Without a shadow of a doubt; things are not looking good for the incumbent party after the first round of voting in the 2019 Indian General Election.
The entire election process takes place over 7 stages due to the vast size and population of the nation. The numbers are staggering; 900 million eligible voters out of a population of 1200 million (1.2 billion); voting to place 543 Members of Parliament in the Lower House or Lokh Sabha. The world’s largest and most complex election process, as well as being the most expensive.
The Indian Parliamentary structure is modelled along the lines of the UK Parliament; however with the small additional difference being that the Indian Republic has a clearly codified Constitution whereas the United Kingdom remains resolutely the ONLY country in the world without a Written Constitution of any kind.
The dates of the 7 phases are as follows: April 11th, 18th, 23rd, 29th, May 6th, 12th, 19th and 23rd; with counting on May the 23rd.
After the first phase, the poll predictions are for the Congress led Coalition — (the United Progressive Alliance or UPA) to occupy 139 seats, the BJP to take 220 and BJP Allies to return 44 Members; (a total of 264 under the BJP Coalition called the National Democratic Alliance, or NDA); with all the other parties to then come in together with 138.
It is just shy of the majority that the incumbent would need to form a working Government, which means that they will have to seek out smaller parties outside the NDA to get them over the line. As in the case of the Democratic Unionist Party with their 9 MPs; who wield a disproportionate amount of influence over the Conservatives in the UK Parliament, so will these smaller parties; who at most would contribute 8/9 MPs. (Which is just about the bare minimum needed to stumble over the required number of 272). Any dis-satisfaction by these smaller parties and the ruling NDA Government would collapse and Parliament would cease to function until a compromise arrangement is worked out or another election is conducted. Smaller parties know that they have the power to bring down a weak coalition and they will demand a huge ransom for their allegiance; as in some of the most influential posts within the Cabinet for their respective MPs.
The BJP is fully aware of the impossibility of an outright majority and realise that they will have to work within a weak coalition Government that will need the support of outside political parties “punching well above their weight”. These poll numbers are optimistic at best for the BJP, they could get even less than 220. PM Modi and Amit Shah have no one else to blame but themselves for this situation, as they had 5 years to fulfil extravagant promises made in 2014 but instead have engaged themselves in bombastic gestures and very little substance.
In a vast and diverse nation such as the Indian Republic, a one-party majority overriding authority in power is the worst thing that could happen; as everything in Indian Society is by mutual consent, endless negotiations and the incorporation of the demands of all parties involved. Indian Society moves along on constant adjustments, concessions, agreements between people and institutions; where compromises are constantly sought that lead to mutually agreeable outcomes. Telling people exactly what to do elicits the exact opposite result in that they will find ways to circumvent authority, bend or even break, rules. India works best where checks and balances are kept on all negotiations and proceedings, preventing any particular entity from gaining sole advantage.
Authoritarian Governments with an overwhelming Parliamentary Majority, however, don’t have the problem of having to explain their actions; they have the authority to lay down the law and the authority to then enforce that law.
This creates a problem for those who seek benefit from India; the Foreign Investor, the MultiNational dealmaker, the Capital Hedge Funds who aim is to reap maximum profit for minimal cost. Within a weak coalition, these entities would have to negotiate with multiple parties, whereas in a “One Stop Shop”, one agreement signed and sealed is sufficient to move forward. Herein lies the heart of the matter. The Indian Republic is the Ex-Colonials’ Final Frontier and they don’t want to waste energy and resources with time consuming, complex negotiations to get a deal done; (and it looks as clear as the day is long) that the BJP will definitely NOT have an overwhelming majority in the Lokh Sabha.
Time is compressing, events which took years to play out are now being executed in weeks. So what is to be done? How can the results be made to sway more favourably towards the incumbent, especially those 20+ seats that the NDA desperately need in order to avoid the humiliation of horse-trading with upstart, inconsequential parties. The question is not; whether or not the BJP will win the 2019 General Election. The question is by how much? (That eternal quest that the Diasporic Indian conducts his existence around, “How Much”). How could the power brokers, the KingMakers in the City of London/Wall Street help out the man with the 56″ chest get over the line convincingly.
Could Assange hold the Magic Key in the encrypted data files that he promised to release if ever he was arrested? The so called “Dead Man Switch”. His Insurance Policy.
Assange entered Belmarsh Prison at Her Majesty’s Pleasure on the 11th of April and as yet there has been no expected data release. WikiLeaks is nothing but a CIA front and massive dis-information operation run by the Five Eyes. They have never implicated an MP from the UK, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand Parliaments; they have however exposed the crooked Hillary Clinton and tangentially implicated Barack Obama, but not Donald Trump. A vast amount of information has been released on countries that are straying; or have strayed, off the Anglo-American hymn sheet and have then been coerced back into line. Assange himself is a entity with absolutely no educational qualifications but an ability to penetrate firewall enabled databases during the initial days of the Internet, when the network was run by the US Department of Defence with a connection to Europe via the “Big Pipe” at Imperial College in London. He acquired this skill and training by being employed and paid by the US DoD to test the vulnerability of their primitive networks from any USSR enabled breach, at that time.
Painting Assange as a Hero of Free Speech, a Martyr to the cause of Human Rights and an Icon of Investigative Journalism, is falling into a profound Propaganda Trap; enabled by the same Authorities that sold you Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction and Tony Blair’s famous claim of Saddam Hussein’s ability to launch them within 45 minutes, (WMDs that 20 plus years on from the total devastation of Iraqi Society, the US/EU/NATO and UK Powers are still unable to locate. The bold 45 minute claim itself being plagiarised from a PhD Student’s Thesis and quoted out of context).
Coming back again to “The Hero Of Our Times”; Assange, could this expected data dump be timed around the 29th of April, (Phase 4 of the Indian Election), and could it also be that it contains information that paints the BJP in a halo of righteousness that shines over them during the last half of the Election Process; and onto a Parliamentary Majority.
I remain convinced that I have read this right. Assange being so explicitly extracted from the Ecuadorean Embassy sends a signal that a big data release is upcoming, yet all the important elections have finished; Netanyahu just about crawled over the line, Erdogan got a surprise in the Turkish Mayoral Elections, and now, all that remains is the start of an Indian Election; which is balanced on a knife edge and Australian Election in the middle of collapsing house prices.
Today is also the start of the Bengali New Year which corresponds to the start of the Monsoon Season, an important event as the entire Subcontinent (from Peshawar to Dhaka and all points inbetween) is a society that is 80 percent agrarian and dependant on the rains for their survival. Happy New Year.
15th of April 2019, Kolkata.
Supratim Barman 