Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) returned to power in Gujarat following the Assembly elections. BJP won 117 seats in an Assembly with a total of 182 seats under the aegis of Narendra Modi.Mr. Modi was sworn in as the chief minister of Gujarat on December 25.He defeated Dinshwa Patel Congress by 87,000 votes from the Mahinagar constituency in Gujarat.

BJP has won for the fourth time in Gujarat while for Mr. Modi it is the third term. Though BJP lost ten seats in comparison to the 2002 polls yet it has managed to leave behind its competitors by a large margin. Once again the opinion and television exit polls have been rendered false. The predictions had declared a close competition between Congress and BJP.

The implications of the Gujarat polls are believed to be felt at the national level too. Congress which was hoping a comeback in Gujarat has been disappointed. Experts believe that in case Congress had managed a good show in Gujarat it could have gone ahead with the nuclear deal even in the face of opposition by the Left parties. The defeat in Gujarat might also deter the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from initiating the Parliamentary elections a year earlier.

Meanwhile the party President of BJP, Mr. Rajnath Singh has given the credit of victory in Gujarat to Mr. Modi. Several people believe that BJP and Modi have maintained their sway over Gujarat because of the Hindutva factor that has won them the support of the middle and upper class Hindus in Gujarat. However this time the election campaign of BJP in Gujarat talked mostly about how Gujarat has progressed under the Modi government.

The election campaign by Ms. Sonia Gandhi and Mr. Rahul Gandhi failed to give the much needed breakthrough to Congress in Gujarat. The Left parties claim that the Gujarat elections are a reminder of dangerous trend where communal politics has succeeded.

The politics in Gujarat is fraught with communal colours and the Hindutva is a very favourite formula of BJP in this region. The comeback of Mr. Narendra Modi after the violence in 2002 gave almost legitimacy to it. It is notable that the Congress too skirted the issues related to minorities in its campaigning till Ms. Sonia Gandhi made an allusion to it calling the Gujarat Chief Minister maut ke saudagar (merchant of death).

The curious abandon of the minority issues raises before the elections raises an important point: Do the political parties in Gujarat skirt the issue for the fear of being rejected by the Hindu majority? After all the Muslims form only nine per cent of the total population. Not an exactly attractive vote bank. So for all the big talks of secularism our political parties seem to just focus on their precious vote banks .

Communal clashes hit Orissa

Orissa suffered a spate of communal unal violence. Churches and prayer halls were torched here by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists in the Kandhmal district of Orissa on December 25. This region has a huge tribal population. VHP had arranged a massive re-conversion programme here where several Hindus who had converted to Christianity were reconverted to Hinduism. The violence broke out after an attack on the Lakshmananda Saraswati, a prominent VHP leader and anti conversion activist. The sensitive areas of the region including Phiringia, Tikabadi, Udaygiri and Raikala were put under curfew. But the situation remained tense on the following days. In the violence that continued four houses were torched outside Barkhama area while six were set ablaze in Jaleshpata.