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Theoretically it is possible for both Hindutva and economic progress to go hand in hand (although unlikely). But the focus of the next elections won't be economic development then. You have already seen the outrage in the last few months. Imagine the shit storm if the govt decides to go full Hindutva. It will take the center stage and the next elections would be fought over it.

Media should not decide govt. narrative. Media is far far worse, even ISIS would be considered tolerant as per their standards. Media plays little role in these days forming perceptions except maybe extreme small minority of people who watch News..
 
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Not one of them you mentioned needs talking ,they are governmental executive decisions no-one can stop them if govt makes their mind,problem starts with chest beating and focus on such issues, these are secondary issues major chunk of votes BJP needs are development and economy related govt should be seen working on it...same biharis gave 32/40 to nda.

That is the point the govt is not making up its mind. It has been solely focused on development which does not wash. As to your logic that Bihar voted for Rahul and Lalu for development...a BIG LOL.

Inside, not outside . been saying this for months now. 2016 will be a rough year. Seculars will try their best to start a riot. They are already trying. Only few weeks back congress workers put the head of a cow in front of the temple...

Actually, outsiders too. IB had info of ISI attempting huge bomb blasts in temples across the country a few months ago.
 
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That is the point the govt is not making up its mind. It has been solely focused on development which does not wash. As to your logic that Bihar voted for Rahul and Lalu for development...a BIG LOL.
That's hilarious if you think bjp lost because it haven't done/talked much about beef/hindutva issues ,they won against bjp/modi because many stupid statements gave them issues to reach out to deflect their corruption/misgovernance ,those statements are hindrance to bjp's electoral campaigns its not that difficult to understand.
 
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That's hilarious if you think bjp lost because it haven't done/talked much about beef/hindutva issues ,they won against bjp/modi because many stupid statements gave them issues to reach out to deflect their corruption/misgovernance ,those statements are hindrance to bjp's electoral campaigns its not that difficult to understand.

Nonsense. Majority of Bihar does not watch news channels. The urban voters voted for BJP and hence the trends early morning were reflecting BJP leading. It was the rural voters who voted along caste lines as is their natural habit for state elections that undid BJP. Now don't tell me rural Bihar are beef eaters and were concerned about beef not being on their plate. That would be hysterical.
 
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Outsiders or insiders? I have always felt that a Mumbai like attack is just around the corner. I would be surprised if Modi finishes his term without having to make a strong (and tough) decision w.r.t Pakistan. I hope I am wrong though.

More insider than outsider this time looking at the virulence on display.

Much of it which frankly borders perilously close to being anti national. For personal/ideological/political axes that are being ground.

Of course, do not discount our friends fishing in troubled waters.
 
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More insider than outsider this time looking at the virulence on display.

Much of it which frankly borders perilously close to being anti national. For personal/ideological/political axes that are being ground.

Of course, do not discount our friends fishing in troubled waters.

I guess they do not have leader who can match Modis strength. Maybe dats y.

To put the blame square on BJP Modi thus equating and justifying Godhra to bring him down.

Its a pity that with such case nation is going down in gallows while others only care is lust for power n chair.

All for power n chair and one so called family.
 
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This ^

I find it appalling that the guy still has gall to go ahead with his community addressing crap at Wembley's even after this drubbing, such a shameless chap!
He has to go ahead with Wembley- it would be a disastrous PR episode to cancel it now. That said, the speech he gives will feel especially hollow now the wind has left his sails.

I was never a fan of holding these big events in host countries. what is the stupidity in holding such rallies without producing any results on the ground ?? In all these rallies he sold a dream and the pillars of that dream already started crumbling.
Pretty much my sentiments.

I agree. Maybe the first couple were interesting but it is now boring.....and grating.

Shekhar Gupta: Modi's 2014 after-glow is over

Why the Bihar defeat can be the best thing for him as PM, but only if he has the humility to read the writing on the wall

Shekhar Gupta November 9, 2015 Last Updated at 00:25 IST

Bihar was never the most important state for Indian politics. Even in the period before Jharkhand was carved out of it, it was a distant second to Uttar Pradesh in the number of MPs it sent to Lok Sabha. Today, with 40 MPs, it is only the fourth largest after UP, Maharashtra and West Bengal, with Tamil Nadu a close fifth. But it is the equivalent of what in American politics is described as the bellwether state. It’s an audacious line to write, but a close look at politics of the past 50 years will tell you that unlike Bengal, now what Bihar thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.

The first setbacks to the Congress were delivered here in the mid-60s, starting with the rise of lower-middle caste alliances in 1967, and the phenomenon then spread until Indira Gandhi put it down briefly. It was then the JP movement in 1974 and finally, the rise of Lalu Yadav. In each case the change in the state had a decisive impact on national politics. The latest election result is a turning point of comparable significance.

The Congress inherited power after Independence and ruled unchallenged for nearly half a century because the opposition was divided. But once its rivals started to merge forces and resources, politics changed. Everything happens much faster in these hyper-connected times. So what took decades in the past has just taken 18 months now. The power of IOU, or the Index of Opposition Unity, is now well understood. Bihar has reaffirmed it, and it will set the template for forthcoming state elections. It is too early to start guesswork on what may happen in Assam, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. But in Assam, the Congress, Badruddin Ajmal's AIUDF and the Left will review their politics. So will the Left and Congress in West Bengal and in Tamil Nadu, where the BJP was expecting to make a significant entry. It will need to take a fresh look at its prospects.

Bihar isn't the first setback Narendra Modi has suffered since May 2014. Delhi was the first. But it is a half-state, AAP was considered a sui generis phenomenon and thus unlikely to make a national impact. Bihar is the real thing. Modi will, therefore, need to make two important calls. One, how does he readjust his governance with the fantasy of a quick increase of numbers in Rajya Sabha fully I demolished? Will he now agree to talk to the opposition and establish a working equation of decency to have the parliament functioning and bills passed? This is tougher than it sounds. It would entail Modi getting out of campaign mode and settling down to calmer, old-fashioned governance.

Two, he will have to take a call on his politics. The Modi-Shah leadership model will be under questioning. The prominence given to Amit Shah in Bihar, where his portrait was used along with Modi’s on election posters and where he addressed five rallies a day, indicated that he had been anointed as the number two in the party after Modi. This Gujarati takeover was internally resented. It will now be questioned. So the call Modi will need to make is, does he loosen his control over the party? Does he become more like a full-time prime minister and not lead every state election as frontally as in Delhi and now Bihar? Further, he needs no more evidence after Bihar that polarisation cannot deliver election victories to him, that in India of 2015 there is no vote for beating up anybody, and that Pakistan and terrorism may be issues of great passion and partisanship on warrior news channels and Twitter but not in the world of real public opinion. He and Shah showed a lack of understanding of the Bihari mind. Their campaign was disrespectful of its political wisdom. In years, I haven’t seen something sillier than the “relaunch” of brand Emperor Ashoka. Hopefully they will be smart enough not to take this imperiousness elsewhere in India. This will affect, most of all, the project of taking Assam through polarisation.

The second call is Modi’s and will be of greater consequence to his partymen. The first was what matters to India at a non-partisan level. It will be wonderful if Modi now brings the focus back on governance with greater commitment than image-building, electoral politics and divisive campaigning. In short, it will be a real gain if this setback persuades him to become more prime ministerial. He should now be calling the top opposition leaders, improving the parliamentary environment and building some real momentum on governance. He should also be speaking out on divisiveness and intolerance and distance himself from abusive social media armies, irresponsible bigoted colleagues, party-men and sundry sycophants who bring no value but only contribute to building an aura of negativity around his government.

The Bihar verdict also settles any remaining doubts that the Modi momentum of the summer of 2014 is now fully over. Elections, voter choices, public opinion will now be determined by performance. If you apply this test to Bihar, results will be self-explanatory. Four of the central portfolios most important in terms of public opinion and popular satisfaction are agriculture, telecom, food and skill development. Ministers for all of these, Radhe Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, come from Bihar and have been campaigning there full-time. Each portfolio is a disaster. Dal prices are at historic peaks, agriculture has stalled as the minister does no more than hold forth on “Jaivik kheti” (organic farming), the promise of two crore new jobs is a joke and, if this is a smartphone generation, call drops, rising tariffs and fishy ambiguity on net neutrality also infuriate it. In fact the most effective Nitish line in this campaign was his mocking of Prasad as the Call-Drop Minister. Or in describing his BSNL as Bhai Sahib Nahin Lagega.

Modi’s 2014 victory was based on a promise. That cheque has been cashed. Now he will be judged on performance and delivery: governance, real figures, inflation, growth, jobs, social cohesion, irrespective of how awe-inspiring his oratorical performance might be for his delirious NRI audience at Wembley. Bihar has stopped his electoral juggernaut. It can still be the best thing for him as prime minister, but only if he has the humility to accept this reality.
Thank you for posting this article @Bang Galore, this is effectively what I was trying to say but in a more muted fashion.


Comeon man dont write off everything for a election result Modi has sailed through the onslaught against him by every politicians,media on him for more than 12 years do you think he cant sail through this? i am sure there will be course correction after this hard hitting and with party president post due in Jan next year amith shah will be either forced to tweak his strategy or will shown the door. And BJP was not winning any state ekection back then from 2009 even after a defeat on the 2009 general election but they made a course correction and you know the result . I am sure the sameway modi will repeat that and we have 4 years left for him which is a big time in indian politics

Well let's wait and see my friend- there was no course correction after Delhi. I simply don't understand the thinking of Modi and his team, their entire strategy(holding off major reforms in the expectation they would succeed in these elections) was unnecessarily high risk from the outset. This kind of overconfidence is indicative of a disturbing disconnect from reality and I don't know if it can be addressed overnight.


lol .... he has been like this for a long time, he swings from one end to the other. Don't bother.

I think I have been pretty consistent mate. I am not ingratiated by any single personality or party- I am merely interested in what I see as the best fit for India at any given time. As such, I had found Modi a very promising prospect with the mandate he had secured and the vision he had articulated. The fact of the matter is that he has simply failed to utilise such an unprecedented mandate AND left that vision entirely unfulfilled. It will always be the case that the higher you raise expectations the harder you will fall and this has been demonstrated very clearly here.

I do not believe I am factually incorrect in saying that these elections in Bihar were very significant for how Modi's term was to progress- this was articulated by numerous commentators both inside and out of India. Nor am I wrong when I say Modi has failed to deliver the kind of "big bang" reforms India has been crying out for for about 6-7 years now. Part of this has been his inability and apparent indifference to build a consensus with the opposition to get these pushed through. His belligerent/overconfident approach would have been fine had he ridden his "Modi wave" and secured all available election victories but now his momentum is waning so I am simply seeing a pessimistic outlook. How are the reforms going to come now?

Theoretically it is possible for both Hindutva and economic progress to go hand in hand (although unlikely). But the focus of the next elections won't be economic development then. You have already seen the outrage in the last few months. Imagine the shit storm if the govt decides to go full Hindutva. It would take the center stage and the next elections would be fought over it.
A fair point, if the GoI had stuck to the development agenda since May 2014 they would have faced even a fraction of the current onslaught they are receiving from the media and the entire narrative of this election could have been different. It has been their inability to keep the so-called "fringe elements" in line that has muddied the waters and disrupted their entire progress. I don't understand why they find it so hard to keep their development agenda at the forefront of the discourse, again and again they are shooting themselves in the foot to the point it makes one question if they are even able to pursue their development fantasies.
 
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