There are a few very important lessons to be learnt from the Andhra experience. And there are a few temptations to resist. Lesson No 1: Non-uniform growth — however spectacular — doesn’t pay. Lesson No 2: Success in pressure politics (read coalitions) can go to the head — one tends to forget that the electorate cannot be pushed for support. Lesson No 3: Popularity must begin at home. Now the cautions. At the macro level, don’t be tempted to dismiss economic reforms as the cause of Chandrababu Naidu’s poll debacle. At the micro level, don’t be tempted to reverse or stall the Naidu government’s reforms programme.Nobody should deny the fact that Naidu was a modern Chief Minister. Even Rahul Gandhi didn’t hesitate from praising many of his good initiatives. But at the same time, nobody should contest the fact that Naidu was mostly the CM of his Cyberabad.I met some IAS officers posted in Andhra before the polls. They told me how BSP — Bijli-Sadak-Paani and not Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party — would decide the State’s results this time. This is an issue that concerns the vast majority of the Indian voters, more so than BPO or Business Process Outsourcing. But in his quest to provide the best infrastructure to the IT investors, Naidu neglected to ensure the basics for the poor.For all his vision, Naidu preferred certain short-cuts. The compulsions of the NDA saw him successfully arm-twisting Vajpayee once too often. Andhra got maximum foodgrain on the excuse of drought, but most of it was sold in the open market by the TDP cadre. The State also got maximum central funds for rural development, but its villages are still among the most impoverished.And his desire for global publicity made him flout all protocol. Naidu directly contacted the White House to ensure Clinton’s visit to Hyderabad. The MEA approached the PMO to rein in Naidu. But little was done. Naidu also bypassed the Centre in negotiating with the Emirates to fly directly to Hyderabad. While he was trying to put his city on the international map, Andhra was slowly fading from the national map.Now, the challenge before the new government in Andhra is not to bury the TDP Government’s developmental work, but to give it a human face. It must continue to tread the path of reforms.Swinging votes, the Gandhi wayAll those who claimed the appeal and magic of the Nehru-Gandhi family doesn’t work on the masses anymore, should eat humble pie now. If the poll results are not enough, let me share my experience.I have travelled with five Prime Ministers — each illustrious in his own right — to different States and abroad. Clearly, the late Rajiv Gandhi was the biggest crowd-puller of them all — I didn’t have the opportunity to travel with his mother. This was especially visible in South India, where he used to be greeted by huge crowds on each visit.But those were the so-called better days of the Congress. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the hysteria over Rahul Gandhi in western Uttar Pradesh. At a time when the party is said to be organisationally weak, such crowd-pulling ability of individual leaders deserves special mention. Rahul reminds one of his father in his ability to charm the crowds. Everywhere, he was showered with flower petals, pledges of support and good wishes. Far from rejecting the Gandhi name, the people seem to be pinning their hopes and expectations on them. One wonders what effect Priyanka would have generated if she could have campaigned outside Amethi and Rae Bareli.When all the pollsters lostPolls over, results out, it’s time for some introspection. But after missing the target by more than a mile, pollsters/ psephologists are back to analysing the political situation, offering a plethora of data and telling us why this 2 per cent swing here and 2 per cent there made such a big difference.The elections proved once again that India is too big a country to be captured in a sample size of a few thousand votes. A case in point here is the programme, Nehru Ke Number, with Arun Nehru as the in-house psephologist on a Hindi news channel. Nehru reeled out numbers week after week to show that the NDA would be voted back to power with a thumping majority. I don’t blame him because the basis of his new numbers every week was his so-called jasoos. He began his programme with the NDA getting more than 300 seats and ended with 284. But the final tally of the BJP and its allies turned out to be well below the 200-mark.But the pollsters seems unfazed. Without trying to analyse the reasons behind their way-off predictions, they are back to what they do. Their methodology needs to be changed so that it withstands the vagaries of a stratified society like ours. The opinion and exit polls have a telling effect on the mindset of fence-sitters, they influence business decisions and the stock market.
