22 May 2004	Saturday	02 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

ISLAMABAD, May 21: Eminent intellectual and educationist Prof Khwaja Masud said that victory of Congress in the Indian election signalled the forward march of progressive forces and the pattern was in evidence in other countries as well.

For corroboration he referred to similar victories of the leftist and progressive parties in Sri Lanka and Brazil, for instance. Prof Masud spoke on overview of the post-election scenario in India at a discussion held under the aegis of Islamabad Cultural Forum at the Trust for Volunteer Organization here on Friday.

He was optimistic about improvement in ties between Pakistan and India. In this regard the progressive intellectual recalled the Indian prime minister-designate's recent statement in which he expressed New Delhi's desire to promote friendship with all its neighbours, particularly with Pakistan.

Prof Masud said all the troubles between the two countries flew out of enmity and improved ties would help improve the living standards of the people of the two nuclear states of the South Asian subcontinent, majority of whom live below the poverty line.

Summing up the Indian election result he said the world was impressed with the speed with which the votes were polled and counted electronically and the result announced. There was no cause of worry for the Opposition and the BJP-led coalition NDA was quick to concede its defeat.

This was a remarkable feat quiet at variance with the situation in Pakistan where the Opposition cries foul and immediately pronounces the electoral process as rigged.

In Prof Masud's views the Congress would bring together a stable government and all its allied parties - including the two Communist parties and their allies - would cooperate with them.

He said that historical speaking Pakistan would be in a much better position to deal with Congress as we have done business with them after independence, as well as in the years preceding 1947.

Bilal Husain, a prominent pollster pointed to some salient statistics about Indian elections. He said since 1947 India had 14 elections for the Lok Sabha and the voter turnout in each election, except for 1991 and 1996, that exceeded 60 per cent.

The BJP had secured 21.48 votes which was 2.27 less than what it secured in 1999. The share of Congress of the total votes was 26.21 per cent but this party also secured 2.09 per cent less votes than the 1999 election.

The most interesting point was the efficiency or otherwise of the poll system in democracy in which political parties concentrate their campaign in areas where strategic votes were placed.

As for the speculation that BJP had lost in rural areas, he said such a conclusion would be inconsistent with ecological studies which had yet to be carried out.