The recent Karnataka state assembly produced discouraging results for the Congress party and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA.) The Congress party secured about 80 assembly seats -- an increase of about a dozen seats from the last elections. The Janata Dal (secular) secured only about 28 assembly seats -- a substantial decrease in the number of seats from the last elections. And then there is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has secured 110 assembly seats -- a very sharp increase of almost 33 seats from the last elections. The BJP is set to form the government in Karnataka.
All this does not bode well for the Congress party and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as
And here is why --
(1) Out of the 21 states that have gone to elections went to polls since the UPA took over, UPA has won only in eight of those elections.
(2) In spite of very strenuous efforts by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh,
(3) While the economic growth has been reasonable, the recent sharp increase in prices -- particularly of the food -- has taken much bite out of the benefits of economic growth.
(4) The series of electoral losses for the Congress party and its allies in UPA comes even after sustained populist policies including the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme by the government. For example, the UPA government also implemented Rupees 60,000-crore farm debt relief package for Karnataka and that did not seem to help.
Of course, this does not mean that Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies (National Democratic Alliance, NDA) are going to win the next parliamentary elections. On the contrary, the next elections are also likely to produce a coalition out come -- and who will form the government (UPA or NDA) will be decided at the small margins.
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