Editorial: Fading Out Of The Saffron

The last few elections seem to be bad for the saffron color. The Loksabha elections had already proven to be unfriendly to the saffron brigade and the results led to several convulsions including the ejection of Jaswant Singh. The elections to the Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh assemblies turned out to even more hostile. Irrespective of the party, whether BJP or the Shiv Sena, both had their common color fading away in Maharashtra. The other two states had otherwise also nothing to do with this color.

Ordinarily, one should not read too much into the results of the election since the electorate, having very little choice, keeps tossing the parties in and out every five years.

But the results of the Maharashtra elections cannot be brushed aside so lightly. With two saffron outfits, namely BJP and Shiv Sena wooing the majority committee communally as well as regionally and further with the Congress-NCP misrule for the past five years, the election results rejecting the BJP-SS combine unambiguously was indeed surprising.

The electorate in the last few elections including the elections to the Rajasthan Assembly is sending a message; the majority community cannot be fooled for all the time!