Will Elections 2009 be any different

The countdown to the General Elections has begun after a meeting of the Election Commission with all the major political parties, even as the controversy regarding Navin Chawla, who is slated to takeover as the next CEC, refuses to die down.

So, will these elections be any different?

The one aspect that will make a difference is the increase in the representation of the urban voter with respect to rural voter because of delimitation of the constituencies. Delimitation of constituencies is the process of redefining the boundaries of the constituencies to reflect changes in the population pattern. The present constituencies were carved out in 1976. Since then, our demographic pattern has changed and population of the cities has grown from 13% to 28% (2001 census). However, till now only 13% if the Lok Sabha seats were representing 28% if the population. For instance, the Chandni Chowk seat had 3.5 lakh voters while Outer Delhi has 35 lakh voter, clearly defeating the principle of one vote one value. With such a scenario, its no wonder that the politician never bothered about the middle class. Vice-versa the middle class never bothered either because his vote would have hardly make a difference.

But delimitation will change that and would ensure that there isn't vast difference between the number of people every seat would represent. It would also increase the number of seats representing urban voter to more than double(28% from 13%). However there is still a catch here. The population of some of the states like Tamil Nadu hasn't grown that much while that of Bimaru states like UP have grown tremendously. So a uniform delimitation would have actually decreased the relative representation of states such as Tamil Nadu. It would have meant penalizing such states for the progress they have made on the population front and HDI index. Therefore, the number of seats of every state remains unchanged. What will change is the boundaries of the constituencies and number of urban constituencies.

For instance, sitting Congress MP Sachin Pilot will now have to look for another seat as his Dausa constituency in Rajasthan has been reserved for Scheduled Castes. Union minister Kapil Sibal, whose Chandni Chowk constituency has expanded to approximately four times of its present strength, will now have to factor in the aspirations of the new population that has been added. There are many such cases. Somnath Chatterjee will have to forget his Bolpur seat in West Bengal and Mayawati her Akbarpur stronghold (Akbarpur has been put into the general category). (Source)

Delimitation was originally supposed to happen every 10 years as per the constitution, but it was banned in 1976 till the first census of 2000.

In the last elections, the Congress got only 145 seats while BJP got just 138 seats. The delimitation would benefit the two national parties because unlike the rest of the country where general elections are fought on local issues, the cities are more likely to vote on national issues. The delimitation may also alter the power structure among alliances in various states. For example, the BJP in Orissa wants to fight more seats.

Surely, the political power structure has changed. But will it actually translate to any gain, only time will tell. The rural voter still dominates with 72% of the vote.

Swaminathan Aiyar seems to agree with me

By no means, I would dare to call myself as a political analyst. Yet my predictions seem to be extremely close to what Swaminathan S Ankleshwar Aiyar has written says in today's Sunday Times. Almost three months ago, I had predicted Mayawati as the next Prime Minister. Here is the link to my original post. The points in both articles are different and complementary, and point towards the same conclusion.

However, I don't expect the Mayawati led Govt. to more than two years in office. Probably, by Rahul would the Prime-Ministerial candidate while for BJP, Modi could be in fray. Given the recession, probably I should seriously consider Psephology as a career option.

On going Barkha bashing in the blogosphere

Two months after the irresponsible behavior by almost all media houses, the outrage in the blogosphere is still there. It is particularly directed at one individual - Barkha Dutt. So much was her bashing that she was forced to issue a clarification on this issue.

Nanopolitician in his post sarcastic post a couple of days ago Congratulations, NDTV! gave the channel "Clueless Media Company of the Decade" award! Rahul in his fan letter to Barkha says "I am sure you will continue to make more news than you report". Barkha is no stranger to controversies. Former naval chief accused her of compromising the security of the troops by giving their locations. He blamed her for the loss of three Indian soldiers. (Report)

This latest round of bashing has caught up particularly after an apology was issued by Chyetanya Kunte, a blogger apparantly under the threat of filing of a defamation suit by the channel. A couple of facebook groups her behavior have registered thousands of members.

I am not sure whether this was an intelligent move by her. Blogosphere is huge and after all how many blogger can NDTV target. Instead of doing some careful soul searching, they are trying to intimidate fearless bloggers who like to speak their mind in an unbiased manner. However, the Indian media which routinely questions the politicians, bureaucrats and cricketers find it difficult to be on the other side. The recent activity on the blogosphere has hardly been reported by any of the media channels or newspapers. They consider news to be their exclusive domain. But blogosphere has changed the rules of the game but mainstream media still remains powerful enough to shape public opinion.

The legal notice by NDTV has actually had a negative impact on the image of the channel, even though in a limited way. Going forward, the media has to acknowledge the power of the people and no one is above them.

My personal experience of Barkha's style of reporting isn't good either. She is too melodramatic. I used to get disgusted watching her weekly show "We the people", where she literally used to feed words into the mouths of the panelists.

NDTV is often said to be pro-Congress while TV-18 which runs CNN-IBN is said to be pro-BJP. ManMohan Singh won the NDTV-Indian of the Year in 2007 while Barkha Dutt won Padma Shri in 2008. Is it there some relation between the two? Who knows? We all know how fair the awards selection is and several other recipients in the past have not accepted the award accusing that the 'selection was politically motivated'.

Now just to be fair, I would also like to add that Rajdeep Sardesai, the Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN, was also among the Padma Shri award winners of 2008. I am sure with my blog not attracting too much traffic, I won't be targeted by NDTV.

If you believe in Freedom of expression, please join the Facebook groups:Barkha Dutt for worst journalist in the world and Can u please take BARKHA off air!