India Elections 2009: Congress was confident; BJP was over-confident!

I’m literally enjoying the results of the Lok Sabha Elections 2009. Apart from a thumping victory by the Congress, the other thing which is working positively to keep me entertained is the ongoing series of claims and refutations made by NDA supporters on IB forum.

election2009 VdFLg 2263

One of the most spoken excuses was the low voter turnout percentage, which was addressed by me in my last article. Now I’ll try to clear the doubts about one more hilarious claim that is repeatedly coming from NDA supporters.

“Congress did not expect to perform so well. It was by luck or by the stupidity of the Indian voter that Congress secured so many seats. Congress was not confident about a win (by this margin).”

Well, I want to quote some statements from both the BJP and the Congress (given prior to the results) and present their views about the expected verdict. The following statement shows both the foresight and understanding of the situation by both the parties. Please help yourself;

On May 8th, 2009

L K Advani said;

BJP would go far ahead of the Congress and emerge as the single largest party after the Lok Sabha elections. (He told reporters he had) no doubt that the Congress would be left much behind the BJP after the Parliamentary elections.

Party leader Kapil Sibal said;

The party is running towards the 200 (seat) mark. It will be a Congress-led coalition government. The kind of information we are getting from the states that went to polls in the last four phases. We are well poised to form the government.

Again, on May 14th, 2009 (after the exit polls)

NDA Convenor Sharad Yadav said;

I have no faith in exit polls. The NDA will get majority and we will form the government headed by L K Advani.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said;

We will prove you (media organizations) wrong by winning much more seats than anticipated by the exit polls. We are not entering into any speculative numbers, but are confident of forming a stable government.

Now let’s see what the exit polls predicted;

NDA -185 to 196 seats.

UPA - 190 to 205 seats.

And… the results;

NDA - 157 (BJP - 116)

UPA - 262 (Congress - 206)

Now tell me, who was better educated about the elections and the expected verdict? BJP or Congress?? You can’t deny that Congress had a better grip on the elections. It was fully focused and confident about its performance. Congress didn’t win by luck nor was it startled by the results.

On the other hand, BJP was over-confident and lacked the vision to see the trends. BJP was just busy building castles on cloud (read: Hawa Mahal). And ultimately it got shell-shocked by the results.

Allow me to clear one more misconception

Someone on IB has repeated this a million times that Congress has 138 millionaire MPs. This has been highlighted in various different contexts but the major reason I can see is, he wants to prove that being a millionaire is a crime or it helps in swaying the election results.

So, let me present you the numbers for both MPs who are millionaire and MPs who have criminal cases against them.

Candidates with criminal cases against them-

Lesser crimes;

Congress – 108

BJP – 106

Heinous crimes (such as murder);

Congress – 39

BJP – 40

Millionaire candidates-

Congress – 244

BJP – 165

(Note: The above list is out of 6,700 nominees who contested the first four phases of Lok Sabha elections. Anyone who wants to add the updated list may please post it as a comment)

Well, I hope now this hilarious statement (about the 138 Congress MPs) will stop. Moreover, we also get an idea about the candidates within each party with criminal cases against them, and the seriousness of their crime!

This is all for now. Will try to get some more interesting facts next time to clear some more misconceptions. Have a good day!