Why NDA lost in 2004?

The Congress-UPA has just won 26.7% of popular vote people's mandate while BJP-NDA has won 22.16% only. Congress became the most voted party in this elections with a vote share that was 5% more than BJP. While UPA won 145 seats (gain of 31 seats), NDA won only 138 seats(loss of 44 seats). Although it is not a clear victory for Congress-UPA, it is a clear defeat for BJP-NDA. Here are the core reasons for the BJP-NDA's defeat. 

• NDA projected the election as the battle between Vajapayee and Sonia, and Sonia won and Vajapayee lost.
• NDA fell because of their own weight, own sins and Vajpayee's visionless leadership. 
• Old men are supposed to lose their marbles and AB Vajpayee seems to have lost the same. 
• Media singing songs of Vajpayee's greatness harmed NDA. 
• The media created a hype that Vajpayee is the greatest Indian leader, who could do no wrong and people didn't find any substance in that.
• NDA created an illusion that Vajpayee is the greatest PM, but people of India saw this old man, who never said a word or gave any opinion on any issue and remained silent through out his prime ministership and never took any crucial decision or reigned any of his colleague or Parivar people.
• People saw Vajpayee was old, forgetful and incompetent to solve India's problems while in Sonia Gandhi they saw a fresh face with purpose.
• The middle-class lost their hard-earned money in the UTI scandal.
• Large rural population's welfare has been over looked. 
• Unemployment and anti-poor stance. 
• Over-indulgence on trivial Hindutva issue.
• NDA reduced interest rates and impacted the voters honest savings. 
• The Tehelka reporters who exposed corruption were harassed.
• Concentrating to impress world nations and criminal negligence of the people's problems.
• Inaction on Gujarat CM Modi for not catching either Godhra train massacre culprits or Gujarat communal riots culprits that killed 2000 Muslims.
• After the horrendous massacre, Muslims were expecting that the Gujarat CM Narendra Modi will be put to trial, but instead he was awarded 127/182 seats (2/3rd majority) in mid term polls immediately after the riots with a gain of 10 seats.
• Gross miscalculation of NDA and their misreading of the 'pulse ' of the people.
• Impressive orations, debates and arguments like in court rooms than performance.
• BJP went overboard with the “India Shining” campaign which offended the rural & urban poor. Sonia Gandhi used the opportunity to mock at this campaign by pointing out India’s poverty.
• Anti-incumbancy factor.
• NDA allies too fared very badly - TDP(5/42) in AP & AIADMK(0/39) in Tamilnadu suffered humiliating defeats.
• BJP criticised congress and Sukhram.  Congress expelled Sukhram and in the next election Sukhram becomes an ally of BJP. BJP ought to be more ethical.
• Never in the history India witnessed such a low level malicious campaign by the ruling party. 
• BJP belived that insulting people is Hindu dharma, that's the price they have paid for. That's one of the main aspects in BJP debacle.
• BJPs failure to control Modi and his uncultured tirade against Sonia Gandhi.
• The consistent "Sonia Bashing" by BJP and it's top leaders, the larger than real life images and speeches by the so called second rung leaders of BJP ... Mahajan, Jaitley etc. and Rabble-rousing by Katyar, Modi, Uma bharati etc. have all had negative effects.
• Over-usage of the tasteless word "pseudo-secularism". It was flogged to death. Watching the arrogant BJP men debating on TV in the last two years.
• Corruption as exposed by Tehelka, Petrol-pump, coffin-gate by George Fernandes, etc. had its effect.
• Towards the end of this campaign, the BJP even openly begged Muslims for votes, thereby upsetting lakhs of its conventional supporters.

Elections 2004: BJP pays heavy price for arrogance, haste and strategic blunders

India Today | May 24, 2004 | Prabhu Chawla 

It has become fashion to interpret defeats with figures and statistics. It is very easy to come up with statistics and 'spin' the results any way you want but the reality is that the voting population preferred the Congress and their allies much more to the BJP and its allies. If anyone feels that it was not a mandate for Congress since they did not get majority of votes, it is just a joke. It might have been local issues that have brought the Congress to power and the people had no clue that they were sending Vajpayee packing who never deserved such a drubbing. Indian mentality will not allow appreciate a sacrifice and we always attribute some ulterior motive to every one. Even Mahatma Gandhi had serious critics at his time. No one wants to acknowledge Sonia Gandhi's sacrifice. If Sonia Gandhi wanted to become prime minister, nobody could have stopped her even if it was for one month and go down in history. If any one tries to find out for reasons why BJP should have won in 2004, he would have been amused with none. Vajpayee's inaction against Modi-Gujarat riots and ignoring poor and peasants are the primary causes for NDA's debacle in 2004. Today in 2018 similar situations are prevailing that is causing jitters among BJP, Modi & co., who are clueless how to come overcome this mess they created for themselves.

Emergency 1975 Vs Gujarat pogrom 2002

1975 Emergency was preceded by problems like bad economic conditions due to 1971 Pakistan war and 1974 oil crisis. Strikes and protests were everywhere. On June 12, 1975 Allahabad High Court Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha while delivering judgement said that even though her violations were relatively minor, Indira Gandhi was guilty of corrupt practices in her election to the Lok Sabha in 1971, and the law allowed for only one punishment - declaring her unseated. The Times of India described it as "firing the Prime Minister for a traffic ticket." On her appeal for stay on June 24, 1975, Supreme Court Justice Krishna Iyer granted a conditional stay of the order and that Indira Gandhi could participate in the parliament proceedings as Prime Minister, but without a vote. “There will be no legal embargo on her holding the office of Prime Minister,” Justice Krishna Iyer added. The very next day, in the dead of night, Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency, imprisoned leaders of the Opposition and imposed press censorship.

Read Gujarat Riots 2002 & Modi's role

My View:

None will dispute that Emergency 1975 was very bad undermining citizen rights and opposition leaders and any body opposing government was put in jail without following any process of law and constitution undermined. In contrast the Gujarat pogrom 2002 after Godhra train carnage, what happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims, and the attacks were planned in advance and organized with extensive participation of the police and state government officials at the behest of Gujarat Chief Minister Modi. In the riots which lasted for over two months more than 2,000 people were killed out of which 250 were Hindus and rest Muslims. There was widespread destruction of property. 273 dargahs, 241 mosques, 19 temples, and 3 churches had been either destroyed or damaged. It is estimated that Muslim property losses were, 100,000 houses, 1,100 hotels, 15,000 businesses, 3,000 handcarts and 5,000 vehicles destroyed. This scale of violence, destruction & killings simply can't happen for over two months if there was governance. Now, our beloved PM Modi talks about democracy and wants us to forget 2002 and remember 1975!

Anu Aga: A life shaped by tragedy

Mrs. Anu Aga, Ex Chairperson, Thermax Ltd,  8th richest Indian woman once

• Anu Aga, ex-Chairperson of Thermax Ltd., and once India’s eighth richest woman.
• Her net worth is estimated at $1.16 billion (2017) by Forbes.
• Thermax was set up by her father AS Bhathena in 1966 as Wanson (India) to provide a range of engineering solutions. The company was renamed Thermax in 1980 after her father retired. Her husband, Rohinton Aga, headed it till 1996, when he died of a massive stroke. 
• While Ms Aga was still finding her feet as the head of Thermax, she suffered a second tragedy - her 25 year old son Kurush died in a road accident. 
• In the late 1990s, Thermax had got used to "satisfactory underperformance". Thermax's growth had nose-dived at the time, with share prices plummeting from Rs. 400 to Rs. 36 because of the market downturn. 
• Ms Aga has said that an anonymous letter from a shareholder accusing her of letting him down forced her to take stock of the situation. It dawned upon her that as the largest shareholder of a public limited company, it was her responsibility to turn the company around even if she personally felt she didn't deserve to be its chairperson.
• She was convinced that management was out of its depth and needed outside help. Her senior executives resisted the idea. Most men find it difficult to seek help because it comes in the way of their 'macho image'. The board decided to hire a consulting company.
• The board was reconstituted to bring in more independent directors. The promoter members stepped down from executive positions, and operational aspects were left to a non family professional team led by the managing director.
• The full-scale reform, with help from the Boston Consulting Group between February 1996, when she took over as chairperson of Thermax and 2004, when she stepped down, Ms Aga transformed the company into a global turnkey player in energy and environment projects. Thermax shares were trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange at Rs. 447.15. 
• Eight years after Ms Aga took the top post, her daughter Ms. Meher Pudumjee replaced her as head of the company in 2004. However, she continues to be on the company's Board of Directors.
• What is non-negotiable, she pointed out, is her time with her grandchildren Zahaan, 9, and Lea, 6.  
• Mrs. Aga is keenly involved in the causes of communal harmony and human rights, especially of women and children. Since retiring, she is closely involved with Akanksha, an NGO which supplements the educational needs of the slum children. In partnership with Pune Municipal Corporation and Akanksha, Thermax Foundation has adopted three municipal schools in Pune. She is on the Board of Teach for India, an initiative that attempts to bridge the inequity gap in education.
• In 2010, Mrs. Aga was awarded the Padmashri for her work in the social sector.
• In 2012, Mrs. Aga is a Nominated Member of the Rajya Sabha in 2012. 

Gujarat Riots 2002: Nov 18, 2002: Her protests against "insufficient" State Government measures in Gujarat to rehabilitate victims of the post-Godhra communal clashes invited media attention, as she was the first person from the corporate sector to visit Gujarat and voice concern at the raging violence. "Out of several camps that I visited, the Shah-e-Alam camp had 1,950 families living in the open with practically no shelter, except a few bamboo poles with torn clothes hanging over them. Almost all the relief camps I visited bore ample testimony to the Government's apathy. I was pained at the injustice meted out, or rather complete callousness showed by the Government and fellow Indians. When the Gujarat earthquake, a natural calamity could garner so much in terms of mobilising funds and support, how could they just turn a blind eye to the riot-hit victims - a disaster that could very well have been avoided?" she asks.

"If the reason for this is because the victims belong to a minority, then I will say the time-honoured Indian value system is a miserable failure," she says. Aga spoke at a function organised by the Coalition for Peace and Harmony at the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) auditorium here recently. "If there was governance, would the violence have continued for two months? While the official toll of the number of Muslims killed is 900, the unofficial death toll stands at 3,000 as against the 60 Hindus having lost their lives. The figures are self-explanatory," the social activist pointed out. "I am not debating on the number of persons killed from the two faiths, the talking point is how educated people could fall prey to narrow communal feelings and either perpetrate or condone violence that resulted in the loss of over a thousand lives. Is it not a degradation of our basic humanness?" she asked. 

She warns that as a fallout of the Government's "lackadaisical attitude" towards minority victims, mistrust and hatred may brew all the more and "a second Godhra" may not be very far away. "The authorities should rectify their mistakes when there is time at hand," she suggests. Condemning fundamentalism in every religion, she took a dig at the business world too. "To me, Godhra or the subsequent events are not a spontaneous one-time occurrence. It is a symptom of a society that is callous, indifferent, and is only concerned about individual selfishness, amassing wealth and acquiring positions." 

Business today represents a powerful force as it has the best human talent, leadership skills, technical know-how and large capital at its command. It can be the most potent agent of social change provided we businessmen, choose to define human well being as the `business' of Business. Only then would the purpose of business be served," said the successful businesswoman wrapping up the talk. 

Earlier at a CII national meeting in April 2002, the chairwoman of the energy major Thermax, Anu Aga, received a standing ovation after delivering an impassioned speech about the suffering of Muslims in Gujarat.

Gujarat riots, Godhra train carnage 2002 & Modi

Godhra Train Carnage Feb 27, 2002
On the morning of Feb 27, 2002, Coach No. S/6 of Sabarmati Express, returning from Ayodhya with karsevaks and passengers inside, was set on fire by a Muslim mob near Godhra railway station in Gujarat. The passengers were returning after attending a ceremony at the disputed Babri Masjid.

The karsevaks chanted slogans throughout the entire voyage, all the while harassing Muslim passengers. One family was even made to get off the train for refusing to utter  “Jai Shri Ram!”. More abuse occurred at the stop in Godhra: a Muslim shopkeeper was also ordered to shout “Jai Shri Ram!” He refused, and was assaulted until the karsevaks.

The train made its scheduled stop at Godhra about four hours late, at 7:43 am. As the train started leaving the platform, someone pulled the emergency brake and the train stopped near the signal point and halted in the middle of a Muslim neighborhood. Anywhere from 500 to 2,000 of them, surrounded the coaches occupied by the karsevaks and attacked it with stones and torches. Coach S-6 was set on fire, killing 59 people including 27 women and 10 children were burnt to death, and 48 others were injured.

In 2011, a special court inside Sabarmati Jail convicted 31 people and 63 were acquitted. The death penalty was awarded to 11 convicts. Twenty others were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Aftermath: Riots to Pogrom to Genocide

• Godhra District Collector had spent the day explaining that the incident was not premeditated, Modi imposed his official version of the event that very evening, stating that it was a “pre-planned violent act of terrorism.”
• Modi called police officials at his home and gave them orders not to put down the Hindus who would inevitably react to the Godhra attack: the “Hindu backlash” was not only foreseeable, it was legitimate.
• That very evening, on the government's orders, the bodies were taken to Ahmedabad for a post-mortem and public ceremony.
• The arrival of the bodies at the Ahmedabad station was broadcast on television, causing considerable agitation among the Hindus, all the more so since the bodies were exhibited covered with a sheet. 
• The following day, the VHP organized the shutdown of the city (bandh) with the support of the BJP. This mobilization established the conditions for a Hindu offensive in Ahmedabad. 
• On the evening of  Feb 28, Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, located 30 km from Ahmedabad, was the scene of Hindu-Muslim rioting for the first time in its history. Twenty-six towns in all were subject to curfew. Ahmedabad and Godhra saw the most serious clashes, with 350 and 100 victims respectively in early March, according to official statistics. After these two cities came Mehsana (50 dead ) and Sabarkantha (40 dead). 
• On Feb 28,  in Ahmedabad, in the Naroda Gaon and Naroda Pattiya areas, an armed hoard of several thousand people attacked Muslim houses and shops, killing 200. Six other neighborhoods in the city were subject to similar attacks on a lesser scale.
• The Naroda Patiya massacre took place on Feb 28, 2002 at Naroda, in Ahmedabad, India. 97 Muslims were killed by a mob of approximately 5,000 people, organised by the Bajrang Dal, and supported by the BJP. The massacre at Naroda lasted over 10 hours, during which the mob looted, stabbed, sexually assaulted, gang-raped and burnt people individually and in groups and was deemed "the largest single case of mass murder" during the 2002 Gujarat riots and accounted for the greatest number of deaths during a single event. The state government stated that the massacre was "a spontaneous reaction to the Godhra train carnage and the state government and ruling party had nothing to do with it". Modi, talking about the violence, said that the "riots resulting from the natural and justified anger of people".  Mayaben Kodnani, a BJP legislator is the "kingpin of the violence" was later appointed as a Minister for Women and Child Welfare in Narendra Modi's government. Cell phone records showed that she was in touch with the Chief Minister's Office, the Home Minister as well as top police officials during the massacre. She was sentenced to 28 years imprisonment in 2012.
• The Gulbarg Society massacre took place on Feb 28, 2002, when a Hindu crowd started stone pelting the Gulbarg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Chamanpura, Ahmedabad. Most of the houses were burnt, and at least 35 victims, including a former Congress Member of Parliament, Ehsan Jafri, were burnt alive, while 31 others went missing after the incident, later presumed dead, bringing the total deaths to 69. Modi and his administration did nothing to save Mr Jafri and 69 others at the Gulberg Society when rioters attacked them despite his repeated phone calls for help, even to the Chief Minister, but to no avail. 
• The next day, on 1 March, mainly rural districts were added to the list of hotspots: Panchmahals, Mehsana, Kheda, Junagadh, Banaskantha, Patan, Anand and Narmada. 
• On Mar 2, Bharuch and Rajkot, which had yet to be affected by communal violence, were hit in turn.
• On the Mar 4, riots broke out in Surat.
• The clashes in Gujarat could not have spread so quickly and taken on such proportions unless they had been orchestrated by well-organized actors and the attackers' plan had been prepared prior to the events in Godhra.
• The evening of Feb 27, two of Modi's ministers, Ashok Bhatt and Prabhatsingh Chauhan, along with 50 other Sangh Parivar officials, organized a rally in Lunawad, a village in Panchamahals, of which Gohad is district headquarters, to plan “reprisals.”
• It was a far cry from the spontaneous rioting, Modi later described to excuse the Hindus.
• The lists that the ringleaders had in hand attest the premeditated nature of the assault. These indicate Muslim homes and shops, some of which bore Hindi names, thereby proving that investigation had actually been undertaken beforehand ascertaining the owner's identity. The computer print-out lists had partly been drawn up on the basis of voter registration lists.
• Several senior civil servants admitted to investigators that on Feb 28, the Gujarat Interior Minister, Gordhan Zadafira, and Health Minister Ashok Bhatt directed the advance of the assailants from the “City police control room” of Ahmedabad.  At the same time, the Urban Development Minister, I.K. Jadeja, a close associate of Modi, had set up his headquarter in the Gujarat “State police control room” in Gandhinagar. All gave the police forces orders not to intervene. 
• The violence involved looting Muslim shops then blowing them up with gas cylinders. These operations show careful planning and indicate official support. It would be impossible to transport that many men (and gas cylinders) with that many trucks without the benefit of state logistic support. Above all, the protected nature of the clashes over days, weeks, and even months can only be explained by active government cooperation. 
• The attackers set fire to a few automobiles in the vicinity of police stations to make sure their schemes could be carried out with no fear of punishment.
• The administration was paralyzed. Since their rise to power in Gujarat, Hindu nationalists had penetrated deep into the state apparatus including police. Hence the standard response, they gave to the Muslims who called them to their rescue “We have no order to save you".
• An indication that the Modi wanted to see the clashes last, the army, which was already in the vicinity on Mar 1, -- 12 columns with 600 men were stationed at the time in Ahmedabad and other hotspots in Gujarat was kept aside for few “flag marches.”  It was  on stand-by under the pretense that no “official” was available to accompany the troop. 
• The authorities never took the necessary steps to help the refugees: most of the aid came from Muslim NGOs.
• Over 1,200 villages were affected, in the districts of Panchmahals, Mehsana, Sabarkantaha, Bharuch, Bhavnagar and Vadodara. The army had to be called in on Mar 5. Over 2,500 Muslims from 22 different villages were moved to refugee camps. These villages no longer had a single Muslim.
• There exists correlation between the election calendar and the cycle of riots. Both riots and deaths do tend to cluster in the months before elections, and then drop off sharply in the months after an election is held.
• Modi used Godhra as an opportunity to unleash violence and hoped to capitalize on during early elections. He recommended to the governor S.S. Bhandari, another RSS activist, dissolve the assembly on Jul 19, 2003. He resigned as Chief Minister, while remaining at the helmas care taker CM. These tactics were all the more shocking since the violence had far from subsided everywhere.  On Jul 20, the day after the assembly was dissolved, two people were killed and 14 wounded by stone-throwing and police gunfire, in Ahmedabad. 
• Vajpayee was blamed for his failure as PM to get rid of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who reportedly shouted back at a Muslim leader on the phone for seeking help after a mob had gathered outside his house. Some hours later, the Muslim leader was lynched. Modi seemed to be the villain who brought a lot of shame to the central government. Vajpayee instructed  ‘Modi has to go’ but Modi's mentor LK Advani saved him.
• In such conditions, JM Lyngdoh, Chief Election Commissioner, who visited 12 of the state's districts between July 31 and 4 Aug 4, was reluctant to organise polls, especially since many voters, a vast majority of them Muslims, were still living far from their homes in refugee camps. So Modi and the BJP strove to demonstrate that calm had been restored, leading them first to hurriedly closed refugee camps or lower the number of occupants. 
• National BJP leaders Dy PM L.K. Advani joined in the call for early elections. Given the objections of the EC, which preferred President's Rule be declared because the election could not be organized and the BJP brought the case before the Supreme Court which refused to express an opinion, referring to the EC decisions. In early November, the Commission set a date for the elections to begin on Dec 12,2013. 

Any one committing or abetting crime is a criminal. 

Punishing depends upon the evidence and process of law conclusively. 

My View:

The role played by Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi in facilitating, inciting, assisting the rioters, disabling police from their duties and in fact police were assisting rioting mobs, available army were asked only to do flag marches but not used  to control the situation during first few days of riots amply concludes that he is deeply involved in the genocide of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus and more than 2000 casualties in Gujarat in 2002. How he managed to survive, later got absolved by Nanavati-Mehta Commission and win elections and went on to become Prime Minister 12 years later, only indicates his manipulative capabilities of a shrewd politician.