This is a major day in Indian electoral history, the longest running democratically elected communist government on the plant for 34 long years is walking out of Writers Building and today Alimuddin Street- the Left HQ in Kolkata is very sparsely populated with scribes. It was a personality centric presidential style poll for change,  India’s Lech Walesa – the Trinamool Congress Supremo- Mamata Banerjee has brought the Red Empire down. It is a mandate for change, a generation which has not seen anything apart from Communists in power.  Post Singur and Nandigram, the Trinamool captured half the seats in 2009 parliamentary polls and today is the culmination of that paradigm shift in Government.

Madam J Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu has been brought to power with a coalition with DMDK and the left. This mandate is in response to the family politics and corruption scandal post the 2G Scam.  The people have voted against the status quo. But the day belongs to Mamata Banerjee, street fighter extraordinare, who challenged the mighty left and made them bite dust.

As we have just seen another PAP landslide in to parliament with its margins reduced and with the historic entry of five men from Al Juneid GRC from the opposition’s elite team beating a star players from the PAP which includes brilliant Foreign Minister Yeo and other cabinet level talent. The question is that in the pursuit for opposition voices in Parliament, which is indeed healthy for dialogue  in a democratic set-up, governance will take a back seat. In India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and other developing nations where these are so called vibrant democracies, electioneering with done at its best, but Governance; which is the software of a nation state, takes a back seat. So, its democracy sans objective. In Malaysia, due to the affirmative action policies; minorities are migrating in droves as well as the affluent indian who does not get an admit due to being an upper caste, in-spite of having the merit and talent. This is the outcome of a democracy.

In so called first world parliament’s like UK and Belgium; policy gridlocks are the name of the game.  Unholy ideological alliances are made to stay in power. Singapore is what Singapore is because of the elite talent at the top, although i agree no system is perfect and there is always a room for improvement. Health care and living costs are certainly legitimate causes which effect lives on a day to day basis.

The eye in a democracy should be on making peoples lives better, and meritocracy and clean government does help.