Himal, March 2007
During the year leading up to India’s Lok Sabha elections of May 2009, the BJP’s attempts to avert another electoral disaster will become increasingly frantic.
By : N Gunasekaran
Following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s electoral successes in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh during the recent assembly polls, India’s national press seems intent on trying to impress upon its readership that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is on the comeback trail. That certainly seems to fit in with the party’s own public-relations attempts; at this point, it is important explore whether what is being fed to the readership appears to add up to anything. Ultimately, it does not, given the fact that there are limits to voting success when the focus is not on economic or social welfare, but communalist division as a means of electoral advancement. Meanwhile, the BJP’s allies seem to have added this factor to their calculations, which has led to their distance.
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