FIVE MAJOR PREDICTIONS OF THIS BLOG

1.BJP is likely to win 85-98 seats ; Congress may garner between 77-88; BJSP would perhaps come in third with 18 –22 seats and BSP may be the surprise package with 8-10 seats; SP could corner 3-5 seats and GGP could land up 2-4.
2.Shivraj Singh will last as the CM for a maximum of one year, if at all . If Uma Bharti gets enough seats to arm twist the BJP, the least she would demand is a new CM. Even otherwise, once the elections have been won , the aspirations of those grassroot leaders who see Shivraj as a paratrooper will view it as the last chance to grab the top spot. Pretenders include Kailash Vijayvargiya , Narendra Singh Tomar , Anup Mishra , Gauri Shankar Shejwar, Himmat Kothari with Jayant Mallaya being the dark horse.
3.A fallout of this will be that Congress will gain relatively in the Lok Sabha elections . ( Since the Hindutva votes would have reached their limit in the assembly polls and the votes of the minor parties would get transferred to the Congress ).This would be a diversion from the trends of previous elections.
4. Most of the sitting /Ex-MP's who've been fielded would lose.
5 This election onwards, coalitions would become a regular feature in Madhya Pradesh - nascent post poll alliances this time ; pre poll alliances led by the major national parties in the next elections ; and if the big national parties do not reinvent themselves in the state- alliances led by regional parties could not be a farfetched idea within the next decade.

ONLY MEDIA, NO JOURNALISM

Media( Esp. Regional media ) has played a bit role in the subversion of democracy in MP. Earlier too, it was an open secret that during elections ( in particular ) a few journalists do the cash for publishing stuff. However , their numbers have grown to the extent that one is forced to echo the recent outpouring of a senior journalist who said "Where is journalism left in India ? It is all merely media now. ". Even leading newspapers and TV channels have become brazen about it in that they've gone full hog for the hideous concept of impact features ( carrying hyped misleading public relations material in the garb of news thus misleading a certain unsuspecting section of the electorate ) . Furthermore , journalism used to have some pretensions of being an intellectual pursuit - something which it has altogether given up ( Earlier journalists were supposed to be " Buddhijeevi": earning their living by the intellect ; now they're mostly " Shramjeevi " : living by labour ). During the elections, journalists ( print journalists in particular ) used to shape/influence the agenda rather than merely report it (as is the case now). This time out too there were some steps in positive direction viz. a move by some newspapers to build a public agenda by seeking public opinion. However, nobody has covered all the three things - reporting public opinion( what the public wants) , carrying leaders agenda ( what do the leaders stand for ) as also educating people ( what ought to be done ). In particular, the last aspect is a casualty - hence most Editors have been dispensed with or have become managers or managers operate as Editors. Till , all three aspects are covered , journalism's role in helping voters to make an informed/ educated choice will remain marginal. To that extent our democracy will continue to remain seriously flawed. Thus , in these elections we have mostly media , little journalism.

UNDERCURRENT

Campaign in the past two elections has been rather strange in MP - till the very last phase it appears to be a relatively smooth ride for the ruling party but as the D-Day approaches a strong undercurrent builds up for the opposition. This happens only when the incumbent government is walking on thin ice - in not having done "real" work relative to the hype. It was the case in Digvijay's second term as also to some extent in Shivraj's half term. ( On the other hand it may not work all that much in Chhattisgarh since Raman Singh has done substantive work and also had a full term to do it). In a way a somnambulant opposition during the term is a double edged sword-While on the one hand it reduces the chances of change in power ( esp. if the incumbent government does good work ), on the other it puts the ruling party in a sort of a lull bordering on overconfidence ( in particular if the team comprises inexperienced/non-grassroots/ mediocres)

CAMPAIGN

BJP'S campaign as always has been much more tech savvy ( LED's , addressing people on cellphones et al ) ; much better use of the new media ( SMS , social networking sites etc. ). Congress has done only marginally better this time with an engineer being at the helm but is still not upto the mark. Besides, it has not been able to utilise its traditional strengths of audio canvassing and door to door campaign - for, these require much longer time which the party never had.

CONGRESS MANIFESTO

Congress manifesto too doesn't show any great state specific vision - In most parts, it is an extension of their policies at the centre ( viz. providing dole to the educated unemployed youth - an extension of NREGP ) or an extrapolation of the BJP govt.'s policies (giving wheat to the poor/ very poor at 1-2 rupee a kilo; giving 2 lakh rupees to the girl child on maturity ). Election after election manifestos of both the major parties look suspiciously similar - not merely in content but most of the time even in the design. Even their advertisements look so alike that a printer's devil of exchanging their logos may go unnoticed.
It is understandable to some extent given the fact that the parties do not differ substantially in the major issues. However ,this is exactly what is creating a space for smaller parties with regional /sectoral outlook. Thus if the major parties do not reinvent themselves in the state soon a coalition era followed by the national parties playing second fiddle may not be farfetched.
The highlight of Congress manifesto is that the party has desperately tried to regain and retain its traditional vote banks in the state - tribals & muslims. They've promised Tantya Bhil University for tribal Languages & dialects as also setting up of a medical college for traditional tribal medicine; for muslims , the party has promised implementation of Sachchar committee report as also assistance to madrasas for imparting modern education.
Other interesting tit bits include : coming up with fancy wordplay - the term "very poor" for instance; abolishing SDO's power to remove elected Sarpanch and creation of youth brigades for environment protection .Strangely there is no mention of how to cope with the crisis the economy .
The manifesto is general in areas in which it should've been specific ( viz. industry, tourism , sports etc. ) and specific where a general statement would've been called for ( viz. 2 lakh rupees to a girl child on maturity, 1 lakh jobs to the rural poor etc. ) - specific promises in these areas mean trouble as the finances for these do not add up and riders have to be invariably introdced later.

One of the great oddities of this election is fielding of MP’s in the assembly elections (esp. by the BJP )- the excuse of delimitation doesn’t wash. There have been delimitations earlier too but they opened opportunities for the lower rung and not the other way round ( viz. Digvijay Singh was the municipality chairman when delimitation provided him a chance to contest assembly elections ). Politics is a game of growth and a person accustomed to broader national vision cannot shrink it and alter his attitude by the switch of a button.

Shivraj Singh will last as the CM for a maximum of one year .If Uma Bharti gets enough seats to armtwist the BJP, the least she would demand is a new CM. Even otherwise, once the elections have been won , the aspirations of those grassroot leaders
who see Shivraj as a paratrooper will be aroused ( for, they'll view it as the last chance to grab the top spot). Pretenders include Kailash Vijayvargiya , Narendra Singh Tomar , Anup Mishra , Gauri Shankar Shejwar, Himmat Kothari with Jayant Mallaya being the dark horse.

Manifestos have been published almost as an afterthought ( in the last 10 days or so ) by the two major parties. That too mostly as a rebuttal to the other. Congress brought out a charge sheet first - and rightly so. However , my view is that the party should’ve published an abridged charge sheet much in advance ( esp. about the issues on which BJP couldn’t have taken remedial measures) – which they didn’t . To say that public has a short memory and hence raise the issues at the last moment doesn’t wash .For, even if that is the case – it is precisely the duty of the opposition party not to let it go out of public memory.
On the other hand, BJP should’ve published its draft manifesto- a report card of sorts - much earlier ( highlighting the achievements which couldn’t be denied ) much earlier. To some extent they did by having a well mounted media campaign. However, the final BJP manifesto contains much of the same thing : Bijli Sadak Pani ( an extrapolation of it viz . making four lane roads, electricity round the clock in villages , water policy etc. ) barring a few new things such as making the MP a biotech state , promoting Ayurvedic medicine by opening Ayurvedic clinics in rural areas, making every village a Patwari Halka , providing forest based jobs to tribal youth etc. My take on this that BJP is not all that good on providing a vision- it being a party of traders & tecchies who are more cued to the applied aspects ( A corollary of this attitude is that it breeds greater corruption since this class is focused on getting the work done irrespective of the means ).