Across the aisle: It is ‘Fail’ on the report card

As I write this essay on Friday, the buzz is that among the measures under contemplation are interest-free crop loans and a cash transfer to small and medium farmers. Even if the government directs public sector banks to provide the money for crop loans, how will it find the money for cash transfers? The fiscal deficit at the end of November 2018 was 115 per cent of the target

I am writing from Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted cities. It is still winter. The spring that I mentioned last week is still many weeks away.

Notwithstanding its loss in all five states that held elections recently, the BJP’s leadership is still combative, contemptuous of Parliament and disdainful of institutions. In an interview to ANI on January 1, 2019, Prime Minister Modi said, “No one gave the BJP any chance in Telangana and Mizoram. In Chhattisgarh, a clear mandate was given — the BJP lost. But in two states (Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh) there was a hung Assembly.”

Decisive verdict

A hung Assembly means that no party is in a position to form the government. In three states, there were only two real contestants. After the results, the party that had absolutely no chance to form the government was the BJP; the party with a chance was the Congress — and it did form the government in the three states with practically no hurdles on its path. I would call that a decisive verdict, not a hung Assembly.

In Chhattisgarh, the BJP lost 34 seats (from 49 to 15), in Madhya Pradesh 56 seats (from 165 to 109) and in Rajasthan 90 seats (from 163 to 73). That was a decisive rejection of the BJP.