If I am not wrong...
After the initial success in doing Assam Acord with ASSU's Mohanta and Phukan , Longwalajee peace pact in Punjab and (not sure) Gurkha land pact with Ghisingjee he won some hearts. His IPKF failure ultimately took his life. But three other important things happened during his tenure, 1. Telecom revolution @Pitroda, 2. Panchayatraj bill and 3 . Voting right to 18 years old from 21.
Bofors, Fair fax and VP. I think that summarize him.
Let us forget everything but focus on Voting right to 18 and PRI revolution...
The first one I say is an anti incumbent tool the second one is a pro incumbent machine.
A young voter is not an adulterated voter. He has his own aspiration, honesty, less influenced by tradition and he is ready to throw the inertia of the establishment to trash box. This point immediately went against Rajiv Gandhi.
The PRI allowed grass root politician to organize a committed following by giving them incentives like pension, loan, local contracts and so on. The status of a Sarapancha changed and he became more respectable as well as capable.
The term pro incumbmet was never felt before the new PRI. Rajiv Government brought it towards last part of his tenure. Many states were under Congress after the sympathy wave victory of 1984. Suppose this bill had come in 1985 or 86 it should have generated a pro incumbent factor in 1989.
In 1989 Congress was thrown out with neovoters' power. The next government stumbled but unlike in 1977 or 1980 the state governments continued. ( Post Ramakrishna Hedge episode). This created a new scenario. The anti Congress state governments generated pro incumbent power.
Earlier, except Jyoti Basujee most govts generally changed in successive elections. But after 1989 it became easier to retain power by same governments. Master Examples are Gujarat, Odisha a little late, Lalu's Bihar, Digvijay, Chandrababu and so on. Changes occurred but less often. So both voting age and PRI worked against Congress in addition to the usually discussed political issues.
Our believe that leaders like Lalu or later Nitish or Nabin or Naidu or Namo, or Mamata or Ajit Yogi, Digvijay, Raman Jaylalitha, SP became great leaders partly because of Rajiv's work.
Later on the liberalization era added more pro incumbent power with more money pumped for populist, non planned and mostly useless spending.
But for the pro incumbent factor, the recent Gujarat election could have gone to Congress.
In Punjab SAD could not do it because it became extremely unpopular.
The summary of my idea is; it is easier to retain power than lose it, the root of which is PRI which one can palpate during village elections.
After the initial success in doing Assam Acord with ASSU's Mohanta and Phukan , Longwalajee peace pact in Punjab and (not sure) Gurkha land pact with Ghisingjee he won some hearts. His IPKF failure ultimately took his life. But three other important things happened during his tenure, 1. Telecom revolution @Pitroda, 2. Panchayatraj bill and 3 . Voting right to 18 years old from 21.
Bofors, Fair fax and VP. I think that summarize him.
Let us forget everything but focus on Voting right to 18 and PRI revolution...
The first one I say is an anti incumbent tool the second one is a pro incumbent machine.
A young voter is not an adulterated voter. He has his own aspiration, honesty, less influenced by tradition and he is ready to throw the inertia of the establishment to trash box. This point immediately went against Rajiv Gandhi.
The PRI allowed grass root politician to organize a committed following by giving them incentives like pension, loan, local contracts and so on. The status of a Sarapancha changed and he became more respectable as well as capable.
The term pro incumbmet was never felt before the new PRI. Rajiv Government brought it towards last part of his tenure. Many states were under Congress after the sympathy wave victory of 1984. Suppose this bill had come in 1985 or 86 it should have generated a pro incumbent factor in 1989.
In 1989 Congress was thrown out with neovoters' power. The next government stumbled but unlike in 1977 or 1980 the state governments continued. ( Post Ramakrishna Hedge episode). This created a new scenario. The anti Congress state governments generated pro incumbent power.
Earlier, except Jyoti Basujee most govts generally changed in successive elections. But after 1989 it became easier to retain power by same governments. Master Examples are Gujarat, Odisha a little late, Lalu's Bihar, Digvijay, Chandrababu and so on. Changes occurred but less often. So both voting age and PRI worked against Congress in addition to the usually discussed political issues.
Our believe that leaders like Lalu or later Nitish or Nabin or Naidu or Namo, or Mamata or Ajit Yogi, Digvijay, Raman Jaylalitha, SP became great leaders partly because of Rajiv's work.
Later on the liberalization era added more pro incumbent power with more money pumped for populist, non planned and mostly useless spending.
But for the pro incumbent factor, the recent Gujarat election could have gone to Congress.
In Punjab SAD could not do it because it became extremely unpopular.
The summary of my idea is; it is easier to retain power than lose it, the root of which is PRI which one can palpate during village elections.
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