India’s election is over. The BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) is out. The Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) is in. The losers were shocked. The winners were stunned. The vote defied all pre- and exit-poll predictions. The pundits were confounded. Caught unawares, foreign embassies went scrambling for position papers on the new dispensation.

The spin doctors went feverishly to work. Rural India, frustrated with their lot, had spoken. Rural development was the need of the hour. Sonia Gandhi, the Italian “bahu” heir to the Nehru legacy, had been elected India’s undisputed leader and entrusted with a massive mandate to transform the policies of the NDA government.

Atal Behari Vajpayee, the outgoing Prime Minister, declared that although his party had lost, India had won. Huh!

The election was billed as Indian democracy’s finest hour.

How ridiculous!

The priorities of rural India did not determine the course of the election. Nor were Sonia Gandhi and her Congress party given the massive mandate they rushed to claim. And this was NOT Indian democracy at its best.

A stupid voter had simply voted stupidly to produce a stupid result.

The huge loss of Andhra Pradesh’s Telegu Desam Party led by Chandrababu Naidu, the NDA’s poster boy for information technology, was read as the electorate’s disenchantment with high technology, perceived to have primarily benefited the minority urban elite. Poppycock! Farmers committing suicides were cited as evidence. Those suicides have continued, in even greater numbers, since the change in government! In any event, it would have been too much to ask the Congress to develop the rural sector when for over forty years of continuous rule it failed to develop much of anything, urban or rural, save for the “license raj” and unbridled corruption.

If the rural vote was so critical to this election, how does one explain the NDA’s big parliamentary losses in the major metropolitan cities? Only one out of five to seven seats were won by the BJP and its allies in Mumbai and Delhi. The Mumbai vote provides insight into the seriousness with which the Indian voter approached this election. A senior BJP parliamentarian, Ram Naik, was replaced with the comedian actor Govinda of Coolie number One fame from Congress. This is good? Democracy’s finest hour?

As for the massive mandate claimed by the Congress, the party only marginally improved upon its seats tally in parliament while losing roughly two percent of the popular vote. The vote share of the BJP, likewise, was also reduced by about two percent with the loss of a small number of seats. In states where Congress contested the elections on its own, it lost badly. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and U.P. present a few examples. Other than Rahul’s and Sonia ji’s elections from Amethi and Rae Bareli, constituencies which the Gandhis have long nurtured, the supposed “Gandhi” magic failed to yield dividends in U.P., despite the focused efforts there of the Gandhi children.

The voter elected to vote out the folks in power with little thought of who would come next. Since even the winners didn’t expect to win, there was a mad rush for the choice ministries. Karunanidhi wanted Home, reportedly to settle scores with Jayalialitha, and acted coy when that did not happen. Laloo Prasad Yadav too wanted Home, but had to settle for less, as did Sharad Pawar who had hopes of becoming Deputy Prime Minister. The Communists got the best of all worlds. Their man was elected Speaker of the House and they can call the shots any way they like, which sends shivers down the spines of the stock market and the foreign investors.

Mr. Vajpayee recently stated that the NDA lost the election because of overconfidence, and that Gujarat had no role to play in the outcome. Excuse me? Who forced Atal ji on the eve of the election to tell the electorate he was too tired and wanted to retire? Or Lal Kishan Advani to ask those who did not want to vote for BJP to vote for Congress instead. Why blame any one else for the debacle when the standard bearer didn’t want the job and the Prime Minister in waiting was too arrogant to demand the vote?

Gujarat was a major liability. After the stinging rebuke of Narendra Modi’s Hindutva campaign in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP marginalized him and registered big wins in the state elections last December. Instead of learning from that experience, the party unleashed him on the entire electorate in the national elections. Now even Gujarat’s own BJP legislators do not want Mr. Modi. Mr. Vajpayee may not want to sit in the Opposition benches for five years, but sit he must unless the party takes home the right messages. Look to the future. Retire the oldies, and nurture young leadership that does not tire. Communicate a message that integrates, not divides. Take pride in your accomplishments, but do not, repeat do not, dilute the message with vitriol.

The founding fathers of the likes of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, and Dr. Rajendra Prasad, are possibly turning in their graves seeing the new people’s representatives occupying the hallowed seats of parliament: known Mafiosi (“bahubali”), alleged criminals on bail, actors over the hill, and a few -- very few, unfortunately -- kind souls thrown in for good measure. It is a sad commentary that such undesirables occupy government benches under the leadership of the party that claims to have won for India its independence over one-half century ago.

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