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ravikumar ck:I believe in southern part on india,still National parties doesn't have upper hand,so that only southern states are going decide who will be our next PM.

: not sure whether southern states will decide new pm. donlt thinkwe can have another deve gowda type PM as we had in 1996. it all depends on who wins big. if jayalaitha r mayawati come with a big haul of seats they will be in a position to dictate who they will want as PM. If Left comes in with even 30 seats they will still be able to dictate who they will suppport as PM. and this time they are unlikely to support manmohan singh!

vinod:Do you think BSP will be force tihis time or it is just hype centered around Mayawati?

: The BSP question is a fascinating one. I have been a follower of the BSP for long time and know that it was the amazing and untiring organisational efforts of Kanshi Ram that has brought the BSP to where it is at the moment. there are many in the old bamcef cadres for example who are upset at her new social engineering. the BSP did well in delhi in these assembly elections--opening its seat account for the first time. these elections will be the first ttest of mayawati without kanshi ram.

naren:Is congress a more corrupt party than BJP, we saw Satyam and now Sukhram?? WIll that be a big disadvantage for the congress??

: not sure how the satyam factor will play in andhra. Chandrababu naidu was once the poster boy of satyam too..also the anti-rajashekhar vote seems to be divided between TDP, TRS and Left. chandrababu has not really been able to capitalise on reddy's weak points.

Narayanan S:Hi Sagarika. Good day to you. The real issue that must decide who comes to power, must be on the basis of who can solve the impending large scale unemployment due to the financial crisis, terrorism and external affairs management. The villages and small towns also must be made nodes and cornerstones of development, leveraging on agriculture, retailing etc, which is our strength. But alas! I think that chunk of our electorate today vote for the MP on local issues, his/her performance and of course religion cast and creed. So whoever forms the better/smarter alliance wins. Is this good in the long term.? what are your views

: yes you are right, its all about alliances. at the moment the UPA alliance looks like a broader alliancethan the NDA so it might give them a better chance. it will be interesting to see what happens to the so called Third Front--their strategy centres around mayawati winning big and making a pitch for the prime ministerial chair. but there is still no core party around which a third front can form--so unlikely that there will be a deve gowda type PM as in 1996. but the king makers this time are jaya maya mamta and Left!

anwesha:Dear Ma'am first of all Congrats for getting the award. Keep it up! Now the question, do you really think that India will ever vote (Especially the cow belt) sans caste? does the larger part of bharat become so matured and educated who would vote on real issues such as bijli, sadak, pani, siksha, naukri and right of an individual?

: Thanks anwesha! I hope the electorate is maturing. if you see the success of the recent chief ministers--be they shiela dixit, raman singh or shivraj singh chouhan in MP, all of them have won not necessarily on the basis of caste and community factors but because oftheir "pro development" image. If caste was so all important would Mayawati not have made huge inroads among dalits in Maharashtra or Punjab? clearly caste does not work all the time!

Jitendra Ajmera:Do you think any political party is going to make 'security to women' in India a political issue?

: i wish they would! it would be a really positive agenda.):

Aditya Reddy:I am Aditya from Hyderabad and I would like to congratulate you for speaking against the perpetrators of the Mangalore Pub attack. At the same time I would like to say here that Congress is unnecessarily politicizing this incident in spite of the BJP having condemned them attack and also made arrests though the alleged attackers had to be released on bail as per the provisions of the law. On the other hand in Hyderabad the MIM party (they are in the UPA Alliance) regularly indulges in mindless violence like the attack on Taslima Nasreen, then the attack on the doctors at Niloufer Hospital and then firing at GHMC officials in Abids( All happened in the last year or so). The Ram Sena has apologized for the attack but the MIM (allies of the Congress) till date have neither condemned nor apologized for any of these incidents and in fact Akbaruddin Owaisi (the person in charge of MIM) had openly said that he is proud of what the MIM have done to Taslima. I did not hear Renuka Chowdhury, a self proclaimed feminist, speaking out against the attack on Taslima nor against the attack on junior doctors ( women were assaulted too ) in Niloufer Hospital. The so called secular or should I say communal Congress government in Hyderabad has not taken any strong action against the MLAs involved like Afsar Khan and Ahmed Pasha Quadri though these people have openly called for implementation of Fatwa (i.e beheading her) against Taslima. Renuka Chowdhury has called Ram Sena guys hoodlums and hooligans but she has not said these things about MIM , is she afraid of them.How can Congress party be called secular when they are going out of their way to please extremists like Owaisi . Would Manish Tiwari have remained quiet if Ram Sena or BJP attacked a hospital.

: true, vandalism exists in all parties--congress and bjp.

VIKAS:According to you, Do you think it is not totally stupid to project seats in opinion polls, when most of the parties had not announced their candidates as u are saying caste, community (in rural areas), personality, charisma, criminal/public life of candidates 9in urban areas) matter a lot for most of the seats, potent rebel candidates have not emerged yet? My specific question is - What is the credibility of these polls?

: we have only done a single opinion poll on the elections so far, and there will be no more polls. so you don't have to get agitated about anymore polls!

sana:Hi sagarika, congrats on the FLO award. :) persoanlly, do you think a sysetm of two-party works in india? isn't a multi-party democracy adding to problem of plenty? your honest take?

: thanks sana. thats a good question! lalu Yadav said recently that national parties are passe and its the regional parties which are the real high command. Today it is jayalalitha Mayawati TDP DMK Trinamol who hold the keys to forming a government. Frankly my idea of a political contest is a two party system battling it out on issues and ideology. politics, after all, atbthe end of the day is contest of ideas. But in India its all about local parties and their captive votes. which is why general election results are a derived result from state election results! In a country as diverse and huge as India, I guess a two party system is an impossibility!

Mehul Dixit:BJP is a party which has great support among the urban educated voters . Why is it then that news channels like yours have a leftist agenda which they have to aggressively pursue.

: I would like to state on record that CNN IBN has no political leanings whatsoever. We are totally neutral. We are firmly committed to the ideals of the fourth estate by which we believe that its the duty of journalists to aggressively question all those in power and hold them accountable to the public. We have never been "pro congress" or "anti bjp" , but its is always easy to talk about "media bias" when you don;t like what the media is showing.

vinod:Do you agree that the Congress will suffer the most if BSP performs well in its stronghold of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab

: in the last elections, the congress got big victories in Andhra, Bihar and Tamil nadu and delhi. these states make up 128 seats. such a result is going to be difficult to replicate. Most of the congress's allies are upset that it is not going in for national alliances and putting pressure on the congress for seats as the NCP is doing in Maharashtra and the SP in UP. I don;t think a BSP performance will affect cong in andhra--rajasekhar reddy looks strong inspite of satyam--he's called the narendra modi of andhra!

arunnair:good evening sagarika, but don t you think that barely 1/5 of the people who watch the english news channels (high income and upper middle class) actually go out and vote.. they barely make their voice heard as was seen in the last general elections?

: i donlt think thats ecessarily true. I think there is a heightened interest in the political process, with campaigns like jaago re encouraging people to vote. a number of middle class professional people are also joining political parties. In terms of sheer numbers big rural caste lobbies will always have more political clout but its no longer the "secession of the successful" as far as the middle class is concerned.

Krishna Kilambi:Yes, in AP a lot goes by the caste. I find people defending all the mistakes done by the candidate from their caste when pitted against a person from a different caste. So performance and righteousness comes into picture only when two persons are from the same caste.

: caste based politics is firmly entrenched in south india. in karnataka for example, the bjp is more a lingayat party than a party of "hindutva". Chiranjeevi is relying on the kapu vote. the PMK, MDMK all have their backward-dalit vote banks.but I also think we must not underestimate the role of the political economy--as livelihood, employment, quality of life, infrastructure, facilities etc become important, then voters might vote for performing candidates rather than simply caste candidates.

vinod:If Congress manages 25 seats (Andhra), 25 seats (Tamil Nadu) and 25 (with trinamool in Bengal), it will be back in power.

: Congress seems to be doing well in key states like andhra and kerala, basically because the opposition has not been able to exploit its weaknesses. if the cong-SP alliance works out, it could bring a rich harvest of votes in UP> don;t think congress will be able to form a government on its own--may need support from whoever is willing and in that case some compromises might have to be made about manmohan singh as prime ministerial candidate.

Avishek:Hi Except parts of North and central India do you think caste equations can play a decisive role in deciding winners in the coming elections. regarding the topic if you say that caste equations do not play a lesser role in electoral politics now, then how will you define Mayawati's victory in the last assemble polls?

: mayawati's victory in the last polls was a great example of how even the BSP has moved beyond pure caste based politics. mayawati increasingly emphasises the "samta mulak samaj' or "sarvajan samaj" rather than the bahujan samaj and has totally cut out her anti upper caste rehtoric. even the trademark "jai bheem" of the BSP has been done away with to attract muslim voters.So mayawti's success was not about caste but happened because of a miraculous cross-caste alliance in which brahmins were given tickets by a dalit party!

Gaurav HG:It hardly matters for the urban cities. But some places where religion is priority does make a difference.

: delimitation of constituencies will have a big impact on these elections. there are new urban dominated constituencies and this could mean that "bijli safak pani naukri padhai becomes more important than jati and dharam.

su:There is a belief that the Brahmin votes in U.P. will switch to BJP and that could be one reason why 'Ram Mandir' card is sought to be revived.

: one of the reasons why the bjp is decling in UP is because upper castes are switching to mayawati. she is now giving increasing number of seats to brahmins who prefer to go with mayawati as they feel that she is on the winning streak. In UP, "ugta suraj ko sab pranam karte hai". the alliance of kalyan singh and mulayam is bad news for the bjp. they now have an alliance with Ajit Singh--but doubtful whether this will bring too many rewards.

naren:Do you think BJP is a growing party and Congress is a shrink party? We saw BJP forming its first government in Karnataka and in UP they making a big comeback in the general elections whereas the Congress party is struggling to hold on to their earlier fortress?

: i think the bjp is in a severe dilemma. It has only five allies at the moment, across India many parties are wary of tying up with it for fear of losing the muslim vote. Chandrababu naidu and mamta banerjee have left the NDA (mamta is undecided). the once 23 party NDA is now a five party rag tag bunch. plus, think the bjp is stuck for issues. it is now trying to say it is anti dynasty..but i think it knows that it simply does not have an emotive issue for this election, as Hindutva has run out of steam. thos sympathetic to the BJP have been put off by the violence unleashed by so called "hindu "goons and the manner in which Hindutva has simply become a excuse for criminal behaviour. this is sad.

Rishabh Parashar:If caste & community don't matter anymore, then how come Messers Mayawati, Mulayam Singh, Laloo Prasad, Ramvilas Paswan etc are thriving in Indian politics ? Do they really have that kind of merit in them ?

: Caste and community do matter, but perhaps they matter less than they used to. If you look at the assembly elections of 2008 in delhi rajasthan chattisgarh and madhya pradesh, voters seem to be opting for governance and a good record and seem to be voting for chief ministers who could bring them vikaas. Bit there's no doubt that caste vote banks still remain strong among the "mandalite" leaders, although Nitish Kumar in Bihar is also projecting himself increasingly as a "pro development" chief minister

Sahil A Naqvi:Hi Sagarika, if we leave issues of caste and community aside, on what basis will elections be fought in our country,considering the fact that both the major rival political alliances have more or less same take on other national issues like economy, foreign policy, agriculture, etc.

: This is a good question. in fact when it comes to policies there seems to be a concensus among political parties--although on the nuclear deal, national security, there is some policy difference. parties still don't identify themselves with particular policy initiatives, whicht hey should. the upa has a lot to be proud of (in my opinion) in the NREGS, right to information act and forest dwellers act. but they have not tried to make theseinto voter issues.

suresh:Sagarika,if that was the reality then how do you explain the strong nucleus of supporters of regional satraps like Mulayam and Mayamemsahib who are basically caste based leaders.Even,Shri Amar Singh derives his strength essentially from his Kayasth community.Whenever the votes polled in a particlar segment of a constituency is analysed,mostly it reflects the caste/community profile the winning candidate is seen to represent.

: mulayam and mayawati do come from caste based political movements. but mayawati's bold new move is now to create a "samta mulak samaj" instead of a bahujan samaj. in the assembly elections she gave a large number of tickets to brahmins. in fact one of the reasons why the bjp is declining in UP is because brahmins are preferring to go with Mayawati instead of the BJP, because in UP after all, "ugta suraj ko kaun nahi pranam karega?".so mayawati's caste base is certainly no longer restricted to the bahujan samaj..

Aditya Reddy:When polls are conducted on orkut.com the BJP gets more than 60 percent of the votes , that means the urban rich youth (which consists of the pub goers) love the BJP. Also on the net you find a lot of people supporting BJP but few like Congress or the Left. Dont you think BJP is for the educated and most of the pub goers would vote for BJP if they vote.

: thats a good question. i think the bjp is facing a real crisis in its identity. it was supposed to be the party of Shining India, of urban India, of upwardly mobile India. Now with the actions of the sene and other hindu outfits, the very class that was pro-BJP finds itself being targetted by elements within the party. there was the famous image of BJP leader pramod mahajan on a treadmill. suhsma swaraj's daughter, vajpayee's daughter are all extremely modern women. and am sure rahul mahajan goes to pubs! so the urban BJP voter must be a bit confused right now whether the bjp is a "party of the future" or not!

Ajay:It is people who are educated who say that it doesn't matter. So considering that they hardly cast their ballot - Don't you think it could still matter?

: with delimitation of constituencies, there are many more urban constituencies in these elections. caste considerations might matter less when voters are more urban. however, in states like rajasthan the rivalries between castes like between jats and gujjars continue to have an important role in elections..i just think that instead of jati and dhram, nowadays bijli sadak paani naukri and padhai are becoming more important

sasikanth:I believe in india cast and community matters every where.In politics , these two will come in to first in giving MLA or MP tickets for elections.I hails from the state of Andhra pradesh.Where all the four dominant parties are represented by four casts. INC dominated by Reddy community , TDP by KAMMA or Chowdary , TRS by VELAMA and PRP by KAPU( Actor Chiranjeevi). The remaining Left parties were headed by Leaders from KAMMA community. I think cast and community are the hidden agenda to these political parties.

: caste matters in the south no doubt..the bjp in karnataka is more a lingayat party than a hindutva party..but look at UP and the kind of caste alliance that mayawati is attempting--she is trying to move beyond the dalit votebank. so maybe caste matters less than we think it does

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