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By “stealing” the governments of Goa and Manipur from the Congress, the largest party in these states, Narendra Modi can be said to have begun his post-poll tenure on the wrong foot.

The Modi Government, recharged with its poll triumphs, must now settle down to addressing the economic ills which have so far eluded effective solutions and stunted growth with some baneful, if transient, effects of demonetisation.

The day the Manipur Assembly election results were out and it was found that the people had given a fractured mandate resulting in a hung Assembly, everyone knew the game of Aya Rams and Gaya Rams would begin now – Aya Rams to the BJP and Gaya Rams from other parties. The ruling Congress emerged as the single largest party with 28 seats, followed by BJP with 21, Naga People’s Front and National People’s Party with four each, Trinamool Congress one and one independent. Then the real game began – the game of turning a minority into majority.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The RSS-BJP combine would have the people believe that the escalation in violent clashes between them and the CPI(M) in Kerala is solely because of the politics of violence being practised by the latter. The ground reality, however, tells a different tale.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP is on a roll after the spectacular results of the recent five state assembly polls and already looking ahead to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The results clearly indicate how well his poll strategy has worked not only in the Hindi heartland but also in the tiny state of Goa in the south and the northeastern state of Manipur. By forming the BJP governments in four of the five states, the BJP has shown its shrewd political strategy crafted by Modi and his deputy and the party chief Amit Shah in the recent Assembly polls. UP was indeed the biggest prize as it has given political dividends for the future. Moreover, it was important how the BJP had been successful in forming the governments in Goa and Manipur though it came second. It was a slip between the cup and the lip for the Congress, which had emerged as the number one party in both these states, but caught napping while the BJP crack team managed the magic number with the non-Congress parties.

The Supreme Court has time and again reminded the government that the use of Aadhaar card can’t be made mandatory. But, to the surprise and chagrin of state governments and the common man, especially the poor and the needy, the BJP-led union government seems to be sparing no opportunity to link more and more centrally sponsored schemes with Aadhaar to the utter disregard of the apex court orders. The latest notification making Aadhaar mandatory for small students upto grade VIII standard, covered under the mid-day meal programme, by the union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has come under fire from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

He set out, with the full support of the Congress High Command, to rid the Congress in Kerala of the malady of groupism. But VM Sudheeran, who resigned as the Keral Pradesh Congress Committee president on March 10, has, ironically, fallen a victim to the faction feud eating into the vitals of the party.

Is the forecast that demonetisation or DeMo will adversely influence the election in five state correct? Will it be correct to say that the measure has failed? According to economists and reports in economic circles, it is not going to be so. DeMo last November was berated by critics as human and economic disaster, and even despotic. They gleefully awaited a voter revolt. The very opposite has happened. After DeMo the BJP has swept local elections across India. And in the assembly elections results announced on Saturday, BJP won in Uttar Pradesh massively proving that DeMo had no impact in this largest populated Indian state.

The BJP’s overwhelming success in U.P., bolstered by its good showing in neighbouring Uttarakhand, will go a long way to draw a veil over its unsatisfactory showing in Goa.

India is expected to make its presence felt in a proactive manner as the new full member at the summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at Astana in Kazakhstan in June 2017. At the last SCO summit, India and Pakistan were admitted as full members and India is now willing to make use of this membership by focusing on both regional security issues as also expanding collaboration in energy resources. India has got good relations with all the original six members of SCO-China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. This will help India in making its position on relationship with the other new member Pakistan, clear to the member countries. India is hopeful that its views on combating terrorism in the region will get support at the SCO summit.