Congress throws the Kitchen Sink at the Problem!?
by Unmesh Sharma
The BJP’s loss at the 2009 elections was quite a set-back for me personally. The primary reason was that we had failed to punish the UPA government’s dismal performance in the last 5 years. From my perspective (as a professional working in Mumbai’s financial services industry), the government had delivered close to nothing. We continued to suffer from the lack of financial sector reforms, lack of internal security, poor infrastructure and fiscal profligacy- all of which the left-of-centre Congress has now mastered. A quick poll I conducted amongst 5 of my friends (not an adequate sample but still representative) around 30 years of age showed that 2 of them considered, at least once, of moving abroad after the election results.
I continue to remain a BJP supporter but if I would like to take a step back and consider why that is the case. This is because as part of the ‘post 1991′ aspirational generation, I expect reforms to continue. For India’s talented graduates, we expect the government to provide a world class environment to live and (importantly) work in.
If we look objectively however, the noises made by the UPA cabinet in the last few days have been encouraging. They have identified some lacunae and decided to throw the proverbial’ kitchen sink’ at them. The urban ‘civil society’ would definitely find this attractive. I would like to highlight three in particular.
1) Mr Nilekani in government- a game changer
The participation of the private sector in the government is not without precedent. However the appointment of Mr Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys and one of India’s most outstanding new-generation entrepreneurs is clearly a game-changer. The UPA government has practically given him ministerial status for the essential national biometric ID project. Mr Nilekani seems to believe in this project (it was mentioned in his book “Imagining India”) and he brings credibility to the table, which no politician can question. The convergence is captured by Mr Nilekani’s own words “The two worlds have come together”.
The US government is made of people from the private sector and despite its fair share of controversies; it is a model which works. India needs to realise that the best talent has moved away from the public services and government companies to the private sector, especially after the ’80s. And the UPA seems to have come to terms with this.
(In its shadow cabinet, BJP should consider similar moves. Why not consider Mr KV Kamath of ICICI for a project to drive penetration of rural banking, Mr Sunil Mittal for rural telephony and so on).
2) Best man for the job: Kamal Nath in roads
After the impressive performance of BJP in 1999-04 (10km of roads built a day) to a dismal performance by the UPA in 2004-09 (daily execution was down 80%), the UPA has accepted that this may lead to their fall in election 2014. In a move which would make even a private sector company proud, they have decided to put one of their best men on the job.
In my opinion, Mr Kamal Nath (ignoring all other controversies) was one of the most effective ministers in the 2004-09 UPA cabinet. As commerce minister, his performance notably at the WTO was arguably very impressive. He also stood out as a reformer in the last few days of the UPA government with the indirect FDI liberalisation in practically every sector.
Extending the argument, the UPA government’s decision to give important ministries (of state) to younger members is akin to the private sector. Company promoters (Mr Ambani of Reliance, Mr Premji of Wipro, Dabur, HCL- to quote a few) have often placed the younger generation in junior management positions to ‘get their hands dirty before they take on senior positions.
3) Need of the hour: Kapil Sibal in HRD
The HRD ministry, in a country like India, has never been given its due. This is important and (for a change) the UPA government is making the right noises. While some of the moves made by Mr Sibal may be controversial and wrongly targeting the symptom (versus the disease), at least it seems that the intention is right.
Given the performance by Congress-led governments in the 60 years after independence, I am not sure if these moves are indeed sincere. It is easy for sceptics (including me) to believe that this is just an eye-wash and the Congress will not take too much time to move back to the left-of-centre, where they have frequently and habitually found their comfort zone.
But at this moment, we have no option but to hope that the UPA government takes advantage of the benefit of doubt that the voters have given them.
For BJP supporters like me, both possible outcomes are all-right.
>> If the UPA does what we expect it to and fritters away the advantage, the BJP will find it easier to win election-2014 (provided it sorts out other internal issues).
>> If the UPA does indeed deliver on the promise, India will indeed move towards becoming a world class destination. This implies a bright future with better infrastructure, a healthy financial and reform-oriented system and market/ business friendly environment.
Importantly, the game being played would be on the terms which BJP dominated in the ’90s. While the UPA would be difficult to unseat, this would result in the BJP having to present an even more compelling and progressive alternative in the 2014 election. This would be an even more positive outcome.
I am optimistic about the future and BJP’s prospects in election 2014. In the meanwhile, if the UPA delivers on the BJP promise, why fret?
The views expressed here by the author are his personal views, and do not represent the views of his employer.
There’s a Hole in the Bucket
by Sudipto Das
There’s a children’s song which goes like this:
There’s a hole in the bucket,
Dear Liza, dear Liza
There’s a hole in the bucket,
Dear Liza, there’s a hole.
Then fix it, dear Henry,
Dear Henry, dear Henry
Then fix it, dear Henry,
Dear Henry, fix it.
Hary Belafonte and his wife used to often enact the roles of Henry and Liza live on stage. I’d first heard this song as a small kid in our old gramophone on one of those 78 RPM discs. Little did I know that a bucket with a hole is indeed a very important thing. Within a few years the bucket with a hole came back in the maths book. I used to really dread those maths problems where we’re asked to calculate how long it would take to fill a bucket which has a hole. I used to always wonder who on the earth would like to fill a bucket with hole? Isn’t it much more efficient to first fix the hole, as told by Henry, and then fill it? There were certain sums where the bucket wouldn’t be filled at all because the rate at which the water drained out of the hole used to higher than that of filling.
Times have passed. Gone are the days of those gramophones and Hary Belafonte and the maths of ‘hole in the bucket’. But the bucket never sank into oblivion. It’s there everywhere around me. And very much like the tougher problems where the bucket would drain out totally, the buckets around me also seem to be in a state of being perpetual drained out. More interesting is the fact that people are ready to pour more and more water in the bucket, but not ready to fix the hole.
According to reports, a fresh estimate from the ministry of food processing says a whopping Rs 58,000 crore (close to USD 1.5billion) worth of agriculture food items get wasted in the country every year.
In 2008 India produced 230 million tonnes of food grain and converted itself from a net importer to net exporter in the sector. Even though India is second in tropical fruit production after Brazil and in vegetable after China, the farmers over here do not get proper price for their produce. “The reason is we cannot process and preserve more than 10-15 percent of our production. It perishes. Else farmers sell it at throw-away prices” - that’s what Pranab Mukherjee has reportedly told very recently.
The government has issued a total of 223 million ration cards against a total estimated 180 million households. In other words, there are at least 43 million ghost cards.
As per published reports, the Planning Commission says, adding that “leakages” are common - higher than 75 per cent in Bihar and Punjab. During 2003-04, it estimates that eight million tonnes of food grains out of 14 million allotted to BPL families never reached them. “For every 1kilogram that was delivered to the poor, Government of India had to issue 2.23 kilograms” of food grains.
There is no comprehensive estimate about the exact figures of the leakages. But there’s no doubt that much of the food problem and poverty can be tackled if some Liza fixes these leaks. The recent budget presented in the Lok Sabha yesterday has gone gung ho over the various bucket filling strategies like National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Antyodaya Anna Yajona. Many populist measures like Rs 3/kg rice to BPL families, free power and loan waiver are also in the plate - all these at a point when the fiscal deficit of our country is close to 10% (including the deficit of the states) of our GDP. No one is saying that filling the bucket is a bad thing. But isn’t it more efficient to first fix the hole in the bucket and then fill it with what ever you like?
Sudipto blogs at http://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com
Prayer of ‘Aam Aadmi’
by Sudipto Das
You’ll Protect Me in Distress, That’s Not My Prayer -
I Shouldn’t Lack Courage in Distress.
You’ll Rescue Me, That’s Not My Prayer -
I Should Have the Strength to Swim.
That’s what Rabindranath Tagore had prayed for in Gitanjali. It’s a prayer that each of us perhaps sings in our hearts. There’s nothing like sailing through a storm all with my own courage and zeal. There’s nothing like keeping my head high without bowing in front of anyone for mercy or help. There’s nothing like having faith in my own self and being confident. What I want is just the courage and the zeal and the confidence in myself. That’s what I pray for to the Almighty.
Well, that’s all what I want for me and my countrymen. I want my country to be a land of courageous people Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
But alas, my government doesn’t allow us to hold our head high. It doesn’t want to see us standing on our own feet. It wants to cripple our self confidence and make them believe that the only way for them to survive is to wait for mercies thrown out to us. We’re never provided with the right amenities that can help us procure our own food and shelter. Instead, we’re converted into beggars at the hands of the governments. We’re crippled to the extent that we can do nothing than wait for the free food and shelter thrown on us.
My government has broken my land into innumerable fragments of castes and creeds. The land no longer belongs to Indians of Bharatiyas or Hindustanis. Fragments of it belongs to the Upper Class, some belong to the Dalits, some to the Scheduled Tribes and some to Scheduled Castes, some to Hindus, some to Muslim, some to Jats, some to Yadavs, some to Bengalis, some to Dravidians, some to North Indians, some to South Indians…….. There are reservations for each of these fragments.
Tagore would be pulling his beards apart in heaven to see this. He would be scratching off his own lines which he had written some hundred years ago:
No one knows whence and at whose call
Come pouring endless inundation of men
Rushing madly along to lose themselves
In this vast sea of humanity that is India.
Aryans and Non-Aryans, Dravidians and Chinese
Scythians, Huns, Pathans and Mogols -
All are mixed, merged and lost in one body.
Today the main effort of the government is to tear apart this body and segregate the Aryans and Non-Aryans, Dravidians, Scynthians, Huns and the Mongols and restrict them to reserved ghettos.
Let’s raise our voice and say, No, we don’t need rice at Rs 3/kg, but we need the right education, health care and infrastructure so that we can earn enough to buy rice at the normal rate. We don’t want to live on the mercy of the government, but with the cooperation of the government. We don’t want to be crippled by the government, but we want to stand on our own and make our own living.
Let’s raise our voice and say, No we don’t need reservation. We all are one and we’ll stay happily at the same place and earn our position with our own credentials.
The government may not listen to our voice. Because if there is no poor, if everyone has self esteem then who will it fool in the name of ‘Aam Aadmi’?
Sudipto blogs at http://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com
Leave Hindutva as it was mean to be
by Sharrayu Aroskar
I have been following the BJP quiet regularly in the media. There was a sizeable population who wanted BJP to be in power for intellect and integrity reasons. However, the rule was not destined to be in hand for next five years. Never the less BJP has emerged as a largest opposition party and has a myriad contribution to make to influence the government policy decisions positively. BJP supporters in India and living abroad have been waiting since the results for the BJP top brass meeting and lessons thus learnt from introspection.
The media had BJP “atma-chintan” meeting on beat. Some did the job genuinely others either wanted to paint it black or gather news of street side gossip quality. Of the statements that came first from the print media, I was surprised to read one that stated “BJP would re-cast “Hindutva” Knowing the quality of journalism in this country in recent election times, I was waiting for the prints of speeches given by L.K. Advani and Rajnath Singh. It was good to see how BJP supported cultural nationalism.
Ever since I opened my mind and head to politics the word Hindutva was always talked of as a brand that is pro Hindu and anti Muslim. The word to ears also sounds like Hindu extremism these days. I have heard young college girls talk of voting for Congress because BJP is all good except for too much of Hindutva in them. Even educated urban population both settled in India and abroad abhors this word or translates it into Hindu communalism and hates the party or organization that uses it. Naturally its the BJP and RSS that bear the popular brunt.
It is surprising to see how cultural nationalism was tainted by handful of politicians. More surprising is how the people in general have accepted it and even more surprising is the irresponsible print and visual media that leaves the cultural pride of this country on back tracks to make sure they are running on fast TRP tracks.
In my opinion the term Hindutva coined by Vinayak Damodar Sawarkar is an exemplary concept that unites India with its various colors. It is one that makes the blue complement the orange and orange complement the green. It is one that is so essential within this country that it makes the intrusion of foreign rotten brain difficult to penetrate. This concept of Akhanda Bharat houses and encompasses every religion sect and cast. What is refers to is not those who pray like “Hindus” but those that call this motherland their “aai” “ma” “ammi” “mother” etc. When you analyze this a little more, you start observing examples around that support this concept.
I have relished the sheer kurama at friends place on Id. I was born on Pateti and hence Parsi New Year is celebrated in my home in India every year. Having studied in a convent school and alternatively living outside India for a while I and many of my friends who follow other religions except Christianity celebrate Christmas. All Hindu festivals are always celebrated. We look at the office holidays and regardless of the reason of Diwali, Id or Independence Day, it is always welcomed with all zest. In school what binds you in a group is not your caste or religion or language but it’s the culture that you share with your classmates and like experiences. A random someone following Islam doesn’t backfire on Miyan Musharraf because he is a Muslim. He does that because he stands for a culture and knows that the rest, regardless of their religion will stand by his statement in praise and prove him right. It is not out of coincidence that you see Md. Azzaruddin of the Slumdog Millionaire fame touch feet on the podium in spite of being a Muslim. It is not random that a Muslim stands against imposed “Ghunghat” and a Hindu woman stands against forced “Burkha”.
What this states is that something that binds us all in this Indian subcontinent is not our religion or language it’s the culture that we grow in and experience till our death. This beautiful concept of “Akhanda Bharat” or United India was termed as “Hindutva” and every person who calls India his motherland was called a Hindu.
In light of this discussion, the word Hindutva essentially belongs to neither the Congress nor the BJP. It was coined by Vinayak Damodar Sawarkar who was an ardent freedom fighter and an iron man of Sardar Patel cadre. Thus it is the sub standard quality of the Congress thought and other pseudo secular parties to malign a concept that holds Indian culture together for petty votes. It is the arrogance and lack of understanding of common and historical India within the so called “High Command” that has further perpetuated this. It is shameful that the media endorses such actions and maligns parties like BJP and organizations like RSS. The aftermath of which is anti BJP undercurrent because of the use of the word Hindutva.
In my opinion, no party in this country has a right to recast Hindutva as they anyways weren’t the creators of it. Only thing possible is to champion the concept to build a stronger India or build a secular concept better defined than “Hindutva” itself.
[The author http://sharrayuaroskar.com/ is working with a well known Sales & Marketing strategic consulting firm in Pune. She has an under-grad in Computer Science from Mumbai University and Masters from Texas A&M University, USA.]
BJP needs to Put it’s House in Order & Do It Fast!
by RK Misra
Though these are still early days but UPA (which essentially means Congress) is seemingly doing better on policy and governance front than most expected, after securing better than expected electoral mandate in May elections.
There seem to be a resolve on part of the Congress to convert this still uncertain and short of majority electoral mandate to a secure majority in 2014 by delivering on good governance and inclusive growth & development agenda. This is a well thought out plan leading to a winning electoral strategy as it appeals to both educated urban middle class (good governance & reforms) as well as rural masses (social welfare and inclusive growth).
UPA (Congress) has been very systematic and consistent about this agenda and have made their intentions known, first by way of Presidential Address and yesterday through Economic Survey report. A follow-up of this strategy and developmental agenda by way of budget provisions is expected on 6th.
I, as a citizen, am happy about it as no one can fault and argue with this approach as this is the best possible development model for India, provided they deliver on their intentions and promises given that delivery systems are in shambles and leaky.
Now coming to the political ramifications of success of this agenda. Some of my friends in Congress are so confident of their strategy (a BJP in disarray is a bonus) that they have been talking about return of pre-1977 days when Congress ruled for decades without a break.
Tome met this does not sound too good given that Congress did not do a good job of economic and social development during first 3 decades post independence. The reason for this poor performance could lie in the absence of a credible opposition and fear of loosing an election.
A credible opposition is as important as a good government to ensure that enough checks and balances are there. We all are witness to a lackluster performance of Rajiv Gandhi government despite having 3/4th majority.
Current state of affairs in BJP, though disheartening, is not unexpected. Every defeat results in heart-burns and finger pointing but this needs to come an end soon. A strong and united BJP will provided much needed checks & balances and should play the role of a constructive opposition to build it’s credibility among Indian electorate if they expect to have a fighting chance of coming back to power ever again.
A Right-of-Center political formulation led by BJP will be in the best interest of the country and for the Congress too, as Congress would prefer to deal with the predictable opposition (BJP), rather than deal with the mercurial left led by unelectable comrades and regional satraps who are completely oblivious of economic and social developmental challenges facing the nation.
Let’s all wish us luck and hope that BJP puts its house in order and does it fast!!
Why so much fuss about a Mole when there’s a Mountain ahead?
by Sudipto Das
It’s quite encouraging that the present HRD minister at the center is really trying to solve some real issues. Compared to his predecessor Mr. Arjun Singh, Mr. Kapil Sibal is no doubt a MUCH better option. At least, for Madam’s sake, he is trying to see real leaks in the pipe rather than being in a utopian world of hypothetical leaks. But now the point is whether Mr Sibal is running after the right leaks or whether he is devoting all energy to fix microscopic holes in the pipe when several portions of the pipe line are totally non exisent? Isn’t it like talking about cakes when people don’t even have the bread to eat?
Yes, there’s no doubt that examinations, in their present forms, need to be changed. Mr. Sibal has all the right to do that. Similar things have been done in many Western countries. I’m sure any educationist of repute would agree with Mr. Sibal about the necessity of changes required in our present system of education, specially the way the examinations are held. But how many kids actually reach the stage of giving the secondary examinations?
Let’s consider the following facts.
According to reports while 96% of India’s children enroll in primary school, by the age of 10 about 40% drop out.
The government’s education expenditure as a percentage of GDP has never ever risen above 4.3% of GDP, despite the target of 6% having been set as far back as 1968 by the Kothari Commission.
A closer look shows that GDP seems to be rising at a much much faster pace than the government’s education expenditure to be able to reach the 6% target.
Though the Common Minimm Program of the previous UPA government included the target set by Kothari Commission, the public expenditure on education has actually declined from around 3.23 percent of GDP in 2000-2001 to 2.88 percent in the recent times. As a proportion of total government expenditure, it has declined from around 11.1 percent in 2000-2001 to around 9.98 percent during the previous UPA rule.
The quality of education imparted in the free government run schools is very dismal. Even if it’s free, still many people from the lower income group go out of their way and send their kids to private schools or tutions. Absteeism of teachers in government run schools is one of the major reasons for the poor quality of education in the government schools.
In this respect it’s noteworthy to see what Mr. Santosh K Mehrotra has mentioned in his book “The Economics of Elementary Education in India”: Amartya Sen’s introduction to the Pratichi Education report (Pratichi India Trust, 2002) notes: We encountered some disturbing evidence that primary school teachers often show much less regard for the interests of children from pooer and lower caste backgrounds. We observed much greater teacher absenteeism in schools with a majority of children from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (75%), compared with other schools (33%).
Why the problem of absenteeism is never brought under limelight is also a well know fact. The teachers of the elementary schools provide a strong cadre base for most of the cadre based parties like Congress and many others. The scene nationwide might not be as bad as that in Left ruled West Bengal, but still it’s at a quite alarming state and should be tackled ass soon as possible.
The teachers of the government schools are perhaps the least accountable in the entitre government machinery. If your neighborhood roads become pathetic the local PWD enginner is accountable for that. Even if he doesn’t do his job throughout the year, still at least before the election the roads are repaired. Water connections, electricity connections, gas connections are all made in haste before the election. But have you ever heard of the standard of education or the behavior of the teachers of the schools changing before the elections? On the contrary the teachers are busier with their ‘party work’ during elections and are seldom seen at schools.
Mr. Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar and Gurucharan Das have been writing in the columns of Times of India for quite some time that a very simple way to improve the quality of the education in the government run schools is to give coupons to the families of the kids. These coupons should be redeemable either at the government schools or at any private schools which are ready to provide education at the same rate. Given the salaries of the school teachers, the monetary value of the coupons would be quite attractive and many private schools would be interested to admit kids against them. The salary of the school teachers would be directly linked with the amount a school draws from the collection of coupons. This system has worked quite well in many countries and it shouldn’t be hard to implement such things in India.
Now doesn’t it look like there are many more important things to be taken care of by Mr. Sibal? Isn’t it like thinking too much about a small mole when a big mountain is ahead?
Sudipto blogs at http://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com
Who are the Educated Middle Class People?
by Sudipto Das
Till some time back (might be a decade) the ‘Educated Middle Class’ was a secluded minority with only BJP to its side. In the nineties no political party other than BJP used to think of the people belonging to this minority community.
Things have changed since the days of nineties. The sample space of polulation which constituted the ‘middle class’ has also changed drastically over the decade. The vivacious and change-thirsty younger generation of the middle class, mostly urbanized, of the nineties, then in their twenties or early thirties, is now middle aged and many of them have moved to the upper middle class category. Their ideas and ideologies are no doubt important even in today’s political scenario. But they no longer command the strength in terms of critical mass. There have been innumerable new entrats in the category of middle class, thanks to the trememdous economic growth that the country has seen over the past one decade.
No doubt education is still an important distinguishing factor for people entering into ‘middle class’, but its form has changed a lot. Education has perhaps taken the real form only in recent past when it’s no longer restricted only to books and examinations. Lots of hitherto unexplored avenues have opened up innumerable options for people. Vocational training has become very important along side conventional education, of schools and colleges and examsm, for most of these new avenues.
The surge in business in areas of BPO, textiles, travel, tourism, hospitality, entertainment, communication and many others has triggered the requirement of huge resources all of whom may not be highly educated in conventional terms, but surely trained adequately. This entire new group of people and their families have slowly marched into the middle class.
The driver who drove me around in my recent trip to Uttarakhand, the petty vendior who supplies mid-day lunch in front of the Wipro Corporate office on Sarjapur Road in Bangalore, my previous driver who now runs his own real estate agency at a suburban Bangalore locality, the milkman, the lady who has been selling flowers to us since the past many years and recently setup a decent sized flower stall in front of our apartment, the plumber who now has his own hardware shop and many people around me are no longer struggling lower class people. Almost all of them have two wheelers and every one of them has a mobile. All of them are the new entrants to middle class. Are they educated? I would say, yes. They do read news papers, may not be in English, watch televisions, are aware of the recent economic downturn and all of them have the same ambition and vision as mine - to achieve more in life. It would have been really a ridiculous day-dreaming even a decade back to think of the sort of improvement that these people have made in their life. But it’s a reality now. They are now in the same category that I belong to and have been belonging to for the past many decades.
It’s very important to acknowledge this drastic change in the membership to the club of Middle Class. No longer is this club a neglected one. Suddenly the whole political class has understood the strength of this class and has started ‘appeasing’ them, if at all I should use the word ‘appease’ which is generally used in some other context. But is this context different? No. All political parties want to woe this newly visible and prospective powerful class in all possible ways. It’s no longer a class that matters only to BJP. But it’s something that matters to all because it has attained a critical mass, which is impossible to ignore.
It would be foolish to assume that this entire class watches the so called English Language Media and are swayed away by some sort of pro UPA and anti BJP propaganda of Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt. Yes, a part of this class is indeed influenced by the media, specially the English, but the majority of this class still watches vernacular channels.
My aunt, more than seventy years of old, regularly watches local Bengali channels in Calcutta and reads regularly Bengali periodicals and novels. Even my mother, though a doctorate and would be retiring from a central government job this year, prefers to watch Bengali channels than NDTV or CNN IBN. Same is the case with many of my Kakimas (aunties) and Kakus (uncles) and dadas and didis across the country. Same is the case with the driver Prakash who drove me around for fourteen days across Uttarakhand in April just before the polls. All of them belong to different parts of India and all belong to the middle class and all of them don’t create their own views based on the English Language Media. But still they didn’t vote for BJP this time.
Prakash told me in the first week of April that BJP won’t get a single seat in Delhi. Now it’s like a prophecy, but then I just laughed and thought he was being partial to Congress, which I finally found out he was not. He himself adores BJP for all the work it has done. He showed me enthusiastically the development in Uttarakhand that the BJP governemtn has done. But still he told me very clearly that people have the ‘perception’ that BJP may make things ‘unstable’. That was exactly the same thing that I heard even from many of my Kakus and Kakimas later. So we can’t rule out this perception as being created by the English Language Media.
I feel BJP has to take a stock of this new much-aware and off-course-not-fool Middle Class. It would be foolish to blame the English Language Media totally for creating a perception. This would be again under estimating the intelligence level of the Middle Class people. They are more aware than what others can think of. If my seventy plus aunty can know about Amartya Sen as the person who can eradicate hunger and famine in years if given a chance, why can’t someone else know about, say, Nandan Nilekani?
If Middle Class could do the right thing in nineties in bringing BJP to power, why should we assume that they have created a wrong and biased perception of the same party now? So the bottom-line is that, Middle Class was intelligent ten years back. They are no less intelligent now. If their perception changes they will again bring back BJP to power.
Sudipto blogs at http://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com