believes that the people of India have learnt to respect his honesty and sincerity and have re-elected him. Errr, it thats so why didn't they know of it before the elections. If somone is so wildly popular amongst the masses, the press should know, right?
c] NREGA - National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Its the pro-poor scheme that has set the Indian countryside on fire, or so it would seem if u read the papers today. Interestingly the Congress party itself didn't think it was any great shakes. They mentioned it only 3 times in their
manifesto on the 8th page. If hindsight is 20:20, for our media, it is laser vision!
The Indian General Elections have not only given the Congress a mandate, apparently it was a mandate beyond our shores as well. The Sri Lankan Army took it as a mandate to go ahead and shoot Prabhakaran. Yep..we care more for our free color TV's and one rupee rice, Eelam can go to hell. More on this later..
One of the biggest losers of these elections are the terrorists.
Terrorism, by its very concept, is the art of influencing governments with high profile attacks that strike fear into the hearts of the people. When the people, themselves, don't care then of what use is terrorism? People of India, it seems, care for the Govt doing an earnest job or appear to do an earnest job of it. [Congress shud thank Chidambaram for this, flying shoe notwithstanding]. People care more for what the Government does that affects their daily lives. If terror were, to shake this country, it has to be much more widespread. In a country of India's size, that means all out war.
The elections also saw the Left lose a substantial part of their clout. They got whacked by Didi in Bengal and were united in commiting political suicide in Kerala. Post the elections, the Left politburo had a meeting and discovered there is still a place where they have 100% acceptability and had swept the elections. They decided to emigrate en masse to this promised land and applied to the Soviet Union for travel facilitation. The Russian embassy sent a "Sorry we do not exist anymore note" along with a Judo video of Vladimir Putin. Then they applied to the Chinese, who don't respond to losers. Then they tried their luck with Comrade Castro, who sent them a book from Hugo Chavez. By then, the kebabwala at Gol Market informed them that their promised land is in Indian territory and does not require a Visa. So off they went, led by Mr and Mrs Karat, who rival the Obamas as the most handsome first couple, to their promised land where they won 2 out of 2 LS seats - Tripura.