Mind over Myth

WEEKLYECONOMIC AND POLITICAL Mind over Myth With 219 seats the Congress Party and its allies have scripted a dramatic victory, unseating an alliance that went into the polls on a note of high confidence. If it was unexpected for the National Democratic Alliance, it defied the most pragmatic expectations of a Congress Party that stumbled into the election process riding a trough of defeats. How and why did this transformation of profiles take place in the weeks between the announcement of elections and the polls? In exploring this issue in the coming months and years we will perhaps come closer to understanding the dynamics of the democratic process. As of now, the results can, at a most general level, only be taken to indicate a movement for a change of government which by extension is a vote that represents rising aspirations refracted in a number of ways through regional lenses. At a more fundamental level, it is clear that the electorate will not let anyone take it for granted.