This refers to A K Bhattacharya's column "Getting more numbers with 'chemistry'" (New Delhi Diary, September 18). Mr Bhattacharya has expressed lukewarm doubt as to whether the Narendra Modi "wave and chemistry" would enable the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to hit the magic number of 273 MPs in the 2014 general elections.
I feel the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP will hit the magic number, with or without Modi. Let us take the case of West Bengal in 2011. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress won a very comfortable majority not because she offered any effective alternative, but because the people of West Bengal were so fed up with the abject misrule of the Left Front government over the past 34 years that they thought it was time to bring in some change. Whether their hope has been belied is a different story.
Today, the scenario in India, is almost the same. The atrocities that have been committed on the people and the economy by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) I and II over the last 10 years in the form of corruption, inflation and outright thievery in scams such as Coalgate, 2G spectrum allocation and the Commonwealth Games have put people's back up. The situation is so drastic that even a lamp post will win against the UPA coalition. Whether the "lamp post" can and will change the scenario or not is again a sixty-four thousand dollar question.
Nirupam Haldar Kolkata
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