Azad also said Rahul Gandhi is the “most competent” leader to become Prime Minister. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao will agree but Mamata Banerjee will not. But then Azad’s volte face could be because the Congress and Rahul Gandhi now believe Mamata maybe not be a force to reckon with. And Mayawati, the other lady in the race, could also not be in the race but the Congress with a better showing in South India might have the numbers to lead and hold together a southern front.

There are leaders of south parties who will be willing to give Rahul Gandhi a chance provided he agrees to a set quid pro quo. Also, if Rahul Gandhi wins the Wayanad seat he will technically be a South Indian and there’s demand that the next Prime Minister be from ‘South India.’ But these are all only talk as of now and as the stage boys get ready to bring the curtains down on the most chaotic and riotous elections ever, there is no end to the theatrics.

The fact that the elections stretched for seven phases is partly to blame. But more than that it’s because of the one man who is at the centre of general elections 2019 – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been called every name in the book including ‘Divider-in-Chief’ and ‘Duryodhana’ but whose relevance to the politics of the day is without question. Like it or not, a very large section of the electorate and the population look up to this divisive figure and must have voted him.

Modi and the BJP are talking of 300 seats for the party alone and many more for the NDA, which is sending a chill down the spines of a larger section of people who are bitterly opposed to all and everything that Modi and the BJP symbolize. But unfortunately, for this lot of people, the opposition parties, which swear of secularism, failed them, the petty ambitions of their leaders coming in the way of presenting a united front to Modi. If Narendra Modi wins a second term, the ‘secular lot’ have the opposition parties to blame.

Five more years of Modi rule and many opposition leaders will have no place to hide. It is a fact that Modi cannot be targeted with “corruption”, but it’s also a fact that the best of opposition leaders have placed themselves in line to be charged with corruption and mostly because of alleged corrupt relatives, whether it’s Rahul Gandhi or Mayawati or Mamata Banerjee. And Modi with a brute majority a second time will not spare, which is what is keeping awake opposition party leaders.

So, as the stage-boys get ready to bring down the curtains on general elections 2019, nobody in the vast fractured and splintered opposition wants to even think that Modi will return to power May 23, 2019. Besides, apart from curbing the thought, what else can anybody do? Mamata Banerjee may shout and scream and rant as much as she wants, threaten to “throw” Modi out of “the country’s borders”, but can she beat the EVM and make it change the verdict?

Fact of the matter is, though. these general elections are being called as the “greatest parv” or greatest festival” of democracy on Earth, it was also one of the most divisive and poisonous election campaigns ever. If there were disruptive candidates like Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, there were also disgusting personal attacks on candidates in general with Narendra Modi getting special attention. Issues that matter to the people were brushed under the carpet. So, as the curtains come down on these general elections we can look back at them and forget them as a bad dream. (IPA Service)