Will national parties learn the lesson ?

Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party won 224 Assembly seats in the just concluded polls to UP assembly and in the process shattered both the so called national parties, the Congress and the BJP to obscurity.There is a lesson to be learnt for these parties.Unless there is a strong regional leader with grass root support,it is difficult to  guide these parties to electoral wins,in states.Regional aspirations have to be appreciated by these parties .There is no way a party can be run by bosses sitting at the party high command. Ignoring local sentiments,pride and aspirations have cost these parties irreparable losses at the polls.Imposing leaders from the top and ignoring regional sentiments have resulted in congress losing many states,over the years. In fact the growth and success of regional parties lies in the fact that people want their regional leaders to grow in stature.It appears in UP,like TamilNadu ,it is going to be either BSP or SP and never Congress or BJP .It must be remembered both Mulyam and Mayawati are local heavy weights and there are no one in Congress or BJP to match them. In national parties like Congress and BJP due to manifold dissident groups, each group tries to push down leaders who grow in stature by pulling strings at the party high command.

Wherever there was a strong leader at the regional level,national parties have fared better .Narendra Modi is a strong man par excellence for the BJP and that gave him the strength to deliver and he had won consecutive elections in Gujarat for the BJP.Late YSR was a popular congress leader of AP.On his strengths the party romped to power in AP.It remains to be seen the fate of AP congress  in future elections sans YSR . TDP & TRP are going to give a tough fight to congress in AP and it won't be a surprise if congress losses its stronghold in this southern state also . It must be borne in mind TDP & TRP are parties born out of regional aspirations and regional pride.Their leaders are still popular among the public in AP.After the demise of Kamaraj,Congress is yet to see a towering leader from Tamilnadu.The void is not filled up because the state unit is dictated by  congress's high command .It is no surprise congress could not unseat the Dravidian parties from power since 1967.Congress may fail again if it pursues the same policy of ignoring local sentiments and pride. The Punjab victory for BJP is because of its strong local ally Shiromani Akali Dal .Congress retaining Manipur or BJP wresting Goa from Congress is insignificant as long as the national parties did not make any headway in important states like UP and Punjab .

The only good fall out of regional parties becoming stronger is that the union government has become truly federal,since neither of the two so called national parties can get absolute majority of its own in any of the future elections to the parliament. Already the leftists have strong bastions in Kerala,West Bengal and Tripura.Congress making big inroads in these states would be a wishful thinking.Even if leftists fail in West Bengal,it would only be advantage Mamta,another firebrand regional leader,whom congress finds it difficult to contain.Down South Jayalalitha would be another strong leader eroding Congress chances in next parliamentary elections .At this rate,if these two parties don't mend their ways they would soon lose their national party status and become a party with stronghold in few regional pockets,which is also diminishing at a faster pace.

Mayawati and her delusions

The UP Chief Minister Mayawati is all set to unviel about 40 statues in UP.This includes 6 statues of her own along with her mentorKanshi Ram.The statues of Ambedkar and other Dalit icons are also in the list.The total cost of all these statues are reported to be over Rs 100 crores.It is also reported the statue of Mayawati in Ambedkar Udyan alone costs around Rs1.55 crores.This is an offcial information given in response to an RTI query.She is obsessed not only with erecting statues,but also in building grand memorials and monuments. Extravagant memorials are being built as monuments for Ambedkar and Kanshiram.Her contention is that each political party has tried to construct memorials for their party leaders during their regime.Why should people make a big hue and cry when BSP is building its monuments.Teen Murti Bhavan,Jawarharlal Nehru Memorial is even cited in support of her claims.But the intriguing point is these memorials have 60 mammoth elephant statues(BSP symbol) made of expensive stones at an estimated cost of Rs 3000 crores.Down South Mr.Karunanidhi also has a penchant for erecting statues and building memorials.But to his credit,he did not erect his own statues.Also he had built memorials for all Netas cutting across party affiliations.He has built memorials for Kamaraj and Rajaji also.He did erect the huge monlith statue of Tiruvalluvar at Kanyakumari.Valluvar Kottam at Chennai is his brain child.Statues of Tamil literary giants along the Marina beach were all erected during his regime.Karunanidhi also has a liking for monumental arches.Lots of them were put up in many places of Tamil nadu during his regime.Jayalalitha and her party for her part did erect statues of MGR all over Tamil nadu.The most number of statues in Tamilnadu would be that of the DMK founder Anna and that of MGR.Whether it is Karunanidhi,Mayawati,Saddam Hussien, or NorthKorea's Kim,the underlying fact is their desire to find a place in history.But in Mayawati's case she is using whopping public money for her pet projects.She also intends to project these as tourist spots.But her adversary Mulayam says these monuments and statues are epitomes of corruption and misuse of public funds.He has also gone on record,that when his party returns to power all Mayawati statues would be bulldozed. Already there are two PIL petitions before the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court on Mayawati's spending spree.Even the SC has questioned Mayawati's fetish desire to install her own statues all over UP.Experts believe apart from spending 3000 crores, it may require an annual outlay of 300 crores to maintain these monuments thereafter .But Mayawati is unfazed by her critics and will go ahead with her projects.It would be of great interest to note how the courts deal with this PIL.Mayawati's arguments would pivot around memorials of leaders of other parties in the country and their worth.She would also play the communal card cleverly.She would cite that the number of monuments for Dalit icons are comparatively less when compared with that of upper caste leaders.Environmentalists say five of Mayawati's pet projects are being carried out at the expense of large green areas.This is something really deplorable.At a time when the whole world is concerned about Global warming,it is an unpardonable crime to destory large areas of green cover for the sake of monuments and statues.Hitler and Stalin had plans to build huge cities in their honour.Who knows,perhaps Mayawati also may be harbouring such plans.Lucknow could well be changed as 'Maya Nagar'.