Almost one-third of Indians will now be ruled by women. With Mamata Banerjee and J Jayalalithaa storming to power on in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu states respecitvely, they join two other women chief ministers to administer 368 million, or around 30 percent of India's 1.2 billion population.
But the day didn't belong to just the women. It also belonged to the wise Indian voter who punished the corrupt and the arrogant with ferocious intent in the state (provincial) elections whose results were out May 13.
While Mamata Banerjee will rule the country's fourth most populous state of West Bengal, Jayalalithaa returns to power in Tamil Nadu, one of the country's most industrialised states in the south.
Two other women chief ministers - Mayawati and Sheila Dikshit - rule Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous and politically consequential state and Delhi, that is India's political capital and seat of government.
West Bengal particularly created history when Banerjee's Trinamool Congress partry ended the 34-year unbroken run of the Communist-led Left Front. The Communists were also defeated in the southern state of Kerala, the country's most literate state, leaving them now to rule only the tiny northeastern state of Tripura
The results will have no immediate bearing on the federal government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose Congress has had mixed success in the state elections, winning the states of Kerala, the northeastern state of Assam and will be in alliance in West Bengal, but their alliance lost in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Puducherry.
No comments:
Post a Comment