The new Lok Sabha is taking shape and so is the future strategy of the Congress. Meira Kumar as Speaker is obviously Congress’s answer to Mayawati and that is a big throw for the next UP and Bihar elections. Giving NCP three jobs is meant to buy them over for the Maharashtra elections which are imminent. So Congress is now going to be in a permanent election fighting mode.

The UPA, plus its hangers on, will add up to 300 plus seats leaving the government in a fairly comfortable position. The question for the Opposition is, what can it do? As of now, the BJP and the NDA are in disarray. The JD-U is trying to pick a fight with the BJP, perhaps with an eye on the Bihar elections where they can win on their own. It can see that the BJP is a losing partner. Navin Patnaik has set Nitish Kumar a good example.

The BJP is having one of the classic crises of a party which has twice lost elections. It is regressing back into its RSS womb. I recall this is what the Labour Party did when it kept on losing elections. It took three straight defeats before Labour Party abandoned its old beliefs and reformed itself. As of now, it looks like it will take a third defeat for the BJP to cut its umbilical cord with the RSS and become a seriously modern party. BJP has in its genes the capacity to become a good right wing business friendly party instead of a medieval Ramasetu chasing, Muslim bashing party. But I doubt it will do so yet.

... contd.