INDIAN media called it a watershed, a tsunami, the dawn of a new political era. But one cartoonist painted a humbler picture of the elections in five states, the results of which were announced on March 11th. His drawing of a crumpled bicycle, a bandaged hand and a dying elephant poked fun at the symbols of three parties that fared poorly in the most important vote, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The Bahujan Samaj Party (the elephant) and an alliance between the Samajwadi party (the bicycle) and Congress (the hand) had both assumed they would match or outdo the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Narendra Modi, the prime minister. Neither the BJP’s own pundits, nor the most enthusiastic pre-election polls, nor even illegal betting rackets had thought the party could capture much more than half of Uttar Pradesh’s seats. Yet in the end the BJP, whose symbol is an orange lotus, saw its 40% of the vote magically boosted by India’s first-past-the-post system into 77% of the seats in the state assembly.
Despite the hyperbole, this was a stunning win. One in six Indians lives in Uttar Pradesh (often shortened to UP), a state that straddles the...Continue reading
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