Amazing!— Was the headline of an English daily on May 14 when the Lok Sabha results were out. In fact, the biggest significant of 2004 elections lies in its results which proves many political pundits wrong. It was a slap on the face of many seasoned political observers as well as the exit polls that predicted ‘a smooth sailing for NDA to power. It was also a slap on the face of religious fundamentalism and hatred propagated by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies.
Even a day before the counting no one gave the Congress a chance of actually defeating the NDA. The ‘micro-management gurus’ of the NDA were overconfident of setting the coronation stage for Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But the Voters of our country reacted angrily against the ‘feel good factor’ campaign unleashed by the BJP and taught then a lesson for trying to fool them. The defeat handed out to NDA by the voters proves that our country cannot shine when millions of Indians continue to lead a life of abject poverty and destitution.
Just as 1999 general election was known as

Vajpayee’s, 1989 was VP Singh’s and 1984 was Rajiv Gandhi’s, the 2004 will be known as Sonia Gandhi’s. The gritty woman who took the reign of the Congress in 1998 stood tall against the undignified campaign launched by the BJP. The language that BJP leaders like Narendra Modi used against her manifest the insolence and arrogance of the party which has no respect for woman. The gargrape of many women in the Gujarat carnage is another case in point. The NDA forgot the fact that in a country where the fondest memories still are of a woman prime minister, such personal attack cannot have gone down with the common people.
The NDA rule was marked by insufficient development of infrastructure and large-scale corruption. There was no transparency in disinvestment process. In fact the poll results are a tribute to the prudence and intelligence of the Indian voters who have decided to get the grand national party of freedom movement back to the business of governance.