With elections around the corner, there would be many thoughts going through your mind.

Who will win this election ? Will Mayawati be a strong candidate for Prime Minister ? Or will Congress regain majority with the other UPA allies ? Or will Advani win the heart of the nation?

There are several of these questions that need to be answered. No one knows better than you do in your state or city. India Special is opening its doors to everyone who can contribute articles with primary focus on elections.

At India Special, are neither a pro BJP nor a pro Congress….and we don’t intend to be with the Third Front either. But yes, we do want to speak out, promote the right candidates, the right ideologies as much as we can.

At the same time, we would like to be of service to those who intend to speak their mind out.

India Special has a backend team of editors, publishers, technologists etc who are willing to support you in your analysis for and against candidates in each and every state.

If you are willing to participate in this debate and want your articles to be published, just write your thoughts and opinions to editor@indiaspecial.net

Please note that we do edit the articles to meet our quality standards. Also, some of the points that you may want to keep in mind while writing articles, analysis or opinions are

a) The article should be in the range of 500-800 words

b) The article should not have spelling and grammar mistakes

c) The article should not be communal in nature, promote hatred etc.

d) The article should not contain any foul language

You are free to express your opinion and we respect it. Please make all efforts to be a responsible contributor. Please take a look at some of the articles that we have published in recent times, just to get an idea

a) The Importance Of Being Earnest In Politics

b) Shashi Tharoor- A New Beginning?

c) Indian Politics – Change Is Coming Soon

d) Lok Satta – Powered By People, Driven By Actions

e) Meera Sanyal –The Hope For Mumbai

Looking forward for an excellent analysis of the coming elections. Get your thoughts published, initiate a debate and do your bit to make a difference. Please also spread the word around. Thank you.

You can email your articles to  editor@indiaspecial.net

Image Credit: Caitlinator

Popularity: 29%

Well, we have heard of Hung Parliament enough to know what a chaos that is going to be. When India had its share of hung parliaments in the last decade, the government did not last long and no one expected too.

This time around, Congress is facing an anti-incumbency factor in many of the states which it ruled – more so in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. In both these places people have been tired of politics, the associated corruption and the countless instances of crime that was witnessed in the last year. Be it the Satyam saga, or the Nagarjuna Finance issue or the Siris Pharmaceutical case in AP or the Mumbai massacre in Mumbai towards the later part of the year, few of the Congress governed states have had extremely poor governance. This coupled with the fact that the economy is in a recession, will only add salt to the wounds of an already bleeding Congress. It will take a miracle for Congress to be reinstated to run the government and Dr. Manmohan Singh as India’s Prime Minister

BJP on the other hand had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. And in 2009, just when it needed to put in all the efforts to show a non-communal face and gulp up as many allies (or strategic partners so to say), it seemed to be going all wrong for the BJP- The month of January saw a BJP ruled state i.e Karnataka facing the wrath of the public when a few radical Hindu fundamentalists, closer to the Sangh Parivar, led by Pramod Muthalik attacked innocent women in a pub. BJP tried to distance itself from this party, but the effort did not seem to have paid off due to the Sangh Parivar connections.

Roll over to March, just when BJP needed all the support from its past allies, BJD (Biju Janata Dal) seems to have backtracked from its alliance – that will be a huge setback for this party considering the ambitious goals it had set for itself in Orissa. Advani’s dreams of becoming India’s Prime Minister at a young age of 82 seem to be a distant reality, unless some of the allies flip their wings in the opposite direction post elections.

That leaves us with an option called the Third Front. The followers of Lenin and the preachers of Marx had often called for a government that is Non Congress and Non BJP. While that seems to be the ideal thought, it might be wishful thinking for CPI or its namesake CPI(M) to form the government with the support of its regional allies.

This is an era of alliance and one man who knows how to play it at the right time is our erstwhile sleeping Prime Minister a.k.a Deve Gowda. He seems to be an extremely serious contender given the fact that he was instrumental in announcing The Third Front along with some regional superpowers including TDP, TRS, CPI, CPI(M), JDU, BJD, Forward Bloc etc.

Will he stand a chance ? Not unless Mayawati, Bhajan Lal, Nitish Kumar et al gives up their claim to Prime Ministership.

Speaking of Mayawati and her ambition of India’s first Dalit Woman Prime Minister could soon be a reality. is someone who knows how to play the caste card very well and whether you like it or not, Mayawati and her identity politics is a thorn in The Third Front’s nest. She could very well be the dark horse waiting and watching.

With a hung parliament in the offing, India’s Prime Ministerial candidate too seems to be hung .

It will be an interesting few months to watch the Indian political scenario turning topsy turvy with every passing day. The question still remains – Who will be India’s Hung Prime Minister ?

What’s your prediction ?

Image Credit: Alykat

Popularity: 29%

BJD, BJP, BSP, JDS, JDU, INC, AIADMK, TMC, CPI CPIM, TRS, DMK, TDP and the list goes on…

I was very bad at mathematics and don’t quite remember my permutations and combinations well. If you apply that technique to the 26 letters in the English alphabet with options of 3,4,5,6 lettered outputs, I don’t know what that number will be. That said, I know for a fact that the number of political parties in India may potentially equal that number of political parties. (Pardon me if the mathematical output is more than the number of parties – I’ve already confessed to being bad at math).

The 12^th of March 2009 saw the formation of a 3^rd front – Come papers report the number of parties in this alliance as 8, others say 10!  Assuming that the number is between 8-10, so many political parties with obviously very diverse interests coming together is for political gains! While they may claim to be a united face, I think it is just crap because a sheer look at the names and the nature of the people in there indicate that they will never stick together on ideologies.  Let’s take a quick sneak peek at the who’s who:

Deve Gowda:

Son of the soil and former prime Minster by chance, I distinctly recall his speech on the day of the vote of confidence when he said that “he would rise like a phoenix from the ashes to lead the country again sometime in future”.  To me, someone’s doing this just to fulfill his personal ambition. History is the best indication of how stable our great old man is and the Bangalore knows this more than anyone else. While I can go on and on, I rest my case here.

Jayalalitha :

The queen of the politics of vendetta, one can’t count the number of times she has decided to merge with a party and then break away. If there is someone who has a reputation of having had an alliance with the left, the right, the center, the top and the bottom, it must be her – yes! Except the DMK. Wonder if she will read this and think, why not merge with the DMK for sometime too?

Prakash Karat :

The CPI exec, LEFTIST is the simplest and apt way to describe them. My top of the mind recall for them was the way they threw the spanner into the works when we tried to get the nuclear deal through. I think they remain extremely conservative to date. Proof of their pudding is a look back into a state that they have ruled forever!

Mayawati:

If she was born south of the Vindhyas, she would have been Jayalalitha’s sister – . Elder or younger, I don’t know! There are two schools of thought from my friends from UP – One saying she has done a terrific job and the other saying she is no better than any other average politician. I can’t comment as I’ve never even set foot on that land, but I will however base my assumption on the recent scandalous birthday bash and the preceding hafta vasool. Welcome to the new world order.

Bhajan Lal:

Ex congressman who was dumped by the party after all his sweat and toil! Clear intentions on saying let me do something anti my mother ship. Selfish is the least that I can say!

Chandrababu Naidu:

Emandi garu? Meeru kooda join chesthunnaara?  In my broken Telugu, I meant to say, Et tu Brutus? If there was anyone in the political class that truly walked his talk and stood at the forefront of development, it’s him. I don’t care about the other aspects as I am trying to look for a needle in a haystack analyzing politicians. I don’t know why. If I were you, I will limit myself to regaining what I lost, look at getting back Andhra – there are too many local battles to fight, why go national?

Chandrasekhar :

Your only claim to fame is a separate state of Telangana. When I was in school, I was thought that India had 25 states ( I forgot if it was 25 or 26). I hoping my son is not taught of India having a 100 states! Can’t you just aim to value add in what we have? The solution to being Chief minister is not to say let’s create more states.. it’s what you can do as a value proposition for your state dude!

Who’s next? I don’t know as the list is not complete. Seems the parties are evaluating options – to join or not, to ruin or not!

God, please save us from this mess. I want to vote and be a good citizen. With so many parties and people around, whom do I vote for in this cesspool? I have no plans of supporting the 3^rd front, but how do we ensure someone doesn’t start a 4^th front day after?

Image Credit: Wikimedia

Popularity: 25%

Last Wednesday, a day before Christmas, a PWD Engineer in Uttar Pradesh,  Manoj Gupta, was lynched to death simply because he refused to pay money towards Mayawati’s  birthday celebrations which falls on January 15^th. He was asked to pay Rs.10 lakhs

The man who is responsible for his killing is supposed to be a BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari. Apparently he has some 12 cases against him already.

Mayawati, in turn tried to give the family some Rs.5 lakhs as a compensation as if the value of Mr.Gupta’s life was Rs. 5 lakhs. This was refused by the family, obviously.

This is not the first time that Mayawati has publicly displayed her histrionics. Sometime in May 2008 she had unveiled a statue of hers showcasing herself as the champion of the Dalit. If that was not enough, she went ahead and pulled her statue down and ordered for a new one barely 45 days after she unveiled it.

Reason-Mayawati was not happy with the quality of the sculpture. She had also expressed her displeasure over the fact that it was smaller than the statue of her political mentor Kanshi Ram.

If I do some more research, I am sure I can come up with a few dozen more examples of her histrionics. I always wonder, what is it in her that the people of Uttar Pradesh continue to elect her and Mulayam alternatively term after term.

Sure she is a woman.  And it is great to see a woman as a head of the state in a country like ours – That is what true democracy is all about.  To top it, she is a Dalit too. You couldn’t have asked for a better combination, right ?

Think again..

Do we really need such kind of identity politics in India ?”

Should being a Dalit or a member of a Minority be the criteria for becoming the supremo of a state ? Should gender be the criteria for selecting the head of the state for protecting our lives ?

Should you even consider anyone who has criminals as his/ her party workers ? How can you support someone who uses public funds to make her own statue and display in public places ?

Don’t we have better  priorities that need to be tackled ? – Terrorism, Crime, Corruption etc – These are burgeoning in almost every nook and corner of the country especially Uttar Pradesh. Most of the terrorists caught in the last one year have had some or the other UP connection. With these alarming bells, how can we have a leader of her stature ruling the state ?

Mulayam Singh is definitely not the answer, nor his sycophant (no prizes for guessing)

There has to be someone else who can lead by example- someone who has the respect of the people, is not a choice due to some mass hysteria and definitely someone who is  young, futuristic  and has the back up of a national party. Someone who is educated, convincing and a symbol of change.  Someone who will take lead to end the identity politics in India

Will we ever see that ?

Popularity: 13%