Secularism or Communalism??

One of those rare posts which rant abt the politics

Well, the story goes like this. Election happens. No party gets the absolute majority. The incumbent party(X) is sort of routed, being third largest party now. Just to keep the single largest party(Y) out of power, in the name of protecting "Secularism" (sic), the incumbent party placed third and the second largest(Z), power hungry party, enter into a power sharing agreement, where X will hold the power for the first half and Z for the second half.

Remember all these is done with the "noble" cause of saving the state and the country from the so called communal party. Now this marriage gets done and somehow goes on for abt an year or so when cracks start developing. The power hungry Z wants stuffs done their way, which was obviously not in the interest of X. This war continues and at the end of 20 months, the party Z "breaks", in the sense, 45 out of its 48 MLAs decide not to support the government. They withdraw support and the govt falls.

Now, the so called "Secular" Party Z decides to get into an alliance with the so called "communal" party Y and being power hungry they decide to have their share of power of 20 months first. This continues for another 20 months and when the time comes to pass on the power to party Y, which actually was the one who was given the people's mandate to be in power in the the first case (well it was the single largest party), Z decides to break the alliance. And so comes the election.

The election happens. Obviously the people are frustrated with the politics of party Z and votes against it. Party Y almost gets the majority. Party Z gets routed winning only about a 10% of the seats. They still have the audacity to go to Party X and suggest an alliance, which Party X rightly disagrees to.

Finally Party Z does an introspection on why they lost. And what do they find? Do they find that the actual reason was the way they behaved when in power or their apparent hunger for power??

Well knowing party Z's characteristics as I have described the answer is an obvious NO. The reasons they come up with .... Have a look

• Migration of former minister J belonging to caste A and former minister L belonging to caste B.
• senior leader M upset with the party leadership (doesn't tell why)
• migration of workers in some place D sent wrong signals.
• Delay in candidates selection and giving opportunity to new faces (Think giving opportunity to new faces got them those seats)
• Communication gap between ministers and workers while in power.
• Failure to reward workers Internal reservation has not helped the party.
• OBCs like P,Q,R,S and other community people did not support the party
• Failure in handling media.
• Y and X spent huge money.

Knowing that the state i am talking of is my home state, i think it is easy for every one to guess which parties i am talking about.

Now my only questions are

1. What do mean by Secular? Does a party which support a minority religion just to get their votes and not work for them any secular than the group which supports another religion?
2. How can a party be secular when on introspection the reasons given out by the party for its routing in the election has reasons like a caste didn't support me, or a religion didn't support me?
   
3. Isn't caste based politics equivalent to communalism?
4. If so, how correct is to go on branding a particular party as a communal force?

Anybody has any answers?